TWO IRISH TRIALS.
THE verdict in the inquest on Mr. Mandeville requires 1 us to believe that the deceased met his death owing to the brutal cruelty with which he was treated while in prison. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume for a moment the Nationalist contention, notwithstanding that it runs counter to some of the clearest and most convincing evidence ever given in a Court of Justice, and see where it leads us. Mr. Mandeville " died on July 8th of diffused cellular inflammation of the throat, brought about by the brutal and unjustifiable treatment he received in Tullamore Gaol." So runs the verdict of the coroner's jury. Now, it was not alleged for a moment that Mr. Mandeville was treated differently from any other prisoner, or that he was in any way singled out for the infliction of special severities. The grievance, indeed, was that he was only treated as any other prisoner would have been treated,—given the same sort of cell, provided with the same prison-dress, and punished as others would have been punished whenever he disobeyed the regulations of the gaol. The brutal and unjustifiable treatment, as the rider to the verdict declares, wholly consisted in " the awarding of similar treatment to Irish political prisoners as to common criminals." Now, it must be pointed out, in view of this charge, that there are two questions raised by it which are matters of profound concern to all Unionists. The first is whether any of the Irish prisoners confined under the Crimes Act have been treated, even in the very slightest and least perceptible degree, with greater severity than the ordinary prisoners are treated. The second— though this, of course, applies to all Home-rulers just as much as to all Unionists—is whether any prisoners what- ever, whether confined under the Crimes or any other Act, have been treated in a "brutal or unjustifiable manner" while in an English prison. If Irish Crimes Act prisoners are treated with exceptional harshness, or if prisoners generally in the United Kingdom are treated brutally and unjustifiably, then there is an imperative call for immediate action on the part of the Legislature. It is admitted, however, by the verdict, as we have said before, that no difference is made between Irish prisoners confined under the Crimes Act and others, and therefore that there is no ground for action on that score. The facts that came out in the evidence show also that those most concerned to show the reverse, could not deny that the ordinary diet, dress, and other arrangements of the prison were perfectly reasonable and perfectly unobjectionable as prison arrangements. We presume, however, that this apparent inconsistency was meant to be reconciled in the following way It was not the ordinary prison treatment, but the punishment diet and punish- ment confinement which injured Mr. Mandeville's health. Suppose, then, though still for the sake of argument only, that this was so—as a matter of fact, the regular prison doctors declared emphatically that the punish- ments inflicted could not have been injurious to health —and then let us see how matters stand. In the first place, no one has ever suggested for a moment that Mr. Mandeville was punished, while in prison, either vindictively or for offences he had not committed. He voluntarily, and with his eyes open, placed himself in a position in which he had to undergo certain serious priva- tions, which, however, under our system of prison discipline, have been arranged with the greatest amount of care to secure that while punishment is inflicted upon the prisoner his health shall not suffer. If, through under- going these privations justly—we use the word not so as to beg the question, but as meaning in due and regular course—his health was, unfortunately for him, injured in spite of the fact that ordinarily no such injury would have occurred, have his friends any more right to complain than they would have had if he had deliberately cut his hand open while in gaol, and then persistently torn off the bandages, with the result that six months after his release he had died of blood-poisoning, or if he had beaten his head against the door of his cell, and then died from a neglected concussion of the brain six months after leaving prison ? As long, then, as it is not shown that the prison regulations are savage or partially enforced, or the punish- ments excessive, the Irish prisoners can only blame them- selves if they suffer from punishments inflicted owing to direct violations of what they know to be the prison rules. One more argument requires to be met. It may be said that the prisoners convicted under the Crimes Act are asked to perform acts so degrading, that the punish- ment incurred in refusing cannot be called punishment self-inflicted. The answer in Mr. Mandeville's case is not difficult. The most degrading act that he was asked to perform, and which he refused to do, was, in plain English, nothing more terrible than the emptying of his own slops. Surely, if Mr. Blount, poet, ex-diplomatist, and most refined and sensitive of aristocratic country gentlemen, could do this without making any fuss—as the evidence showed that he did—the moral torture produced thereby in the case of Mr. Mande- ville is not likely to have been such as to have maddened him into a refusal not to be counted as voluntary. We have argued so far on the premisses afforded us by the verdict, not to gain a logical triumph over the Nationalist case, for such triumphs are proverbially barren, but merely to show that the verdict is, in truth, meaningless in the form it takes. It really seeks to condemn the Crimes Act, and to say that Mr. Mandeville did not deserve imprison- ment at all. Since, however, it was seen that the effect would be greater in England and elsewhere if a complexion of administrative murder could be given to the circum- stances of his death, the Jury preferred a finding both utterly inconsistent with the facts, and utterly absurd and illogical when looked at with any care. It may have been wrong to put Mr. Mandeville in prison ; but granted that it was right, the prisoner had assuredly not the very smallest ground of complaint for the treatment he received.
Before leaving the subject, however, it may be as well to point out that, as a matter of fact, the medical evidence showed as clearly as possible that Mr. Mandeville did not die from any injury to his health inflicted in Tullamore Gaol. Some of the facts that lead to this conclusion may be very briefly enumerated. In the first place, his wife's evidence showed that he was a man who considered it neces- sary to take a two years' pledge against whisky, and whose health underwent an alteration when the pledge expired. Next, he was not carefully examined in gaol by the doctors who deposed to his ill-health,while he was carefully examined by two other doctors who swore that while there he was not in a state of ill-health. " I am decidedly of opinion," said one of them, " that if he had had two years' imprisonment, in place of two months', he would be alive and well in Tulla- more Gaol to-day." Next, as to the course pursued by Mr. Mandeville's medical attendants during his fatal illness, it appeared that there was very considerable ground for believing that if a different treatment had been followed, the result might have been recovery. Dr. Barr, indeed, went so far as to declare that the treatment was bad and wrong from the beginning, and that the patient never got a chance for his life. Dr. Moore, it may also be mentioned, stated that, in his opinion, the particular disease of which Mr. Mandeville died " could have no possible connection " with his imprisonment. Such are some of the facts, which, if looked at calmly and without prejudice, cannot but point to the conclusion that, whether or not Mr. Mandeville died from a mistaken treatment of his case, he at any rate did not die from the effects of his imprisonment. The libel action brought by Mr. O'Brien against the Cork Constitution is chiefly interesting owing to the evidence it affords of the value of the attacks made by the Irish Party and their organs in the Press against Mr. Balfour and the present Administration in Ireland. Mr. O'Brien, in his cross-examination, was taken through some of the most atrocious of his articles directed against Lord. Spencer, and gave thereupon a series of very curious and instructive answers. Asked, in regard to an article comparing Lord Spencer to Strafford, " Does not the article convey that Lord Spencer was guilty of killing innocent men ?" he replied, " It condemns the system ;" but when pressed in the following way, " Does it not condemn Earl Spencer ?" he made the admis- sion, " Unfortunately, it does ; somebody should be taken as the responsible person. Earl Spencer was the figure-head, and he had to be attacked." Mr. O'Brien then stated that " now that they knew Earl Spencer's real character, they regretted they had said a great many things that they now knew to be scandalously false as of himself, but most unquestionably true in every particular of that system of government for which he was responsible. However, if Lord Spencer were to bring an action against him for libel, he (Mr. O'Brien) would offer a very humble apology, and would not put in a plea of justifiable criticism." What is to be said of a man who thus calmly admits that he foully libelled an innocent man,—the change in his attitude being caused not by new evidence as to the conduct incriminated, but merely because a change had taken place in the political attitude of the man whom he once traduced ? After this, can it be denied that the Irish Party deliberately use slander as a political weapon with which to damage their enemies ? What amount of attention, too, will Mr. O'Brien now expect us to pay to the torrents of vituperation poured forth by United Ireland? Lord Spencer was abused even more violently than Mr. Balfour, and yet Lord Spencer is now an angel of light. What guarantee have we that some new shifting of the political kaleidoscope will not find Mr. O'Brien and his paper adoring the " false, cowardly, and cruel " Chief Secretary of to-day, and consigning Mr. Gladstone to everlasting infamy ?
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