Before the Special Commission on Parnellism and Crime, Mr. Parnell
has been under examination by Mr. Asquith, and cross- examination by Sir R. Webster, all the week. The intention of the cross-examination has been to show that he was perfectly aware of the extreme views of many of the men with whom he acted in America and Ireland. Mr. Parnell denied all know- ledge of many of the speeches,—such as Mr. Devoy's, for instance; and of other speeches made by the violent party, he said that he had repudiated their doctrines generally in the House of Commons, though not specially to the people to whom the speeches were addressed ; and he was understood to hold that such occasional repudiations were enough. Mr. Parnell denied that he had known Mr. Nolan to have been a Fenian till last year ; but a speech of his, delivered in 1885, speaking of Mr. Nolan's services in the highest terms, and terms which, as he subsequently admitted to the Attorney- General, implied Mr. Nolan's Fenianism, was afterwards read and acknowledged by him. Of this speech of his own, Mr. Parnell spoke as "an electioneering exaggeration."
