A Twentieth Century Trial for High Treason. servitude for life. It may be of interest, how ever, to compare with them the last few words pronounced by Lord Chief Justice Abbott in passing sentence on the Cato street conspirators in 1820—the last to suffer the extreme penalty for high treason. He said: "Repent, I exhort you—repent, and ob tain the mercy of that God whom you have offended. The judgment of the law is, that you, and each of you, be taken from hence to the gaol from whence you came, and that you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck until you be dead; and that afterwards your heads be severed from your bodies, and your bodies divided into four quarters, and be dis posed of as His Majesty shall direct, and may the God of Mercy have mercy upon your souls. On May ist the first part of the sentence was carried out, "His Majesty having been graciously pleased to remit" the latter part. In every other case since 1820 the prisoner when sentenced to death has had that sen tence commuted; thus, for example, Frost, the Chartist, Smifh O'Brien, M. P., the Irish Patriot, who received an unconditional par don after seven years' transportation, and yet another Irishman, J. F. X. O'Brien, who, though sentenced to death, still survives to
tell the tale and to represent an Irish con stituency in the House of Commons. Pre sumably the same course will be adopted in Lynch's case as was necessitated in that of Smith O'Brien, M. P., with regard to the representation of his constituency. There, the House of Commons on May 18th, 1849, ordered a writ to issue for the election of a new member for the County of Limerick "in the room of William Smith O'Brien, ad judged guilty of High Treason." It is curious to note the different expres sions of opinion that find voice now that Lynch's sentence has been settled. Some are pleased, others—chiefly Irishmen, it must be confessed—regard 'even the com muted sentence of penal servitude for life as scandalous, and take the rather amusing point that as Lynch voluntarily returned from Paris to meet his trial he should be treated apparently with gloved hands. Treason is treason, and in these days, as in the days of our ancestors, a man who fights against his •country deserves but little from her. It is submitted that Lynch received from England his whole deserts when he was given a fair trial (none could have been fairer, no judges more patient), an impartial jury and adequate legal representation.
