29 FEBRUARY 1868, Page 2

Mr. Sullivan, the editor of the Nation, accused of writing

seditious libels, has been sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Mr. Pigott, for a similar offence rather deeper in dye, has received twelve. The verdicts were just, and the sentences unavoidable ; but as to reading them, as some of our contemporaries appear to do, with a feeling of pleasure, we do not. They are necessary but regrettable acts of repression,—no worse, no better, and we wish heartily that Ireland were in a condition in which seditious writing would seem, even to the Castle, a folly instead of a crime. State prosecutions of the Press are, even in Ireland, very dan- gerous precedents, as the Orange papers may some day or other find out.