Six men were sentenced by Mr. Justice Lawson at the
Antrim Assizes on Wednesday to long terms of penal servitude. They had all been members of a criminal society called the Patriotio Brotherhood, founded by an Irish-American for the murder of landlords and agents of the law, and had all specially conspired to murder a landlord named John McGeough. The evidence was most extraordinary, an informer named Duffy swearing that a regular record was kept of the deci- sions and acts of the society. These records were produced, and implicate O'Donovan Rossa, among others, in the most direct manner. Their genuineness was, of course, impugned with great earnestness ; but they corroborated much of DufFy's evidence, though he could not have seen them, and they were written in a way which almost precluded the idea of forgery. The letters were imitations of print, obviously to conceal hand- writing, and it was shown that one man in the Brotherhood was expert in caligraphy. Mr. Justice Lawson's charge was sin- gularly moderate, but he, as well as the jury, obviously con- sidered the records genuine ; and if they are, there is no doubt of the prisoners' guilt. It seems possible, among certain classes in Ireland, to form these societies almost at wilL Nothing is necessary but an Irish-American, a room, and a few pounds, and men come forward to pledge themselves to murder by the score. They do not always keep the pledge, but they take it.
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