Two remarkable incidents have occurred in the course of the
Irish trials. Fitzharris (" Skin the Goat"), the carman who drove the murderers of Lord F. Cavendish and Mr. Burke, has been acquitted by the jury. Nobody doubted his presence in the Park, and he may have been guilty ; but there was no evidence that he was a consenting party to the murder, except his own interference, and no one can tell what was in his mind. The Judge pointed this out strongly to the jury as a defect of legal evidence, and Fitzharris was very properly acquitted, subsequently pleading guilty to the charge of being accessory after the fact. The next two prisoners were Thomas Caffrey and Patrick Delaney, and both pleaded guilty ; Delaney I leading that he was betrayed into the affair, and Out he had
savel Juige Lawson's life. He added, "What Kavanagh," the carman, "states is perfectly true, and what James Carey states is true ; but I took no act or part in it. It was Brady and Kelly committed the murders, and no other person." This unpre- meditated confezsion, so strongly supporting Carey, has created a deep impression, as Delaney is a very different character from the informer, and did, it would seem, save the Judge. Both prisoners were sentenced to death, but it is not likely that they will receive capital punishment, though their solicitor stated that no inducement had been held out to them, and that they bad pleaded guilty in defiance of his advice. Caffrey also affirmed that he had been sent to the Park without warning, and would have been put to death if he had not obeyed his orders. The whole incident shows the necessity of treating the entrance into these Societies as a criminal offence, and com- pletely justifies the Roman Church in its extreme severity towards all who enter such communities.
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