I will permit the government to add
robbery to perjury.
The Prisoner, in reply to a question asked by the Clerk of the Crown,
said that justice had not been dealt out to him as he thought it might
have been. He had been prevented by the Crown from getting witnesses
for his defence, and from seeing his witnesses, while the Crown had
taken four months to get their witnesses properly trained, and to
ransack all the Orange lodges of Dublin for jurors. He complained of
the rules of the gaol, and of the law that permitted them to be in
force, and said:--
I deny the jurisdiction of this court in common with Colonel
Warren. I owe no allegiance to this country, and were I a
free man to-morrow I would sooner swear allegiance to the
King of Abyssinia than give half-an-hour's allegiance to the
government of this country--a government that has blasted
the hopes of half the world and disgusted it all. I am not, I
suppose, permitted to speak of the verdict given against me by
the jury. It was entirely unnecessary for the Crown to produce
one single witness against me. The jury had their lesson
before they came to the box.
THE CHIEF BARON--It is impossible for me to allow you to
proceed with this line of observation.
HALPIN--I wish to simply say that the jury exhibited an
extreme anxiety to find a verdict against me before I had
even said a word to them.
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