damages. The Lord Chief Justice, in his charge to the jury, said that "the plaintiff occupied the very influential position of a parish priest, and had very onerous duties to discharge, and the defendant was his curate, and whether churchwarden or layman, bishop, priest, or parson, all were equal in point of law when their cases came to be submitted to a court of justice. Every subject of the Queen was in her courts entitled to the benefit of the same law, and to the same measure of justice, neither more nor less. No rule, no regulation, no canon, could deprive a subject of the right to complain of and to seek redress for a temporal wrong, and the courts of justice were open to all equally."

Noble words from the Lord Chief Justice; and it is only to be hoped that the same assertion of the supremacy of the laws of England will be made when Mr. O'Keeffe brings another fellow-subject of the Queen before the Court, though he bears the foreign title of "Cardinal" Cullen. If there is any tampering with justice in that case, it will be disastrous to the future of Ireland. The Cardinal was in Rome last year, probably for consultation with his friends, the General of the Jesuit order, and other chiefs of the Ultramontane party. It was rumoured that he was staying in Italy so as to divest himself of his British citizenship, but this seems to have been

overruled, and when the trial comes on, as is expected,

in the course of this year, the people of Ireland will then be taught that "the courts of justice are open to all equally."

Mr. O'Keeffe is fighting the battle of every parish priest in Ireland, and of the Irish Catholic Church, against the tyranny of Rome. The prelates of that Church have been gradually brought into complete subjection, every appointment for many years having been an arbitrary one from the Vatican, the nomination of the Irish Church being a thing of the past. Formerly three names were sent to Rome, as we have already stated, and from these the selection was made, preference being usually given to the name indicated on the list. But this old usage has been contemptuously disregarded, all recent bishops having been appointed in the interests of Rome, not of Ireland. They are mere satellites of Cardinal Cullen, and he is the delegate and agent of Rome. The Irish priests are being brought wholly under subjection to these Ultramontane bishops, and the rights of the laity are utterly disregarded. If Mr. O'Keeffe is successful in his conflict, it will be a national protest against the tyranny of the Ultramontane party.

But whatever may be the issue of the O'Keeffe case, a wider question has been raised, which the English nation will not suffer to remain unsettled.

Are the laws of England or of Rome to have the supremacy in the British dominions? A foreign power, unrecognized by the law or the constitution, dares to interfere with the British courts, and to limit. the rights of British citizens. The papal legate pro-. claims that every Catholic priest is debarred from bringing before the lay tribunals a brother ecclesiastic. The exigencies of party politics have brought the British Government into such relations with the Ultramontanes and their leader that these monstrous claims are not repudiated with indignation, as they would be by other European Governments. The press, the ordinary exponent of public opinion, has too much been influenced by the same reserve, imposed by party politics. But there is an appeal even from the press to a wider public opinion, and the Prime Minister, whichever party is in office, must make his choice between the support of the Ultramontane faction and that of the great body of the people, whether Protestant or Catholic, who wish to maintain the laws and constitution of England.

I refrain from saying anything about the case of O'Keeffe v. Cullen, because while I write the case is being pleaded before the Irish Court of Queen's Bench. Adhuc sub judice lis est. Some explanation is desired of the ugly fact that the Commissioners of National Education announced the withdrawal of the

grant to the Callan schools on the very day that the pleadings commenced in the law courts. The announcement of this step at such a time was calculated, if not intended, to prejudice Mr. O'Keeffe's case in the action against Cardinal Cullen.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE KEOGH JUDGMENT.

The Galway Election-Priestly Terrorism-Judge Keogh's Speech The Troubles of the Franchise.

I

WAS moving about in Ireland during the storm

of angry indignation excited by the Galway Election Judgment. A shell pitched into a room full of stealthy conspirators could not have caused more commotion. It was not so much the judicial decision, as the language in which it was delivered, that made the impression. The stern denunciation of priestly terrorism was unexpected from such a quarter. “A peal of thunder from a cloudless sky could not have caused greater astonishment, than this fulmination from the serene atmosphere of the judicial bench. The audacity of the Catholic equals the energy of the judge. If this judgment had come from a Protestant chief justice, or from a committee of the House of Commons, which Protestant prejudices might be assumed to sway, it might have been borne with