THE CASE OF ROBERT KELLY, ACCUSED OF MURDER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 514, 23 February 1872, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CASE OF ROBERT KELLY, ACCUSED OF MURDER.

The trial of Robert Kelly for the murder of a policeman in Dublin presents to the world, both in its proce dure and its result, another most striking instance of the difficulties made by Irishmen for the peaceful governance of their country. The murdered man was head constable Talbot. On a morning in July last he was shot in the public street by a man who deliberately presented himself, announcing that he was going to fire. Ihereport of the assassin’s pistol, the cry of the wounded man, brought a crowd to the spot where lie was staggering, and amongst the crowd were some other constables. The murderer retreated into an archway. Kelly was seen to run away. He was pursued and seized by a policeman, but this interruption he disposed of by firing a bullet from a revolver into the constable’s thigh. However, he was arrested. Talbot was subsequently taken to the Hospital, and there, alter several days of great suffering, died. Kelly being arraigned for the murderer, he was defended by Mr. Butt; the main line of defence being that there was not sufficient Identification of the prisoner, and that Talbot’s death was really due to the bungling of the surgeon who probed his wounds, or rather that the man’s life was sacrificed to the reckless ambition of the doctor, who was resolved to achieve reputation by “ a medical coup de main.'’ Little stress was laid upon the point of identification, nor is it nec( ssary to go into the pros and cons of a question which was all but conceded—about which, at any rate, there can be no reasonable doubt whatever. Mr. Butt’s main reliance was on the other branch of his defence ; and if the reports in the Times are to be relied on, he urged it with audacity of a somewhat uncommon kind, lie pronounced tho operations which the sufferer underwent to be “ reckless surgery ” and declared that “ if it had not been for the mercy of God, that preserved Talbot that night, Dr. Strokes ought now to stand in tho dock on a charge of manslaughter-” There was something else upon which Kelly’s council insisted with equal vigor. Talbot was a constable. Talbot was a spy and an informer. He had idea tified Kelly as the man who shot him but “ respectable witnesses could swear that from his general! character he was not worthy of belief in a court of justice. If evidence on those points was not received, if tho prisoner was deprived of tho consideration to be attached to the evidence of a man (tho dead Talbot himself/ ol whom it might have been asked had he entrapped men. had he taken blood-money, then trial by jury would bn a mockery.” j hcth.T or no the learned counsel imagined that these were fit arguments for judge and jury, it is certainthat they were thoroughly approved by the “people ” Kelly was conducted to trial from day to day amidst the cheers of a sympathising crowd. He was held up by the “ national” journal as a hero and a patriot, who, if he did shoot the constable, deserved applause rather than punishment One of these newspapers said, during the progres of tho trial—“ The death of Talbot, no matter bow or by whom it was brought about, is regretted by none. The people do not regard tho kil ing of Talbot as murder. There is no use in disguising or palliating the matter: Irish people rejoiced at tho death of Talbot, and now regard his alleged slayer as a patriot and a martyr,” Another paper published - acknowledgements of subscriptions for tho defence fund, with such signatures as “ One who knows where Talbot is,” “< die whoapproves of shooting traitors like him,” and “Do it again.” The same journal (the Irishman) said just before tho conclusion of tho trial, that it was “ waiting for the verdict which shall say whether or not twelve Irishmen can be found who believe that Robert Kelly killed Talbot, or whether it is a moral crime or not to rid the earth of an informer.,’ Probably, the writer had full confidence in the fulfilment ot his hopes. Tho Chief Baron, in charging the jury, warned them that the plea of murder in the surgery could not hold good. A man who inflicts a dangerous wound is responsible for the consequences ; and whether death was caused mediately or immediately by the prisoner he was guilty of murder. “ The jury were bound to take this proposition, that, although death is immediately caused by the mistake of the surgeon in the treatment he adopts, or in the unskilfulness of his act in applying that treatment, that does not absolve the person who inflicts a dangerous wound of the guilt of wilful murder.,’ The propriety of such a rule is obvious; but it does not seem to have recommended itself to the jury in this case. They retired with the bullet and the pistol (the remains of the wretched victim’s skull had been banded about the court on a plate, but these do not siem to have been thought necessary aids to reflection), and presently returned with a verdict of not guilty. Thereupon a i - ejoicing crowd marched to the place where the patriotic deed had been done, and so to Mh Butt’s house. There was no time to arrange for a serenade, hut the people cheered the successful advocate enthusiastically and he, appearing at the widow, told them that they had that day achieved a great constitutional triumph,-