CHIEF JUSTICE COCKBURN AND DR. KENEALY.
On January 29, the Lord Chief Justice began his summing up of the evidence m the iichborne case. His Lordship commenced by a severe censure of Ur Kenealy’s conduct Frivolous and intolerable objections, he said, had been urged and points taken, not so much from ignorance of the law as with the view of producing an effect upon the outside w«rld. Witnesses had been misrepresented, facts perverted, and dates set at naught A torrent of invective—of foul, black slimehad been sent forth to damage the characters of honorable and upright men and women. The Judges of the Bench had been assailed with open disrespect and insult, and with cover tallusions to Scropga and Jeffreys, Wero the spirit of those Judges still alive upon the Bench, Dr Kenealy would be at that memeut fast by the heels in gaol. And so his lordship went on to point out in detail the foul imputations which Dr Kenealy had thought tit to cast right and left. He had levelled against Lady Radcliffe not only a specific allegation of unchastity, but with it another charge too horrible to be mentioned. He had accused the Jesuit fathers of deliberately corrupting and debauching both the minds and the bodiea of their pupils. He had charged poor
Captain Birkett with scuttling his own ves* sel j and yet, having thrown out these hideous imputations without so much as a shadow of foundation, he had dared to talk of the duty of an advocate, and to declare that while he (Or K-nealy) used the warrior’s sword, the prosecution had had recourse to the pusoned dagger of the assassin. Such m outrage upon all decency deserved the severest censure of the Bench ; and the censure of the Bench would meet with the universal concurrence of the Bar. Mis Lordship then proceeded : We know full well that the freedom of the bar is essential to the pure administration of justice. We know very well that it would be an evil day for this country if the freedom of the bar should be iuterfered with. It might be argued that this single case is the single exception which, perhaps, would prove the rule—but is that so? What! interfere with the liberties of the bar in checking the licence of unscru ulous abuse in restraining remarks which amounted to mis-statements and sander ? 'I he bar is the most nobleminded and generous-spirited body in the world, and has never claimed the right to slander asone of their privileges, or considered the restraint of undue licence an interference with their rights— No, ’tis slander, Whoso odga is sharper than the sword; whose tongue Out-venoms all the worm# of Nile: whose breath Rides on the posting winds : and doth belie All comers of the world—Kings, Queens, and States, Maids, matrons—rnay, the secrets of the grave This viperous slander enters. Never, I trust, will slander be considered a weapon in their armoury to be used in their advocacy. Here, unfortunately, the living and the dead have been equally aspersed, and (here never was in the history of jurisprudence a case in which so much invective and abuse have been used. I trust it will never occur again
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Evening Star, Issue 3473, 10 April 1874, Page 3
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537CHIEF JUSTICE COCKBURN AND DR. KENEALY. Evening Star, Issue 3473, 10 April 1874, Page 3
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