TME PARNELL COMMISSION. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) London, November 16.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 335, 19 January 1889, Page 6

TME PARNELL COMMISSION. (FR OM OUR SPECIA L CORRESPONDENT. ) London, November 16.

On Tuesday last tho proceedings of the Parncli Commission for the first time began to assume a iealiy important phase. Up to then ifc cannot bo said that tho narratives of Land League intimidation and outrage detailed day aftci day by baroly intelligible Irish witnesses (often of a densely ignorant type) had been listened to with any great degree of interest. The stories themselves were, as Mr Laboucherc kept saying " ancient history,' and in no Gaso was the "-Times" successful in directly connecting any of the Irish leaders with tho crimes described. MiMatt Harris occasionally figured rather more prominently on 'the scene of certain outrages than was convenient, and the " TiniGs " of course made the most of this patriot's turgid and inflammatory speeches. Nevertheless, the general effect of the evidence was weak, not to say trivial. Tuesday's proceedings opened dully enough with the calling of one of the most objectionable types of Irish witnesses. "Pat Kennedy," says tho " Daily News" summary, " was called as a ' Times ' witness, to pros - e from his own personal experience intimidation and outiage by the Land League. But the ' Times ! counsel had almost as much trouble with Pat Kennedy as, their learned brethren for the other side had. He kept (horn all afc ifc during two mortal hours. Not because he had so much to say ; but because he would say nothiny. Neither the obstinacy oi" a mule, nor tho difficulty of getting a joke | into a Scotchman even by surgery, came lup to Pat's awful powers of impenej trability. Mr Atkinson, (Sir Charles Ru&J sell, Mr Locku-QOd, tho President himself, Mr Biggar, the Atboiney-General, all tried their cunning upon this most exasperating witness. For a time, Pat's stolid obstinacy caused fun, but as'ihe half hours passed, it became an intolerable bore. And his manneis were even a worse infliction than 'his taciturnity. He scowled. He glanced angrily thrbugh the corners of his eyes. He tumbled about in his witness-box like, a menagerie-specimen in his cage. But he hadian advantage over the menagerie quad- ■ ruped, inasmuch as ho could > play the" devil's tattoo — and hc^did it, with considerable perseverance 'and skill,, on tjie ledge in" front of him, witli the four fingers arid thumb of his irreverent loft hand. And" when ho was neither tumbling about, nor drumming", nor scowling he was in a brown study — fixedly gazing downwards for a minute or two at a time. After his spell of silence he would rap out an irasciblo, incoherent, totally irrelevant,andevasiveanswer; finally, he would suddenly grab his black billycock by the rim, as if he had made up his mind to bolt and leave all those chattering lawyers to fight it out among themselves. What was Mr Patrick's, grievance? He had been annoyed intone way or another — sometimes, ib appeared, by a mild boycott — during most of tho time from 1881 bill the present date ; annoyed for taking a farm from which a widow Dempsey had been evicted. He complained that the Leaguers in their official character as Leaguers had always been at him to give up his farm. He was a Leaguer himself ; he attended League meetings ; but he denied that he had received money from the police for giving them information about these assemblages. One of the hardest struggles with Patrick was Sir Charles Russell's eiiort to find out whero he lived. At first, Patrick would nob tell,- because (apparently) he objected to the London population knowing ib. It cost another tough struggle to find but from him how he lived. One of bhe many questions on this point was Mr LockwoocVs, l Who is ' keeping you now ?' ' I think bho ' Times,' ' said Patrick, after one of his long pauses. Ho swore that, as far as he knew, the Land Leaguers were the i only people who ever interfered with him.

" After the last-named witness's examina-' lion the Court adjourned for half an hour.. It re-assembled at half- past two, -from which time till four the Court was occupied in tho examination of three witnesses, ,the first two of whom introduced novel and unexpected elements .in to the trial. The fir&t of the two was a young Galway farmer named James Mannion. In -Mr. Atkinson's hands he began tamely enough With ,his dull, prosaic census of Land League meetings and Land -League members, it seemed, at first, as if the afternoon's proceedings were to bo as ""tamo as the forenoon's. But all a"t once he gave out that he was sworn a. member of the Fenian Society in 1880, and that his brother leaguers of that period were .Fenians — every one of them, said he. At • this sudden appearance of a Fenian Land Leaguer, all present became silent and attentive. The 'Times' couusel were making their, first serious endeavour to connect the Land\League and National League directly with' conspiracies whose purpose has been described as separation, and whose means as. .assassination : and here were &x-Fenian Land Leaguers who had turned <■ \ against- their fellow-Criminals, It was' curious; to hear this quiet and -ap-, parently respectable and, harmless , young farmfer of 29 describe, with porfeet ganri- " /Void,! how, with a gang offiyo men, he went out one . night with the deliberate - intention of murdering a man who had taken a, ftum from which tho paron,t (Mrs .Walsjb)^ of one of the said gang had been evicted, Nor was tho ' Fenian ' the only title to which this young farmer confessed. He described himself as a Moonlighter ; and, described, with cool, matter-of-fact brevity—pretty much as one who should talk' about the weather— what the Moonlighting modvs operandi was, ' Bedad, perhaps they bate them,- perhaps they shoot them, for paying their rinb ov taking an evicted farm.' But what did Mr Atkinson and Sir, Henry James try to. prove to be the bearing, of all this ? The witness declared to then?, in cro&s-axamination, that all his Land League colleagu.es wore, like himself-,, Fenians ; that in his part ot county Glalway. it was all one whether you called . them. Fenians oi\Leaguers ; that Land Leaguers, in their official .capacity, gave warning notices ; that boycottings and outrages of all sorts, including muiclers, were arranged at League meetings ; and that the murder above referred to — the Lyden murder — was planned at Walsh's house, where the Leaguers held their meetings. One of the young Walshes was among the six selected to commit the crime ; and he was hanged for it ' Ought to be shot,' was, according to this witness, the verdict of the meeting in Mrs Walsh's house. All this was very definite. Nothing could be more definite than the witness's declaration ! 1 never knew a Moonlighter who was nob a member of the Land League.' But in cross-examination by Kir (J. llussell he confessed to surprising ignorance of the very A B C of Fctiian history, declaring he had never heard of Fenianisin before 1880 ! At first he had said thaL ' Fenian ' and ' Leaguer ' were interchangeable. Now, when pressed by Sir Charles Kussell,' ho declined to call the priesL-preeident ot the local branch in 1880 a Fenian. . Aftpr wavering for some time between conflicting statements, the witness euded by affirming that all the Leaguers lie knew were Fenians. "The next witness was — by his own account — a sadder unfoitunate, or a sadder repiobatc, than Farmer Mannion. The two farmers had travelled together" to London, and, said this second witness, Peter Flaherty, ' I had another woman along with me.' (Great laughter.) Even Sir James Hannen's grave features relaxed into a smile. A- queer study was this man Peter Flaherty. He was not so neatly dressed, as Farmer Mannion. He was, plainly, almost roughly attired; but, 'unlike Mannion, he looked eminently respectable. Vet, without a blush- •on his not unpleasant features: without -the ghost of a shadow of a trace of shyness, or awkwaidness — did he admit that he went quite prepared to commit, or assist in committing, murder eight years ago at the house of a man, O'Neil, in company with his fellow-Leaguers ; and that if he had to betiay his comrades over again under bho same circumstances he would do it without the slightest compunction. Flaherty joined the League in 1880, and he gave the names of the leading official Leaguers — Ruane, Macdonald, , Mulcarren, and others — the first - named of whom ' flits like a sinister figure through ' these criminal stories ol discontented Galway, and was the most prominent figure in the outrages described by tho preceding witness, Mannion. , Having become a Leaguer, he joined ' another society, 3 on which occasion, he said, he swore loyalty to the ' Irish Republic/ 11 He described with great minuteness how at a meeting of Land Leaguers he had been delegated, with a number of men, to go and carry off O'Neill's cattle and sheep and how it had been arranged at that meeting that O'Neill's herd should be shot if he interfered. All this was Land Leaguer's work — according- ,to this informer's testimonj\ His examination-in-chief was conducted by Mr Murphy, and his cross- ' examination by Mr Reid, Q.C, to whose cutting, contemptuous questions he certainly was not "sufficiently thin-skinned. My business, he explained tersely, was " to go moonlighting whenever I was asked to." And he further explained that he had turned against his fellow moonlighters because thej' unjustly accused him of the ( ' guilt" of having warned a. man whose life and property were in danger. Yes, he exclaimed, lacer, he "would have gone l on moonlighting and murdering — by order— if 'one of his felloV-Leaguers' hid hot fired at •him Under tha > misapprehension " abpve named. This man Flaherty turneel out to be <as ignorant' of the, social history of ' his own part of Galway as the .indonlighter, who, preceded him. ' Whatever the ' secret ' society was to which h© belonged, ho had never heard of the' 'lrish Republican Brotherhoad " ! Having done, for the timo being, with County Galway the " Times " counsel jumped across to America, and produced a witness named Glanergan to prove how, in 1879 and subsequently, and under the management of the Irish president of a Land League branch at Pitbsburg, money and arms were collected in America for use in Western Ireland. Bub as soon as he made his statoment, in answer to tho " Times " counsel, the Court adjourned.

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