THE PARNELL COMMISSION. GROSS CONTEMPT OF COURT BY A WITNESS. Another Amusing Scene. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 366, 8 May 1889, Page 3

THE PARNELL COMMISSION. GROSS CONTEMPT OF COURT BY A WITNESS. Another Amusing Scene. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

London, March 13. If further proof were wanting of the extraordinary manner in which the "Times" case against the Parnellites has been got up, it is to be found in the fact that the erratic and apparently half -insane witness, Coffey, who kept the Court amused (nearly gave Sir James Hannen a fit) throughout the greater part of Tuesday, and of whose aberrations you will already have heard something by cable, has received from Mr Soames for expenses, etc., no less than £115. Mr Coffey, who was described as a roporter attached to the Cork " Herald," wore a heavy brown Inverness cape and yellow gloves, and carried a silk hat in his hands. His manner at once struck the spectators as peculiarly jaunty and selfsatisfied, whilst his voice was supercilious, and at times even contemptuous. After a few preliminary questions, in the course of which the witness more than once came to loggerheads with puzzled Sir Henry, James Coffey calmly turned to the Bench and informed them blandly that the statement upon which he was being j examined was (unctiously) utterly false. "But you made and signed it yourself," objected counsel. '• Ah !" said the witness, as if uttering a smart epigram, < "statements are one thing, but evidence is another." He went on to describe with intense relish how Mr Shannon (Mr Soames's colleague) came to try and fish a statement out of him, and how he resolved to give the young gentleman a thoroughly sensational one, implicating at least two membors of Parliament in murder. The onlookers enjoyed Mr Coffey immensely; not so, however, the Judges.) more particularly the President, whose face grew darker and darker. Again and

again he tried to stem the flow of Mr Coffey v v } 8 eloquence and quell ,his insolent self-sufficiency, but without buccoss. "It is a shocking thing,"soleranly said Sir James, " that a man of your position should have been guilty of this ,ini position." "You w'dn'tsay that if you knew as much or Ireland as I do, my Lord," coolly retorted the witness. Then the storm broke, and with greater tury than it has ever done before during the Commission. " Will you,'' almost shouted Sir James, pink with anger, "endeavour, sir, to conduct yourself with decency ?" Coffey's attitude was the opposite to conciliatory. "I am endeavouring to do so," he asserted, "but the learned gentleman's questions are so absurd." " If you do not conduct yourself in a different manner," said the President;,/ " I will commit you to prison. Therefore be careful." "All right, my Lord," answered Coflby, in a most irritating tone. People trembled for this venturesome witness. The President had long given up his attempts to restrain his anger. "Be careful," he thundered; "I will not be trifled with." "Nor will I," replied the tantalising and daring Coffey, rushing in like a fool where angelic counsel fear to tread. "You are," said the President, "consciously or unconsciously exhibiting some thing which is really painful to listen to in your character. Now pay attention." "All Right, My Lord," answered Coffey, still in that irritating and supercilious manner of his. The President's anger impeded his speech at first. At length he broke out, " T "don't consider it is all right. Don't provoke me too far. That is not the way to answer me. Don't answer me at all. Answer the counsel." " 1 am answering the counsel, my Lord," said CofFey, immediately disobeying the injunction of the President. What the consequences would have been nobody can ' bay, but Sir Henry James, while the President was waiting for words, put an end to the painful scene by chipping in with a question. The danger was thus averted, but the impression in Court was general that the witness wa«J safe to get committed before his examination was concluded. The luncheon interval hero occurred. Coffey, on the application of Sir Henry James, was not allowed to leave the Court, and, on his own application, he had some Lunch Brought in to Him at the expense of Victoria Regina — almost a premium on improper behaviour in the witness-box. On the reassembling of the Court Sir Henry James continued his examination of this extraordinary witness. "Is your statement true about this blowing up a house in which you speak?" he asked. "I heard so," said Coffey; "but I do not believe it was blown up, because it was a caretaker's residence, as I stated." Sir Henry James took him through his statements seriatim, and each one he categorically denied without any decrease of the superciliousness of his manner. The President, holding up a warning finger, reminded him that he was continuing his behaviour. Coffey looked down at a paper he had long been fumbling with, a statement he had written out, which he had been told to put on one side. " I have," said the President, " sevei-al times told you not to refer to that paper. Put It Away, Sir." The witness thrust it in his breast pocke t with a melodramatic gesture, and Sir Henry James continued to read the statement Coffey had made to Shannon. In that statement Coffey alleged that he joined the 1.R.8. in 1876, and that when the Land League was started the two organisations worked in harmony. He also referred to the committee of the Land League. " What do you mean by the Committee ?" asked Sir Henry James. — " Committee is a very ordinary word," replied Coffey. " What do you mean by the Committee ?' insisted Sir Henry James. — "I use the word in its ordinary dictionary meaning," replied Coffey. Sir Henry James reiterated the question. "Don't trifle with me," said the witness to Sir Henry James, with a clever assumption of the President's manner. Then, turning to the Bench, he was about to appeal to their lordships. But the President anticipated him. "I do not intend to be trifled with," said Sir James Hannen. "I Shall Deal With You when we come to the end of your evidence." The witness went on, in answer to Sir Henry James, still declaring that every word of his statement to Shannon was untrue. Meanwhile the President busied himself with hi? pen, and then threw over to the Secretary, Mr Cunynghame, a document which looked uncommonly like a committal order. When Mr Reid came to cross-examine, he directed his questions toward eliciting what, money the witness had made out of his statements. " When I made my first statement," said Coffey, "I got £4 or £5 from the police. That I regarded as a sort of secret service money which was being tolerably well circulated in the neighbourhood. Then I telegraphed to Mr Soames thafc I could not come unless I had £100. I got a letter from Mr Soames saying he could not comply, but after this Mr Shannon called on me. lie said Soames was a very decent fellow, and he believed he would see I was looked after. In consequence of what he told me I went to his office in Dublin, and there I got £50." "What did you do with the money ?" — " Oh, it enabled me to sco London, that's all." (Laughter.) Proceeding, Coffey said that he subsequently received from Soames £40 and £20. Re-examined, he said the first £50 was for his personal expenses for one month, but as he had been in London Nearly Three Months, he had had the additional sums. "You hare asked for more money and been refused, 1 understand ?" — '• Yes." "And so you have given your evidence as you have ?" Then Sir Henry James sat down, and the President cleared his throat. "We are of opinion," said Sir James Hannen, "that you have been guilty of a gross contempb of Court. In the first place your manner has been insolent both to counsel and to the Court during your examination, and I take the opportunity of adding that, in pur judgment, you have been guilty of still more serious contempt of Court. You have avowed that you have told a long tissue of lies for the express purpose of deceiving the parties to whom you made it, and causing yourself to be brought as a witness here in order that you might then tell that which you call the truth. That was a most insolent interference with the course of justice. It was foistipg yourself on the Court, and taking up the time of the Court, for the purpose only of befooling those who had taken your evidence. Coming here with that intention, and taking <up the time of the Court in thab manner, we have no doubt you have been guilty of contempb of Court, and I accovdingly

Commit You to Prison." Coffey had been all through this judgment leaning listlessly on the ledge of the witness box. At the conclusion of the, President's sentence he appealed to be heard. If the" Courb would postpone his case for an, hour he would, he said, go to his lodgings in Torrington Square, and get his letters and copies of the correspondence between himself and Soames, which would' fix the contempt of Court Upon the Proper Shoulders. "I told Mr Soames," he said, "time afi er time, I could nob give any evidence against Mr Parnell or the others charged." The President was inexorable. He , ordered the removal of the witness, but added, "It must be proved hereafter if it be any mitigation of what you have said to the Court." One of the warders here approached to take Cofley into custody, but the witness got a little quarter by -leisurely donning his overcoat with the assistance of the usher. Then, taking up his feilk hat a»d gloves, he attempted again to address the Court. " I have already said all I intend to say on the subject," said the President, sternly ; "let him be removed." Coffey was accordingly taken out of Court, he protesting the while that this was " intimidation of the worst iorml"