MR O’BRIEN AND THE PRISON CLOTHES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1681, 3 January 1888, Page 3

MR O’BRIEN AND THE PRISON CLOTHES.

A good deal of excitement was caused in Tullamore on November 12th by the circulation of a statement that Mr O’Brien’s clothes had been taken from him while he was in bed. Dr Moorhead, J.P., who visited the prison and spent most of the day with O’Brien, made an entry in the visitor’s book, in which he says that Mr O’Brien accused Dr Eidley of breach of faith, the doctor having promised that Mr O’Brien’s clothes would not be taken from him. “In consequence of this understanding,” said Mr O’Brien, “I omitted to observe the caution which I had Used to prevent my clothes being stolen—namely, by keeping them under my bed. I left my clothes on the chair. The hospital warder came into the room in the morning with the hospital boy and commenced to light the fire and clear up the place. I remained in bed during this operation. I was sick and chilly, and dozing in bed after a bad night’s rest, when suddenly I noticed the warder stealing to the door in the half dark with my clothes arid the chair. I cried out, “ What are you at ? ” He said, “ They’re gone; I could not help it.” I said it

was a base and cunning stratagem. After some time another warder, I think, entered, and left there the clothes you see opposite. I shall never wear those clothes, but I shall take every advantage of fire, &c., allowed me, and eat, so far as my appetite permits, whatever food I get, so that if they kill me they shall not be able to say I killed myself. I still have my own white shirt, which I mean to keep till it is torn from me by force. I am alone amongst enemies. They brought me here to murder me.” During the interview Dr Moorhead says Mr O’Brien was fiercely excited, and a bright hectic flush burned in his cheeks, while his hands perspired with the cold clamminess of a tubercular subject. He coughed frequently, his breath was foetid; he had not touched food up to the hour of my visit, ending 3.15 p.m., and sank back exhausted to the bed after the complaint, his voice declining to a whisper. “I have no hesitation in saying,” he adds, that there has been a fresh accession of tubercular deposit in his system, as a result of the fierce excitement, and a repetition may be probably followed by fatal consequences ” At the meeting of the League, held in Dublin on Nov 12th, both Mr Dillon and Mr Barring ton said Mr O’Brien’s reatmen

would be avenged, and tlio former declared that Mr Balfour was taking a cowardly revenge on Mr O’Brien for the many hard things the latter had said about him. •