in challenging them as his counsel would not.  In vain Judge Blackburn threatened to commit the rebellious solicitor:  “These men’s lives are at stake, my lord,” was his indignant plea.  “Remove that man!” cried the angry judge, but as the officers of the court came forward very slowly—­for all poor men loved and honoured the sturdy fighter—­he changed his mind and let him stay.  Despite all his efforts, the jury contained a man who had declared that he “didn’t care what the evidence was, he would hang every d——­d Irishman of the lot.”  And the result showed that he was not alone in his view, for evidence of the most disreputable kind was admitted; women of the lowest type were put into the box as witnesses, and their word taken as unchallengeable; thus was destroyed an alibi for Maguire, afterwards accepted by the Crown, a free pardon being issued on the strength of it.  Nothing could save the doomed men from the determined verdict, and I could see from where I was sitting into a little room behind the bench, where an official was quietly preparing the black caps before the verdict had been delivered.  The foregone “Guilty” was duly repeated as verdict on each of the five cases, and the prisoners asked if they had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on them.  Allen, boy as he was, made a very brave and manly speech; he had not fired, save in the air—­if he had done so he might have escaped; he had helped to free Kelly and Deasy, and did not regret it; he was willing to die for Ireland.  Maguire and Condon (he also was reprieved) declared they were not present, but, like Allen, were ready to die for their country.  Sentence of death was passed, and, as echo to the sardonic “The Lord have mercy on your souls,” rang back from the dock in five clear voices, with never a quiver of fear in them, “God save Ireland!” and the men passed one by one from the sight of my tear-dimmed eyes.

It was a sorrowful time that followed; the despair of the heart-broken girl who was Allen’s sweetheart, and who cried to us on her knees, “Save my William!” was hard to see; nothing we or any one could do availed to avert the doom, and on November 23rd Allen, Larkin, and O’Brien were hanged outside Salford Gaol.  Had they striven for freedom in Italy England would have honoured them; here she buried them as common murderers in quicklime in the prison yard.

I have found, with a keen sense of pleasure, that Mr. Bradlaugh and myself were in 1867 to some extent co-workers, although we knew not of each other’s existence, and although he was doing much, and I only giving such poor sympathy as a young girl might, who was only just awakening to the duty of political work.  I read in the National Reformer for November 24, 1867, that in the preceding week he was pleading on Clerkenwell Green for these men’s lives:—­“According to the evidence at the trial, Deasy and Kelly were illegally arrested.  They had been arrested for