One more illustration, gentlemen, taken from a period somewhat later on.  It is the execution—­“according to law,” gentlemen; entirely “according to law”—­of another Popish bishop named O’Devany.  The account is that of a crown official of the time—­some most worthy predecessor of the solicitor-general.  I read it from the recently published work of the Rev. C.P.  Meehaun.  “On the 28th of January, the bishop and priest, being arraigned at the King’s Bench, were each condemned of treason, and adjudged to be executed the Saturday following; which day being come, a priest, or two of the Pope’s brood, with holy water and other holy stuffs”—­(no sneer was that at all, gentlemen; no sneer at Catholic practices, for a crown official never sneers at Catholic practices)—­“were sent to sanctify the gallows whereon they were to die.  About two o’clock, p.m., the traitors were delivered to the sheriffs of Dublin, who placed them in a small car, which was followed by a great multitude.  As the car progressed the spectators knelt down; but the bishop sitting still, like a block, would not vouchsafe them a word, or turn his head aside.  The multitude, however, following the car, made such a dole and lamentation after him, as the heavens themselves resounded the echoes of their outcries.” (Actually a seditious funeral procession—­made up of the ancestors of those thirty-thousand men, women, and children, who, according to the solicitor-general, glorified the cause of murder on the 8th of last December.) “Being come to the gallows, whither they were followed by troops of the citizens, men and women of all classes, most of the best being present, the latter kept up such a shrieking, such a howling, and such a hallooing, as if St. Patrick himself had been gone to the gallows, could not have made greater signs of grief; but when they saw him turned from off the gallows, they raised the whobub with such a maine cry, as if the rebels had come to rifle the city.  Being ready to mount the ladder, when he was pressed by some of the bystanders to speak, he repeated frequently Sine me quaeso.  The executioner had no sooner taken off the bishop’s head, but the townsmen of Dublin began to flock about him, some taking up the head with pitying aspect, accompanied with sobs and sighs; some kissed it with as religious an appetite as ever they kissed the Pax; some cut away all the hair from the head, which they preserved for a relic; some others were practisers to steal the head away, but the executioner gave notice to the sheriffs.  Now, when he began to quarter the body, the women thronged about him, and happy was she that could get but her handkerchief dipped in the blood of the traitor; and the body being once dissevered in four quarters, they neither left, finger nor toe, but they cut them off and carried them away; and some others that could get no holy monuments that appertained to his person, with their knives they shaved off chips from the hallowed gallows; neither could they omit the halter wherewith