minutes, or until nearly a quarter past six o’clock.  During the delivery of his address, twilight had succeeded day-light; the court attendants, later still, with silent steps and taper in hand, stole around and lit the chandeliers, whose glare upon the thousand anxious faces below, seemed to lend a still more impressive aspect to the scene.  The painful idea of the speaker’s peril, which was all-apparent at first amongst the densely-packed audience, seemed to fade away by degrees, giving place to a feeling of triumph, as they listened to the historical narrative of British misrule in Ireland, by which Irish “disesteem” for British law was explained and justified, and later on to the story of the Manchester tragedy by which Irish sympathy with the martyrs was completely vindicated.  Again and again in the course of the speech, they burst into applause, regardless of threatened penalties; and at the close gave vent to their feelings in a manner that for a time defied all repression.

When silence was restored, the court was formally adjourned to next day, Friday, at 10 o’clock, a.m.

The morning came, and with it another throng; for it was known Mr. Martin would now speak in his turn.  In order, however, that his speech, which was sure to be an important one, might close the case against the crown, Mr. Bracken, on the court resuming, put in his defence very effectively as follows:—­

My lords—­I would say a word or two, but after Mr. Sullivan’s grand and noble speech of last evening, I think it now needless on my part.  I went to the procession of the 8th December, assured that it was right from reading a speech of the Earl of Derby in the newspapers.  There was a sitting of the Privy Council in Dublin on the day before, and I sat in my shop that night till twelve o’clock, to see if the procession would be forbidden by government.  They, however, permitted it to take place, and I attended it fully believing I was right.  That is all I have to say.

This short speech—­delivered in a clear musical and manly voice—­put the whole case against the crown in a nut-shell.  The appearance of the speaker too—­a fine, handsome, robust, and well-built man, in the prime of life, with the unmistakable stamp of honest sincerity on his countenance and in his eye—­gave his words greater effect with the audience; and it was very audibly murmured on all sides that he had given the government a home thrust in his brief but telling speech.

Then Mr. Martin rose.  After leaving court the previous evening he had decided to commit to writing what he intended to say; and he now read from manuscript his address to the jury.  The speech, however, lost nothing in effect by this; for any auditor out of view would have believed it to have been spoken, as he usually speaks, extempore, so admirably was it delivered.  Mr. Martin said:—­