his legal right to read them all through.  One of them was the file of the Irish People for the whole term of its existence!  Horror sat upon the faces of judges, jurymen, sheriffs, lawyers, turnkeys, and all, when the prisoner gravely informed them that as a compromise he would not insist upon reading the advertisements!  The bench were unable to deny that the prisoner was entitled to read, if not the entire, at any rate a great portion of the volume, and O’Donovan then applied himself to the task, selecting his readings more especially from those articles in which the political career of Mr. Justice Keogh was made the subject of animadversion.  Right on he read, his lordship striving to look as composed and indifferent as possible, while every word of the bitter satire and fierce invective written against him by Luby and O’Leary was being launched at his heart.  When articles of that class were exhausted, the prisoner turned to the most treasonable and seditious documents he could find, and commenced the reading of them, but the judges interposed; he claimed to be allowed to read a certain article—­Judge Keogh objected—­he proposed to read another—­that was objected to also—­he commenced to read another—­he was stopped—­he tried another—­again Judge Keogh was down on him—­then another—­and he fared no better.  So the fight went on throughout the live-long day, till the usual hour of adjournment had come and gone, and the prisoner himself was feeling parched, and weary, and exhausted.  Observing that the lights were being now renewed, and that their lordships appeared satisfied to sit out the night, he anxiously inquired if the proceedings were not to be adjourned till morning.  “Proceed, sir,” was the stern reply of the judge, who knew that the physical powers of the prisoner could not hold out much longer.  “A regular Norbury,” gasped O’Donovan.  “It’s like a ’98 trial.”  “You had better proceed, sir, with propriety,” exclaimed the judge.  “When do you propose stopping, my lord?” again inquired the prisoner.  “Proceed, sir,” was the reiterated reply.  O’Donovan could stand it no longer.  He had been reading and speaking for eight hours and a half.  With one final protest against the arrangement by which Judge Keogh was sent to try the cases of men who had written and published such articles against him, he sat down, exclaiming that, “English law might now take its course.”

Next day the jury handed down their verdict of guilty.  The Attorney-General then addressed the court, and referred to the previous conviction against the prisoner.  O’Donovan was asked, what he had to say in reference to that part of the case? and his reply was that “the government might add as much as they pleased to the term of his sentence on that account, if it was any satisfaction to them.”  And when the like question was put to him regarding the present charge, he said:—­