nor in conformity with the practice at common law, nor in any way in pursuance of the principles of that apocryphal abstraction, that magnificent myth—­the British constitution—­am I amenable to the sentence of this court—­or any court in this country.  True, I am in the toils, and it may be vain to discuss how I was brought into them.  True, my long and dreary imprisonment—­shut away from all converse or association with humanity, in a cell twelve feet by six—­the humiliations of prison discipline—­the hardships of prison fare—­the handcuffs, and the heartburnings—­this court and its surroundings of power and authority—­all these are ‘hard practical facts,’ which no amount of indignant protests can negative—­no denunciation of the wrong refine away; and it may be, as I have said, worse than useless—­vain and absurd—­to question the right where might is predominant.  But the invitation just extended to me by the officer of the court means, if it means anything—­if it be not like the rest, a solemn mockery—­that there still is left to me the poor privilege of complaint.  And I do complain.  I complain that law and justice have been alike violated in my regard—­I complain that the much belauded attribute ‘British fair play’ has been for me a nullity—­I complain that the pleasant fiction described in the books as ’personal freedom’ has had a most unpleasant illustration in my person—­and I furthermore and particularly complain that by the design and contrivance of what are called ‘the authorities,’ I have been brought to this country, not for trial but for condemnation—­not for justice but for judgment.

“I will not tire the patience of the court, or exhaust my own strength, by going over the history of this painful case—­the kidnapping in London on the mere belief of a police-constable that I was a Fenian in New York—­the illegal transportation to Ireland—­the committal for trial on a specific charge, whilst a special messenger was despatched to New York to hunt up informers to justify the illegality and the outrage, and to get a foundation for any charge.  I will not dwell on the ‘conspicuous absence’ of fair play, in the crown at the trial having closed their cases without any reference to the Dublin transaction, but, as an afterthought, suggested by their discovered failure, giving in evidence the facts and circumstances of that case, and thus succeeding in making the jury convict me for an offence with which up to that moment the crown did not intend to charge me.  I will not say what I think of the mockery of putting me on trial in the Commission Court in Dublin for alleged words and acts in New York, and though the evidence was without notice, and the alleged overt acts without date, taunting me with not proving an alibi, and sending that important ingredient to a jury already ripe for a conviction.  Prove an alibi to-day in respect of meetings held in Clinton Hall, New York, the allegations relating to which only came to