have been my humiliation in prison, hard and heart-breaking as have been the ordeals through which I have passed since the 1st of December last, there was no incident or event of that period fraught with more pain on the one hand, or more suggestiveness on the other, than this sly and secret attempt at improvising an informer.  I can forget the pain in view of the suggestiveness; and unpleasant as is my position here to-day, I am almost glad of the opportunity which may end in putting some check to the spy system in prisons.  How many men have been won from honour and honesty by the stealthy visit to the cell is more of course than I can say—­how many have had their weakness acted upon, or their wickness fanned into flame by which means I have no opportunity of knowing—­in how many frailty and folly may have blossomed into falsehood it is for those concerned to estimate.  There is one thing, however, certain—­operating in this way is more degrading to the tempter than to the tempted; and the government owes it to itself to put an end to a course of tactics pursued in its name, which in the results can only bring its humiliation—­the public are bound in self-protection to protect the prisoner from the prowling visits of a too zealous official.

“I pass over all these things, my lords, and I ask your attention to the character of the evidence on which alone my conviction was obtained.  The evidence of a special, subsidized spy, and of an infamous and ingrate informer.

“In all ages, and amongst all peoples, the spy has been held in marked abhorrence.  In the amnesties of war there is for him alone no quarter; in the estimate of social life no toleration; his self-abasement excites contempt, not compassion; his patrons despise while they encourage; and they who stoop to enlist the services shrink with disgust from the moral leprosy covering the servitor.  Of such was the witness put forward to corroborate the informer, and still not corroborating him.  Of such was that phenomenon, a police spy, who declared himself an unwilling witness for the crown!  There was no reason why in my regard he should be unwilling—­he knew me not previously.  I have no desire to speak harshly of Inspector Doyle; he said in presence of the Crown Solicitor, and was not contradicted, that he was compelled by threats to ascend the witness table; he may have had cogent reasons for his reluctance in his own conscience.  God will judge him.

“But how shall I speak of the informer, Mr. John Devany?  What language should be employed in describing the character of one who adds to the guilt of perfidy to his associates the crime of perjury to his God?—­the man who eating of your bread, sharing your confidence, and holding, as it were, your very purse-strings, all the time meditates your overthrow and pursues it to its accomplishment?  How paint the wretch who, under pretence of agreement in your opinions, worms himself into your secrets