The Life of Daniel O'Connell

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ...the jury. As the Solicitor-General laid down a doctrine of law, O'Connell contemptuously cried out, with his mouth full of bread and milk: "That's not law!" The bench, which was appealed to by Doherty, ruled with O'Connell. Again and again the Solicitor-General was interrupted by O'Connell with a sneer at his law, and again and again the decision of the judges confirmed the point of the prisoners' advocate. The same story was told, the same testimony was produced, as on the first trial. But O'Connell was there to confuse the independent witnesses, to confound the approvers, to brow-beat the Solicitor-General. To his face O'Connell mimicked Doherty's manner. "You may go down, sir," said the Solicitor-General, waving his hand contemptuously to one of the prisoners' witnesses, and pronouncing the words in an aristocratic drawl. "Naw! daun't go daune, sir!" cried O'Connell, ludicrously burlesquing the voice and pronunciation of his adversary. Another time the Solicitor-General said: "The allegation is made upon false facts." "False facts?" cried O'Connell. "What a bull! How can facts be false?" The SolicitorGeneral retorted: "I have known false facts, and false men too." "Yes," replied O'Connell. "Your case and yourself." All through the trial a running fire of altercation was kept up between the opposing counsel, but in such a contest of colloquial sarcasm and vituperation victory was easy to O'Connell. The case for the Crown entirely collapsed. Nowlan, one of the chief approvers, trembling under the stress of O'Connell's relentless cross-examination, which made him contradict himself at every turn, broke out with the hysterical exclamation:...