OCR Text |
Show Australia, and that be, previously to these events, lived in Paris." Who and what is this mail who was sentenced to be shot, banned or handed; drawn and-quartered? Col. Lynch was born at Ballarat, Australia, in 18C1. He was educated at Melbourne. He afterward removed to Great Britain, where he worked as & journalist, mathematical teacher and engineer. He has written several works of literary criticism. In 1892 he ran unsuccessfully in Galwaj for Parliament as an Irish -Nationalist. At the breaking out of the Boer war, according to some accounts; ac-counts; he went to the front as war correspondent of n Paris newspaper. He afterward commanded a section of the Irish Brigade on the Boer side. In 1901 he was elected to Parliament rom Galway as a Nationalist. On his return from South Africa he remained in Paris for some time, but finally went to England and attempted to take his seat as a mem- ber of Parliament. He was immediately arrested on the charge of high treason, and was arraigned in the Police court last June. He was held on that charge for the Court of King's Bench, where the trial was begun before Lord Chief Justice Alver-stone, Alver-stone, Mr. Justice Wills and Mr. Justice Channell and a jury, and was convicted and sentenced Saturday. Sat-urday. ' THE CASE OF COL. LYNCH. All the civilized world will rejoice over tjie announcement an-nouncement that the death sentence of Col. Lynch, the English soldier and Boer war hero, has been ' commuted to imprisonment for life with the probability prob-ability that he will be released atfer having served a nominal term. .Perhaps the fact. that Col.-Lynch is a Galway Irishman had something to do with the severity of the penalty it was adjudged that he should pay. But the very .horror with which the announcement of the English jury's verdict was received re-ceived all over the world is evidence that Great Britain ought to modernize her laws and eliminate from-her statute books the hundred and one rt lies of barbarism which now disgrace the United Kingdom? King-dom? Under the English law there were three ways in which Col. Lynch could be put to death. "Shot, handed or hanged, drawn and quartered." Think of siith a law adorning the statute books of any civilized civ-ilized country! The sentence in, the case of Col. Lynr)i recalls the, fact that it is centuries since an elected member of the British Parliament has been put to death for high treason. The last case at all similar to Col. Lynch's was that of Lord Lovat, who assisted Stuart in the rising in Scotland in 1743. He was' put to death for treason in the Tower of London,- where Sir Walter Kaleigh and many other historic his-toric characters, 'Including some of the wives of Henry VIII., were beheaded. Lord Lo vat's execution execu-tion was the last to take place in the Tower of London Lon-don The antiquity of the statute junder which Col. Lynch was condemned to lose his life was brought out in the address of the Lord Chief Justice on December De-cember 19th lastx to the grand jury which had been impaneled to deal with the indictment in the case. Lord Alverstone said: "As far back as the year 1331 that is, more than 500 years ago the statute nnder which Arthur Alfred Lynch is indicted was mssed and that statute has been the law up to the Present time." The Lord Chief Justice read part if the statute as to high treason. By the 23th of Edward III., chapter 2, it was, he said recited in hp preamble: "Whereas, divers opinions have been Ifore this time in what case treason shall be said, ? hi what not, the King, at. the request of the t ,il ond of the Commons, hath made a declaration fnS.ner as hereafter foLowetl,, tat U to ATnum doth compass or imagine the death of, JCt the K..? i his reaIm or levy war Jfe Kind's enemies in his realm, giv be adherent tolmtort in the realm or else- in" l Tthereof be provably attainted of open where and theretu condition." The Lord ,ed by the ieopi tQ 'gtate the case against Chi r Justice I rocec U!itthm Alfred Lyncb wag Col. Lynch. fj "t and abetting, and comfort-licted comfort-licted for adlienu., gouth African republic , t!;e Government or t were the enemies ' hashers and . men, ' QT;niri!hman, British subject, born in |