n this hall to-night. Don't imagine that
your public meeting, guarded by tickets, will exclude spies and
assassins in thought, if not in deed. Even the organized power of
the State will have all it can do to keep them and their influences
from the jury box. This is strong language, but it is called for by
the occasion. At this time, no man who is asked to express himself
on the great topic of this foul murder can afford to be silent.
Sometimes persons are silent on the ground of expediency, but on
this occasion no man who is worthy of the name can be anything else
but an open, avowed enemy of this great conspiracy. It is time to
discuss secret societies, whether they are good or bad, when the
murderers of Dr. Cronin are at hand.

"Was Dr. Cronin a spy?" demanded the eloquent speaker, and from the
vast audience there came the reply, with a roar. "No."

"Was he known to be such before Le Caron testified?" again demanded
the judge, and again the thousands answered "No," while a cheer
went up that shook the building.

"This man carried his life in his hands, and did it for years,"
resumed the speaker. "The talk of his being a spy is sheer
nonsense; it matters not who makes the statement, whether directly
or by insinuation, he lies in his throat. A spy could not have
arrayed himself for years in hostility to all the sources of
disaster that has fallen upon the Irish cause. But that is simply
the Irish phase of the question, and as Americans every citizen
must rise high enough to declare that in view of American law, spy
or no spy, no man had a right to decree or to do his murder. A
peculiar feature of this conspiracy is that it had for its purpose
not only the destruction of Dr. Cronin's life, but the destruction
of his character--that it was for a twofold purpose, malice and
cowardice; hatred of him because of what he was, and cowardice so
as to cover up the evidences of crime.

"Here," went on the speaker, after he had alluded at length to the
stories that had emanated from Toronto, Montreal, and other places,
as demonstrating the underspread motive of the conspiracy. "Here,
where Dr. Cronin spent so many years of his life, we can safely
affirm, as this meeting does affirm, that, tested by his career and
by every fact and circumstance brought