be learnt from him, for he owned that he had no substantial
grounds for his suspicions in the first case, and that he had chiefly
been led to fear an attack upon Ussher, from knowing his unpopularity
and the bad character of many of the guests expected at the wedding.
Mr. O'Laugher tried to make him say that the conversation at Mrs.
Mehan's had been confined to Keegan, and the threats which he had
heard uttered against him; but McGovery would not say as much as
this; he stated positively that he had never heard Ussher's name
mentioned, but that during a considerable portion of the evening
he had been entirely unable to hear a word that the men said; he
declared, however, positively that Thady was drunk when he left the
room, and that it appeared to him that he, Thady, had taken very
little part in the conversation before he was drunk.

When this witness went off the table, Mr. Allewinde declared that the
case for the prosecution was finished--stating at the same time that
he abstained from feelings of delicacy and respect from putting the
prisoner's sister into the witness box; and that he should trouble
her with no questions unless she were placed there by the counsel for
the defence.

Mr. O'Malley then rose to address the jury on behalf of the prisoner,
and spoke to the following effect:--

"Gentlemen of the jury, it now becomes my duty to address to you
such words as may best suit to point out to you the weakness
of the evidence against the prisoner--to explain to you the
different objects we had in our lengthened cross-examination of the
witnesses--to inform you what we intend to prove on behalf of the
prisoner from further witnesses--and, in fact, to put the case before
you in a light, and point of view, differing as widely as I can make
it do from that in which my learned friend has presented it to you.
This you are aware is the general duty and constant object of a
counsel endeavouring to obtain a verdict of acquittal from a jury.
It is a duty in which long practice has made me familiar, if not
skilful; and I never undertook that duty with the same assurance
of its facility, as that which I now feel, after having heard the
evidence which has been brought forward on the prosecution. I knew
beforehand, as surely as one can trust to human knowledge, that the
evidence would fail; but knowing the acute legal abilities of my
learned friend, and the extraordinary avidity which exists among
a large class of men for a