need scarcely point out the absurdity of such a statement
as this. Some magistrate _must_ have committed this man; the jailer
could not receive him without a committal, nor set him at large[42]
without a discharge; although, from the account given, the inference may
be easily drawn that, on his own will, Shee had thrown Ring into prison.
If falsely imprisoned, he had his action against the magistrate who
committed him. The committal, which the jailer holds for his own
security, would discover the person who had acted so illegally. If any
man acted as Shee is said to have done in this instance, the law is not
to be blamed--for it forbids such conduct: the government officers who
permitted it to be violated, are the really guilty parties. And here
again we may ask--why were not the government called on to explain the
conduct of their officials, by Lord John Russell, who read and
recommended the book to the attention of Sir Robert Peel? But in
addition to the necessity of having Ring thrown into jail, to exhibit
the power of the landlords, it was necessary, for our author's purposes,
that he should be put out of the way, in order to account for an apology
given by the editor of a local newspaper to this Mr Shee.

"An action was brought against the proprietor of the journal for a
malicious libel, in calling this gentleman a 'notorious landlord.'
A man who had, in two years and a half, had above two hundred
disputes with his peasantry, not half of which I have yet even
alluded to, but all of which, alluded to and related, had occurred
previous to that time--such a man, to prosecute for being called
'notorious,' had good confidence.

"But he had also a good case. It would be scouted out of
Westminster Hall, but it was a good case in _Ireland_. An English
judge, after hearing evidence for the defence in such a
case--evidence in justification--would not sum up to the jury, or,
if he began his summary, the jury would stop him with an intimation
that their minds were made up! _But to the Irish jury--the special
jury of landlords before whom this case was about to be
brought_--the proprietor of the Irish newspaper looked forward with
a certainty of being convicted on a criminal charge, the punishment
of which would have probably been one or two years' imprisonment
and a heavy fine.

"He might have hoped for a verdict in his favour had