the case stood
for a common jury, or for a special jury in any of the counties
where he was known, or where his paper circulated. When it was
intimated to him that the trial would not take place in Kilkenny,
he urged that the venue might be laid in Waterford, or Tipperary,
or Wexford, or Carlow, or in the Queen's County, where something
was known of each of the parties; but no, the venue was laid in the
county of Dublin, where the gentlemen who would form the special
jury were all of the landlord class, and nearly all belonging to
the dominant church-and-state party. _In that county nothing was
known of either plaintiff or defendant_, save that the first was a
distinguished Protestant partisan and that the other was a
Catholic, and proprietor of a liberal newspaper. Of their private
characters nothing was known.

"Still the defendant resolved to go to trial, and justify the
epithet 'notorious' as applied to the landlord. He intended taking
several of the worst-used tenants up as witnesses; and he also
obtained the official records of the petty sessions, quarter
sessions, and assize courts, to put in as evidence to show the
overwhelming amount of litigation carried on by the landlord with
his tenantry. He resolved on doing all this, _though sure of being
condemned to imprisonment and a fine by the special jury_; he
judged, from the well-known reputation of that class of men, and
from what he had seen other newspaper proprietors receive at their
hands for publishing the oppressive conduct of landlords; but he
resolved on justifying by evidence, in the hope that a public
trial, at which such witnesses as the persecuted tenants of
plaintiff would appear, would draw public attention to their
unfortunate condition. _He had chosen Patrick Ring and John Ryan,
the worst-used of the tenants, and one or two others_, as
witnesses; but what was his dismay when he found Patrick Ring once
more thrown into jail, as also the
others, at the instance of the landlord, on the charge of
attempting to shoot him!

"Thus, without his witnesses, the defendant, after incurring the
expense of about L100 in preparing his defence, was glad to get out
of the case in any shape. He made a public and most humble apology,
paid all expenses, and the prosecution was droppe