This state of things has lasted for the greater part of the winter. With the appearance of spring they invented something new. Every Sunday afternoon a hundred or a hundred and fifty people assemble before his door, led by his sister-in-law and his nieces. The whole party go into a large field of oats, which is in front of the house, and there begin a game of _football_. When night arrives they disperse, shouting to him that they will come back on the following Sunday. Whilst his oats were still too young to be hurt, the unfortunate O’Leary bore this annoyance patiently, but when they commenced to grow he could endure it no longer. Last Sunday when he saw the game arranged, he opened his window and warned the aggressors that he would fire upon them if they did not go away. They answered by hooting (this is called “boo-ing” in the country), and then by a volley of stones and mud. He fired both barrels of his gun, loaded with small shot, into the crowd. A man and two women fell wounded. The poor fellow was at once arrested and taken to prison. Yesterday he was released on bail; but he must appear at the assizes, and, since the jury will probably be formed of Land Leaguers, he is sure to be condemned.
This is one of the great difficulties of the situation. In France the juries often pronounce strange enough verdicts. But how can this system produce satisfactory results in a country so profoundly disturbed as this is, where three-fourths of the jurymen sympathise with the Land League, and the last fourth join them through fear? The Government is reduced to having its political opponents judged, for purely political offences, by people who openly profess the same opinions as the accused. I will not compare the Irish to our communists of 1871, but if we had tried the _pétroleuses_ by a jury composed of _pétroleuses_, we might bet heavily that they would have been acquitted, whilst on the other hand, if the same jury had been employed to try one of those rare members of the national guard, who joined the army at Versailles, he would have been condemned for the smallest peccadillo. As long as the jury officiates in Ireland, no one will dare to rally round the Government, and all its enemies are sure of escaping with impunity. The English Government has shown that it is quite incapable of protecting property, or even of securing the personal safety of its partisans. It would be very extraordinary if it had many of them. Of all the arguments that I have heard brought forward in favour of Home Rule, this is the one that strikes me as the most forcible.