COLONEL TAYLORsaid, he wished to preface his Question with a remark which he should not have thought it necessary to make had the murder been one of an ordinary nature. It was perpetrated in one of the quietest districts of Ireland, immediately adjoining the 1985 capital; indeed, he might say as orderly and civilized a locality as any in this country; and it was not believed by those who had inquired into the matter that the inhabitants of the district had anything to do with the crime. He thought it must be part of that desperate system of crime in which, for some real or imaginary offence, a self-constituted tribunal, sitting at a distance, pronounced sentence, and a wretched assassin was discovered and ordered to commit the murder, he not having, probably, up to that moment ever seen or heard of his victim. Having said thus much to exonerate his county from any imputation, he would now ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether any clue has been obtained in the matter of the late atrocious murder of Mrs. Neil at Rathgar, in the county of Dublin; and, if not, what steps Government is taking to discover the perpetrators of that crime?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. DOWSE)said, that before proceeding to answer the Question he begged to state that he entirely agreed with the right hon. and gallant Member who had put the Question in his prefatory remarks. He did not believe that the county of Dublin had any connection with the horrible crime that had been committed other than its being the place where the unfortunate lady met her death. The Government had taken, and were still taking, all the steps in their power to discover the perpetrator of the crime; but the right hon. Gentleman and the House would see that it was obviously undesirable at the present time to say anything more relative to the matter. He might, however, mention that a man named Terence Walsh was in prison under, the Westmeath Act, on suspicion of being accessory to the murder.