MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether a young man named Thomas M'Greevy has been sentenced to a month's imprisonment, with hard labour, at the Castlerea (county Roscommon) Petty Sessions, for alleged obstruction of the police; whether it is the fact that the obstruction consisted in asking Sub-Constable Nolan not to kill a man whom he had in custody, and whom he was brutally maltreating; whether Nolan replied by rushing at M'Greevy and dealing him a terrific blow on the head with his baton; whether several respectable witnesses (including Mr. O'Kelly, Professor in the Castlerea Seminary) swore that M'Greevy was standing seven yards away from the police, and gave no provocation for the assault upon him; and, whether, if this be so, he will advise the Lord Lieutenant to examine the evidence, with a view to the remission of the sentence?
§ MR. TREVELYAN, in reply, said, that the sentence of one month's hard labour was passed in this case for riot and obstruction of the police. The obstruction did not consist in a mere verbal remonstrance, but in raising a stone and advancing to strike the constable, who, in self-defence, was obliged to raise his baton. The witnesses did not swear the alleged circumstances. They contradicted each other; but they all agreed that there was a riotous mob.