§ MR. ROCHE (Galway, E.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the report in the Freeman's Journal of 27th May last, of the proceedings of a trial before two Resident Magistrates at Portumna, in which five men of the district were charged with having committed a riotous assault on two constables named O'Gowan and M'Grady, and two emergency men, when the charges against all the accused were dismissed; whether he has seen the evidence which shows that the constables and the emergency men had been drinking together from the morning of the day on which the alleged offence was committed; that Constable M'Gowan at the trial denied some of the statements which he had sworn in the deposition previously made by him; that Constable O'Grady at Mrs. Kelly's yard fired off his rifle loaded with buckshot, and M'Gowan and he attacked the accused with their rifles; that, the emergency man Kingsbury struck the accused Dewin with a loaded whip; and that Kingsbury admitted at the trial that he had been previously fined for drunkenness, and also for firing off a revolver in the public road; and what steps he intends to take with reference to the conduct of the constables and the emergency men on this occasion?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.It is the fact that the Magistrates dismissed the case, partly on a point of law, and partly on account of the nature of the evidence.