"He might have hoped for a verdict in his favour had 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 dropped. As soon as this was effected, Patrick Ring, but for whose imprisonment on an accusation of murder the trial would have gone on, 'was again allowed to walk out of jail, without having undergone any examination--without having had any evidence produced against him.'"