I have said I was angry about it when in prison, but since reading the letter over fully, I am angry no longer; I confess it would be an ample vengeance, if I were a much more vindictive man than I am, for a statesman who had any reputation to lose, to pen such a letter. (_Cheers._) The letter conveyed a hideous and cowardly imputation against a man whose mouth was shut. (_Cheers._) That letter breathed in every sentence of it the temper of a beaten and an angry man (_cheers_),--I was going to say, of an angry woman (_laughter and cheers_), but I don't want to say it, because it would be a gross libel on a gentle and tender sex. ("_Hear, hear._") From all I have been able to learn in England since, I feel that it is no longer necessary for us to defend ourselves to the English people. (_Cheers._) I feel there is not a Tory of the fifth or sixth magnitude, who really in his heart believes for one instant that Irish members are such poor creatures as to cry out against the appearance of a prison. (_Cheers._) The honorable member for Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) said that we attempted to set up a distinction between members of Parliament and the peasants, our comrades and friends who are convicted under the act. There is not a shadow or a tittle of foundation for that statement. ("_Hear, hear._") We have claimed nothing for ourselves as members of Parliament that we don't claim equally for every man convicted under the summary clauses of the act; for if he is a criminal, there is no reason why he should not be tried before the ordinary tribunal. ("_Hear, hear._") We do not ask poor men to make a hard fight harder by resistance to prison rules; but if we win, they shall win as well as ourselves. ("_Hear, hear._") Our position simply this: You are perfectly welcome to treat us to all the punishments that your courts of law prescribe for the very vilest miscreant in society,--the plank bed, or bread-and-water diet-solitary chnfinement, or deprivation of books and writing materials; you are perfectly welcome to heap every physical degradation on us, if that is your generous and chivalrous treatment of political prisoners, and you will never hear a word of complaint from us if you stick to that; but if you not only do that, but go further, and try and subject us to moral torture, from which criminals are altogether exempt, when you ask us to make a voluntary acknowledgement of our equality with criminals, then we say, "No; we will die first (_cheers from Irish members_), and you will have to learn the distinction between your criminal classes and Irish political prisoners, even if it should take a coroner's jury and their verdict to make the distinction." (_Loud cheers._) I can only say that if any one has reason to blush, it is not we. ("_Hear, hear._") I hope I am not detaining the House. (_Cheers._)