"Following the example of O'Connell, when he was in a similar predicament, they set their wits to work to gain time. Costello took advantage of his legal privilege, to traverse to the next Commission; the others pleaded in abatement, that some of the Grand Jurors who had found the bills, were not seised of freeholds in the County of Dublin. A number of arrests took place, at the same time, in the county of Tipperary. Among the persons held to bail was Lord Galway, who had filled the chair at an anti-tithe meeting held in the neighbourhood of Clonmel.... "Before the end of the year they were brought to trial, and the majority of them, after a few convictions had taken place, pleaded guilty to the indictments. They pleaded guilty, even by the advice of O'Connell himself, their great leader in politics and law, under whose immediate patronage the holding of these meetings, and the denunciations which they thundered forth, had been conducted. Two of his most noisy retainers, the president and vice-president of the Trades' Political Union, were convicted at Dublin, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Their defence was that, in the course they had taken regarding tithes, they were only following the example of ministers and of the people of England, in regard to rotten boroughs, and they thought they had been aiding the Ministry in their efforts to abolish tithes. A number of similar convictions took place in the counties of Cork and Tipperary. The punishments inflicted were fines and imprisonment. The criminals were looked upon as martyrs, and the penalties which they were suffering were set down as another unpardonable injury committed against Ireland, by the English Government and Protestant Church." [Illustration: Dresses.] Crime, however, continued unchecked. The clergyman of Borrisokane, in the county of Tipperary, having found it necessary to seize and sell some cattle belonging to refractory debtors, the combination prevented an auctioneer from acting and purchasers from bidding. The cattle were offered back to the owners at the low price bid for them, but this was scornfully refused. They must have blood, the more especially as the attendance of the military at the sale had prevented violence there. A driver, accompanied by a son of the clergyman, conducted the cattle to a neighbouring fair. On the public road, and in the broad daylight, the non-payers of tithes murdered the driver; and, although his companion did survive, it was only by mistake--they left him for dead upon the highway. Another clergyman was shot dead on his own lawn, while overlooking the labours of his servants.