anything to say why sentence should not be passed on them. Allen spoke
briefly and bravely; he had not fired a shot, but he had helped to free
Kelly and Deasy; he was willing to die for Ireland. The others followed
in turn, Maguire protesting his innocence, and Condon declaring also that
he was not present (he also was reprieved). Then the sentence of death
was passed, and "God save Ireland"! rang out in five clear voices in
answer from the dock.

We had a sad scene that night; the young girl to whom poor Allen was
engaged was heartbroken at her lover's doom, and bitter were her cries to
"save my William!". No protests, no pleas, however, availed to mitigate
the doom, and on November 23rd, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were hanged
outside Salford gaol. Had they striven for freedom in Italy, England
would have honored them as heroes; here she buried them as common
murderers in quicklime in the prison yard.

I have found, with a keen sense of pleasure, that Mr. Bradlaugh and
myself were in 1867 to some extent co-workers, although we knew not of
each other's existence, and although he was doing much, and I only giving
such poor sympathy as a young girl might, who was only just awakening to
the duty of political work. I read in the _National Reformer_ for
November 24, 1867, that in the preceding week, he was pleading on
Clerkenwell Green for these men's lives:

"According to the evidence at the trial, Deasy and Kelly were illegally
arrested. They had been arrested for vagrancy of which no evidence was
given, and apparently remanded for felony without a shadow of
justification. He had yet to learn that in England the same state of
things existed as in Ireland; he had yet to learn that an illegal arrest
was sufficient ground to detain any of the citizens of any country in the