Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1883 — RULING OF CAREY. [ARTICLE]

RULING OF CAREY.

Inside Facts Regarding the As* sassination. One of the Avenger’s Counsel Reveals the Motive for the Crime. [From the Chicago Daily News] The following Extract from a letter written by one of O'Donnell’s counsel will be read with interest. In connection with the trial there are facts given which have not heretofore been published: At last the truth may be told of the killing of James Carey. It was not to be told as long as a shadow of * chance remained to prevent the sacrifice of a patriot’s life for that of the infamous wretch whom he deliberately swept off the earth. For Patrick O'Donnell did deliberately kill James Carey, and he deliberately killed him because he was James Carey. There was no struggle. Carey made no attack on O’Donnell. O’Donnell never set up the plea of self-defense. Had he been permitted to tell the truth the flimsy subterfuge of self-defense would never have detracted from an act he considered meritorious in the sight of God and man. He knew the consequences of the act and would have manfully accepted them. Had Judge Denman permitted him to speak before pronouncing sentence, as he was bound by the law to do, O’Donnell would then have told the whole truth and vindicated himself. His savage denunciation of the British crown while the officers of the court stifled his words and dragged him from the dock to his cell, were not the furious whining of a coward, but the frenzy of a baffled and honest man, who, having deliberately done what he considered a duty, and for which he was perfectly indifferent to death, had been compelled, against his will, to occupy an ignoble attitude, and a ho burned to escape from mistaken advisers. I convey to the Dally News, on the highest possible authority, the true story of the killing of Carey and the events which have made up the train of its consequences. O’Donnell did not know Carey on the voyage from England to the Cape. He was not a member of any society. He was merely a rolling stone. He had wandered restlessly over many parts of the American States, incapable of peaceful residence. He had moved about in Ireland, and spent some time in England. With no definite aim he was going to Australia. Nervous and restless, almost to the verge of insanity, indifferentto natural ties, and reckless of his actions, be took with him for companion an unfortunate who was neither maid nor wife, a fact sufficient to show that he had not gone on a commission of vengeance whose fulfillment would fill the world with his name and turn the fiercest glare of notoriety on his character and habits. He had an unascertained constitutional disease which at times deprived him of some mental faculties and all but paralyzed his will. The circulation? of his blood was so uneven in his left side that the left arm was frequently palsied, and he had learned the use of an electric battery which, when found in his possession after the tragedy, was promptly thrown overboard as an infernal machine. So unstrung was his nervous system that it was absolutely necessary for him to abstain from alcoholic liquors, which he had not tasted for two years. He was a Donnegal peasant, tall and strapping, but feeble nervously, rude, and tunable to read or write. But he had learned the truth that every peasant in Ireland knows —the truth of the ruin of his native land and the degradation of its people by England- He knew that the latest instrument of that ruin and degradation was the monster James Carey. He had no suspicion that the man with whom he had played cards and drank an occasional glass of beer was this monster. But the news was ahead of the ship, and a local paper at the Cape contained an excited article denouncing the government for polluting Australia with the wretch. O’Donnell heard this article read and was shown a wood-cut of Carey, whom he at once recognized. He instantly resolved to kill Carey, out of sheer instinctive sense of duty as an Irishman. On the impulse of the resolution he said to the man who had shown him the wood-cut. “I’ll kill him!” as was sworn on the trial. O’Donnell forgot the man and incident, and Cubbitt's appearance was a surprise. < From the moment he formed his purpose he never wavered in it. But he knew it would not be easy to kill Carey, and he could not afford to make the attempt and fail. Carey was well armed, vigilant, and suspicious. O’Donnell determined to ship with him to Port Elizabeth, go with to the farm Carey had told him he was going to take, and then, without concealment of purpose or motive, show that there was no spot on which an Irish informer would be safe. O’Donnell became nervous and excited. In a reckless hope of calming himself he drank, the morning of the fatal day, a glass of whisky. It robbed him of self-control. He was not intoxicated, but his discretion was gone. Finding himself suddenly alone with Carey and his traveling companion he could not resist the desire to kill him at once. Carey, with lightning quickness, perceived his danger. The two Irishmen glowered at each other. Carey hissed: “Do you know me?” O’Donnell hissed back: “I do. You are Carey, the informer. To hell with you 1” The bullet sped with the words, and the deed was done. Carey clutched bis own revolver, but it was too late. O'Donnell discharged a second shot and a third to make sure of his work, and Carey rolled to the deck. No human eyes saw the encounter except O’Donnell’s companion, who threw her arms around him and filled the ship with her cries. He had weakly told her that morning his determination to kill Carey, and that he would be hanged for it. When Mrs. Carey reached the scene O’Donnell said to her: “1 had to do it,” meaning simply that he felt it to be his duty as an Irishman to kill the wretch who had sworn away innocent lives and enticed honest men to the gallows. His silence remained thereafter unbroken.