CHANGING THE VENUE

The Globe still continues to raise an outcry to the effect that London and Middlesex are unable to produce twelve men sufficiently honest capable and impartial to try the persons accused of being engaged in the Donnelly murders. Seeing that our contemporary has been engaged in lowering public estimation in the credibility of the chief witnesses of the Crown, it is clear that Toronto is about as bad a place as could be selected for the trial. Besides, Mr. Mowat has just offered a rewards of $4,000 for such evidence as may be "hereafter" given as will lead to the conviction of the murderers. This is a tacit admission that the evidence thus far obtained is not sufficient to ensure conviction, no matter where the trial may be held. We entirely dissent from the Globe when it says:-

"We are firmly of the opinion that as impartial jury cannot be got in Middlesex, and that the community will not be satisfied with the result of a trial in London. The prisoners could neither be condemned nor acquitted there without causing a great many people to suspect that justice had been disregarded."

No opinions that have been expressed in London or in Middlesex have been so adverse to the success of the Crown in this important case as those whish have appeared in the Globe , which has depicted the chief witness, William Donnelly as not worthy of credence, and that the boy O'Connor has been "stuffed." The Toronto paper was never very favorable to London, but the adverse opinion it now expresses, the allegation that an impartial jury cannot be found here or in the adjoining county, comes but awkwardly from a journal that has been teaching the people throughout Ontario that the Crown witness cannot be relied upon.