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following upon the recent debate in the House of Commons on the Fenian prisoners, still held most justly in durance, come particulars from Western Australia of the escape of the half dozen jail-birds who, while they were in captivity, excited so much sympathy among Irish rebels and their abettors. Every Englishman knew that this sympathy was misplaced, and, as a matter of fact, it turns out that it was the very mildness of the captivity of the Hibernians in an Australian penal settlement which made their escape so easy.

[After telling how the rescue was effected, the "Telegraph" continued:]

So the English cruiser had to return to Freemantle as empty as it left, and the skipper of the Catalpa, who was evidently, like most Yankee mariners, an accomplished sea lawyer, sailed off in triumph, laughing at our scrupulous obedience to international law. This is a humiliating result, and it is not easy to see who most deserves blame,—the sleepy warder who allowed all the men to give him the slip and sounded no alarm in time to overtake them on their long carriage drive, or the authorities at Rockingham, who permitted the Catalpa to get outside the territorial limit before stopping her. Nor is it clear what is the next step to be taken. If the American vessel took on board the convicts in Australia, that is in British waters, we presume that we can insist on their rendition and on redress in some shape for a violation of our sovereignty. We can readily conceive what would have happened if an English vessel in the harbor of say Norfolk,