The last sentence of the law was not resorted to in political offence, for the days of rebellion in the open field had passed.

But there were the Resident Magistrates ready to do their master Balfour's bidding, and to send men to imprisonment, in some cases followed by bread-and-water discipline--by stripping of clothes and other atrocities, which made the court of the Resident Magistrate the antechamber to the cell, and the cell the antechamber to the tomb.

In all these ghastly and tragic dramas, enacted all over Ireland, Mr.
Carson was the chief figure--self-confident, braggart, deliberate--winding the rope around his victim's neck with all the assured certainty of the British Empire, Mr.Balfour and the Resident Magistrates behind him.
[Sidenote: Mr.Carson's exterior.] Nature has stamped on Mr.Carson's exterior the full proclamation of his character and career.

There is something about his appearance and manner that somehow or other seems to belong rather to the last than the present century.

He is a very up-to-date gentleman in every sense of the word--clothes included.