The prisoner then proceeded to criticise the evidence against him
at considerable length. He declared emphatically that one of the
documents sworn to be in his handwriting was not written by him. He
thus continued:--

Your lordships are well aware that there are many
contradictions in the informers' testimony, and now here is
a matter which I am going to mention for the first time.
Corydon. in his first information at Kilmainham, swears that
he never knew me until he saw me at a Fenian pic-nic, and this
he modifies afterwards by the remark, that any man would be
allowed into these pic-nics on the payment of a certain sum.
I did not pay much attention to what the fellow was saying
about me, as I thought it did not affect me in the least; but
this I can distinctly remember, that Mr. Anderson, jun.--and
he is there to say if I am saying anything false--said that
the evidence of Corydon did not affect any one of the six
prisoners put in this dock but another and myself. It _is_
very strange if that was said by Mr. Anderson. He knew
that there was nothing more to be got out of Corydon,
the informer--that he had told everything he knew in his
information, but on pressure there was found to be a little
left in the sponge. They refreshed his memory a little, and
he comes to think that he saw Costello at a meeting in
814 Broadway I think he gives it. And here is a singular
occurrence--that Devany, who never swore an information
against me, comes on the table and swears that he also saw me
at 814 Broadway Here is one informer striving to corroborate
the other. It is a well-known fact that these informers speak
to each other, go over the evidence, and what is more likely