The Press. — London, England, 1853-08-13 00:00:00

~~ investigation through Europe on the subject of education. We travelled together. They gave lectures on the subject iu rierniatty and different parts of Europe—over all the LOW I.ollllltriVa. I remember their separating on a difference of opinion. They then returned to F.nrffand. 1 returned in Is2tl also. I knew nothing of them after quitting then'. 1 was engaged with these gentlemen in investigating the subject of eduention, which has been my practice threigh life. After leaving them I went after a person named Baron von Heine:fie, slid learns. I from him a 'system of 1111 l e 11101.1104, sir arteicial menney, and having learned Dr. Gray's " Meteorite •reelinieis," when at school, I took a fancy to the subject, and published a aunt on the subject un my return in Me for the benefit of the public. Oil my return to England I made inquiries about any family, and found that my father wax dead, and Sir John in perKession. I wur not at that time decisive on the subject of Sir Hugh Smyth being my father. 1 i 111 l siediately began the !rushing of my system by going to Scotland, where I first began iii the city of Edinburgh ; I made no inquiries whatever of my family. I lived by my profession—by the system. I taught it in every Behold in England—male and female. I think 1 vow tinned in that profession from five to seven yeare. 1 gave it up iss 188 I then took up the subject of oratory. About 10438, the Wiese continued, ho came to From: to lecture, and then begun to make inquiries regarding him family. Never inquired for Mr. Davis, Or saw him. lie wan then dead. Only saw old Mr. Proviso. I called and had Howe words with I • on the "subject of his (obstitowy in refusing to give me any information respect ing my mother. fused harsh expresaions to him, and, lie being 1111 sold man, Ktniook me with his walking-stick on the head. 11.1 afterwards took me up entire to his bedroom, opened his bureau, gave me the bible and teams jewellery. A large picture, said to be a likeneelo of my father, hung In his moue Ile also gave me te b Ile of papers, with directions to take them to a *elicitor at Wernsimoter. [The jewellery and portrait were handed to the jury, Kiel 'scrutinised by them for some time. The jewellety were a wedding ring and three others. One had it seal milli a creel of the 11 lon fluidly, toad another load the initials J. nearly worn nut; the fourth ring lied the initials .1. (1., and there was a hair brooch.] The initials J. G. stand for thanking, lay grandmother, and .1. If. for James Bernard, my grandfather. I that saw those entries in the Idiots. after our first visit to Ireland. I went there last Christina's. Every year after 183t4 1 made inquiries of nay family on coming to Bristol. 1 had no idea that it was nay father's brother that was in perses• (deli. I thought it was my father's Heti. 1 went to Kee Sir John in 1419--May the lath, a Friday—at Ashton Court. Wens alone. Hr seemed annoyed at my barman'', but afteraarsho talk me into the small library ur slininteromai. 1 rather mimeos.. he felt eonscioms who it was. We sat 110W11 together. I told him as much NH 1 I'olllll remember of my past life. He appeared (OWNS. :.ively 'gained, and in so dreadful a state that it was painful to behold. I lied never "seen 111111 before. To eaten him I merely sails! I was not collie there to take his title sor his property, hut merely wanted a provision for my f ily ill al osititable 11111 ttttt 'l', and pooeurity after hie sleuth. Ile uteri this remarkable emotes. situ—one he was always acciteuened to—" You are, indeed, the sou of nay brother." There are expressions %Welt people id it ayr use, front habit or other VBll/41'. After considerable discussion it was arranged that I should go to Chester for may fatuity, bring theta home to Ashton Court, arid he %sould stay at I loath Isle usual residence. He gave 1110 all the money he hail, a WI. note on the Bank of England, and ailitl lie would give a draft OH labs private bank toenomov if 1 required it.. I only regret I did not take it. 1 went oil' by the train loom Bristol to Cheater. tln my return a ith may family, In twelve days, 1 learned that my uncle was dead. Mr. Fenton, the steward, said, " Sir, you are too lute; your uncle, if Ile he NO, war f. I dead In his bed the next morning." I mail.' 110 farther remark. toeing too earwig con f led at the extrwonlinary eirentioaance. I slid then the only thing a lust man esoulslslo-1 MOW 110 chance there, and gave it up, and went to Bath with my family. 'rite tirst time t tack way legal step% was 011 usy visit to Taunton, in March, IKol, alien 1 went to an attorney at Wellington—a Mu'. Redline'. I csonstilted nobody else. exec pt in private, 1 'Ohl .111141 ass that, introduce) to Mr. Catlin—it might be iu the idiot- Hun ttttt sr of 1e42. Ile took six months before he would decide as to shot he would (le. Before I left BriKtel I (sidled oti several attorneys, mid all declined to interfere. I then called I/11 learrister, who introduced Hui' to three gentlemen They had Illy ease for a time before tlwni, they took aerosol. interest in lily ease. but gave It 111) in I.olllo4lllellee Of the expense that asethl br necessary. They muggeoded that I should find a • lollenisita—a person who would find 10,00411. ur 211,n0/. I lead several inter views with attorneys in leonslon, but they wanted to bind 111 e dean to be little better than it steward of the property till they were paid. I said I would rather net have the property then submit to such terms. Mr. Caitlin then undertook it. one man went so far as to offer to 'strike . Another, who was about to be married, offered to sell all his ioreperty mid take up my cave. if I await' agree no those terms. bast Clarimtmas I Nelit to Deland. I had not then the bible in my hands. It was after We rettirmsl from Ireland ass gave melee to the 11.11111114. 11. oei femininely turned out, Providence brought every thing to light. Int 11111' rtsturn we gave notice 10 the W 11,11014. 1 II:01111111A the title of baronet iinatiediately artier--1 monist tip my mind to retreats it. with vigour. I assumed the aims, issued my eards, fairly end honourably, supposing diet those who haul the pro perty would, if they thought I had no right, prosecute 111 V, and I Plumb' be the defendant. cnoss-exemitied by Sir F. 'rttersisiett : I have a good memory on things that. intereet file. Ilays• from the early age (of three years and a half a perfeet ressolleetion of the eiremustenee. that. then testament. Provin's family coithistesl of herself only HMI two boys. I was treated with great care anol respect, mosering red morocco shoes, never being left without my 1111•H'. I was a ininehievouss little boy. 1 remember at the time of the proclamation of peace there was it lei phal are h. II. with my poeket-knite, cut the string, and it fell (loan, and I was saved fmni death by an old woman who palled me sway. WAN about eight alien I went ti Warminster. Might have heel' While at. school there, always 'spent nay holidays( in I,OIH-7- leaf, except ouoinetimen at Lsorsi I 'ittk's. I was more intimate with the Cork's, because they were Boyles, unit 1 We!. culledl4 Richard, after the Boylee. Saw the slewager morhiuus.se at lAongleat. First heard from the Marchionese of Ilia It a lio teas my father. !A letter beimg shown to witlleSll, he said :1 This was written by me. I find in it this passage—" My mother came to England to the house of her relative, the Niatreitinitess of Bath, at Lougleat, in 11117. and sliest the same year." 'Chat was it mistake, arising !lent nay inaccurate know ledge of the facts. tins' this peewee else—" I was Seta to Winchester. ler Br. imblanl. Remained there till eightsoen. and spent uq holidays with the dowager nianshionesr." I did not then know the dis the-thin between the dowager marehionees and the other. 11 wise not the fact that I reniainesi till soighteen. I only wrote it as a 'supposition. I 'supposed I was of that age. sir F. Tit VAltir.R : How tit) you mien ? %%Rile.% hesitated. and at lust says, " visieeititsles." In the letter he arse.% ".trithist all niy viriseinulsos 1 eould not be mis taken. 1 have stood too soften by her allow iu company too be mistaken about her ladyship." This was written in ounover to a letter from Lady Caroline Thyme, in which she Kehl lie meet be mistoken ne to the dowager marellioness. In nnother letter written to her on the eat of November. Is7o. he again wrote that he aseertaineol that his modest's 11111111' NOS Lovell, and that she was VOIIIIIIIIIIOII or lady's -Hasid to the mar- Iu explanation of this statement, the witness soh' Le THE PRESS. was cast away at sea on coming from Scotland, and lost all los papers, and atnoagitt them a sort of licence fur marriage iu Ireland, iu which the moue of L o v e ll was mentioned. AM a good French scholar; can pronounce it well. Some of toy letters are signed " 1.1.11.” 1 got the degree at Marischal Col lege, Aberdeen. " LL.D." means " a doctor learned in the law." (Laughter.) I gut the degree for lectures I gave in the college. I returned to England hi 1820, having been absent, it might be, eight years. The Cooney I took lasted a long time ; 1 earued a good deal by lecturing. In 10416 I had an idea who my fatliersas. How do you spell whoa hom e. (Laughter.) 1 could find you dictionaries in which it is an spelled. How doyou spell " (let aside ”?—" Sett assid e." (Laughter.) Sir F. TRESIGER: These words are so spelled four times in his letters !—I spell them with two t'a and two s's from &learned commentator. I have authority fur so spelling. I prefer spelling " aside" " away." That is the way 1 think it ought to be spelled. I knew in 1528 who toy father was as well as watt men can. I think I made inquiries ht 1525 of individuals at Bristol, but did not go near those individuals who saw no' when young. I had not time to give a thought to such things; 1 attended to my lee tilling. I thought it useless to make inquiries, as I thought Sir John was the elder brother. [ln a letter of the 13th Septenther, 1852, written to Mr. Gore lAngton, he said he could get the re ginter of his mother's burial, in 1797, at any time, the nano being spelled .lane Smyth.) I went to Warminster in the begin ning of this year. I saw an entry of the burial ill the register when I first went. When 1 went the second tonne the entry was erased. The clergyman showed me the register. Will swear there was than an entry of the date of February, 1790, of the burial of Jane Smyth, aged 10. 1 went to another village to in quire, and on my return the entry was erased. and another name was substituted. That second time I went with Mr. Catlin, and the hook was let to 11* both for all hour together, nobody else being there. This took place at the rectory. The cross-examination was continued at much length on the subject of spelling, many words being stated on which it was elicited that the claimant's notions of orthography were rather confused. The object was to trace the authorship of the deed or docutnent said to have been written by old Sir Hugh Smyth in 1823, and on which the proof of his claim might almost be said to turn. In that deed, which was the first of which the plaintiff professed to know anything, the word "rascality" was spelled with two l's—" Rascallity;" the words "set aside," "sett usside ;" and the name of the supposed attesting wit ness, Dobson, was spelled with two b's—" Dobbson ;" anti " whom" with a final e—" whome." The deed of 1823 was the most formal document; but it ap peared that when the plaintiffs agent went to search for evidence to the handwriting of the attesting wit nesses, who were all dead, several persons were found who, from the character of the handwriting in the signature of Dobson, would have thought it was his signature but for the two li Others said that Edwards never wrote his name William in full, but simply W. Singularly enough, some time after this had been discovered, another deed, dated 1821, was sent down from London by some anonymous friend. It was ill substance the same as that of 1823, but a little shorter, and in it Dobson was spelled right, with one b ; and Edwards's Christian name was written as he usually wrote it, with the initial W. only. The plaintiff's cross-examination was afterwards directed to the subject of the picture obtained from Provis, and on the back of which an inscription had been made to appear, as he stated, by the application of acid. The inscription was, " Hugh Smyth, Esq., son of Thomas Smyth, Esq., of Stapleton, county of Gloucester, 1796." This picture, it was alleged, was a picture of one of the lirovis family, and there were two erasures on the back. Reverting to the docu ments dated 1822 and 1823, the claimant was cross examined as to the seals appended to them, and which bore the arms of the Smyth family. He de dared that ho never saw either of the documents before the 17th of March, and then took a "rubbing" of the seal, which he transmitted to a London en graver and had a new seal mule. Tile engraver, however, made a mistake, the motto having been cut " Qui capit capitol.," instead of " Qui eapit capitur," and he then had another made. He swore he did not .see the seal before the 17th of March on the deed. A letter was, however, produced, written by the plaintiff to a clergyman in Ireland, dated March 13, and bearing an impression from the identical seal. At this detection the claimant became confused, turned pale, and asked leave to retire, which was, however, refused. The case bad now lasted from early on Monday morning to the afternoon of Wednesday, anti the sot disant Sir Richard had been for more than twelve hours under examination. At this moment a most remarkable occurrence took place, leading to a dra matic "scene" in court, and an abrupt termination to the case. It seems that a London tradesman, upon reading on Tuesday evening a report of the earlier proceedings in a daily paper, called certain circumstances to mind, which he communicated by electric telegraph to Gloucester on the following day. The message reached Sir F. Thesiger at the critical moment, and the information it conveyed was em bodied in the following question : Did you on the 19th January last apply to a person at 301. Oxforti-street, to engrave the ring with the Bandon crest, and the brooch with the words "Jane (looking - ? The articles referred to were those the plaintiff had said he obtained in 1838 from Provis, and had re • tamed as family relics ever since. Appearing now to feel that his chame was gone, he returned a direct affirmative to the question, whereupon the court experienced a lively sensation. The spectators were astounded, and Sir Frederick Thesiger himself sat SATURDAY, down deeply moved. Rising some minutes after wards, he pushed home a few queries which elicited that at the time the plaintiff had sworn he was ill for eighteen months in 111 he had been lying in Ilebester gaol imprisoned for horsestealing. The counsel for the plaintiff then threw up their brief's, regretting that they had ever been concerned in the case. Defendant's counsel, being appealed to, afterwards expressed a conviction that the solicitor for the prosecution (Mr. Catlin) had also been grossly deceived. The plaintiff was ordered into custody, and removed to gaol on a charge of perjury, all the documents, including the letters, bible, seals, rings, pictures, &c., being impounded. THE ColtticPT DISPOSAL OF INDIAN PATRONAGE, as alleged by Mr. Bright lately in the House of Com mons, and then pointed with circumstantial state ments, which, however, the hon. member declined to particularise by giving names and dates, formed the ground of an application urged by Mr. Clarkson, on behalf of the East India Company, at the Mansion house, on Wednesday last. Various inquiries had, it seen►s, been made in order to trace the parties re ferred to by Mr. Bright; and it was discovered that the charge in question was based on information derived from Mr. N. A. Wilkinson, M.P. for Lambeth, and that the person who was mentioned as receiving the offer of an Indian appointment, for a certain con sideration, was his brother, Mr. Norman Wilkinson, a stockbroker. The application made by Mr. Clark son was for a siunmons against that gentleman. it was true that, as it appeared, he had declined the appointment (which was a cadetship for his son) on discovering the corrupt nature of the transaction; but, as the act included those who " bargained for the sale or gift of office," as well as those who actually sold such office, in its penal clause, Mr. Clarkson contended that the words were wide enough, and Mr. Wilkinson's bargain had apparently gone far enough to bring him within the provision of the statute. The Company, however, it was evident, wished only to get at the party who made this offer, but whose name Mr. Wilkinson had refused to dis cover. Mr. N. A. Wilkinson. on whose evidence the whole charge was grounded, being examined, stated the impression lett on hit: mind by various conversa tions with his brother Norman : " I do not know exactly whet t the time was; it may have been a year and a half or two )eat a ago. Ido not know, but my im pression is that my brother vommunicated to me that he had had an otter made to hint of an appointment in the East India Company's service. My hnprt•asiou is that my brother column ideated to me that he had had an offer front some friend of his of such tut appointment. Afte r that 1 understood that he had been given to understand by this party that he expected com.•- tluag in return for that apron anion. After that he communi cated to me that he had acc...rtained still further that he should be obliged, he found, to sign NUM declaration that he had nut given any consideration tia• this appointment ; and that, ill consequence of that, he had declined to have anything more to do with it ; and that is in substance all that 1 know about it." The witness positively declined, on a point of honour, to disclose the name of the "fiend," and stated that his brother shared in that conscientious refusal. All that was elicited in the course of prolonged questioning by Mr. Clarkson was a declaration that the party was not a director of the Company. The summons was granted, Mr. Clark son throwing out a warning that the information now refused did not belong to the class of privilege d communications which a court would protect a win tess in withholding upon a trial. TILE LONG VACATION.—On Woduesday the long vacation commenced, but not the long vacation of former years. The Common Law Procedure Act has made an alteration in law proce ?dings. Pleadings are still stayed from the 10th August to the '_'4th October, but writs are issued wit It special endorse• ments, and, in the event of a fort-appearance, judg ment can be signed, and execution issued in the vacation. Thete is no judgment by default in the county courts, and no long vacation. One of the inquiries by the commissioners ab out to investigate those tribunals will be to ascertain whether by default the expenses of suits cannot bet materially lessened and the fees diminished. In tF:e superior courts judgment can be obtained for about 3/. for sums under '2O/. The profession compl: tin that the outlay is greater in the county than in 11 to superior courts. The object of the commission wi 11 be to make the county courts more conducive to cheap and speedy ' justice, if such a thing can be obtained. TIIE MASTERS' OFFICES closed on Monday, and remain shut until October. The re is no vacation master. IN THE. INSOLVENCY COURT Mr. Law took his seat on Tuesday as Chief Commissioner, and on the 30th inst. the new Commissioner. Mr. Sergeant Murphy, will sit for the first time. The commissioners have appointed two days during the vacation on which applications for bail are to be made ; and parties in prison, by availing themselves of the opportunity, can save some weeks' confinement. The days are the 15th and 30th instant.