The Press. — London, England, 1857-12-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 19, 1857. It devolved upon him a short time since to appoint four deputy-assistant barristers to act for gentlemen incapacitated for their duties. What does Lord Chancellor Brady do? He nominates three Roman Catholics ont of the four, and the fourth an advanced Liberal ! To four northern counties of Ireland, the counties where Protestantism has its principal seat, he despatches three gentlemen of Popish opinions. Mark the significance of the act ! The assistant barrister is ex officio a magistrate. He takes his seat on the bench as chairman of quarter sessions by virtue of his appointment. This will enable you to appreciate the grace and kindliness of the Lord Chancellor in placing a Roman Catholic in authority over a body of Protestant gentlemen ! But who are these barristers on whom these gifts are bestowed? The first of them is a Mr. Hobart, whose practice at the Bar must, I suppose, have been too extensive to report, for there is no record of it. His position in the profession, to say the least, in no way fitted him for such a preferment. But if we are to say what he was not as a barrister, we must not omit to say what he was as a politician. This gentleman was the petitioner against the election of Messrs. Grogan and Vance for Dublin city, and, it' report speaks truly, he was a witness before the revising barrister in the interest of the Liberal party ; and, although his testimony was very positive, and offered sponta neously, curiously enough the revising barrister did not accept his evidence as at all conclusive, but gave his decision as if Mr. Hobart bad never appeared before him ! The second nominee of Lord Chan cellor Brady was a Mr. Coffey, whom no one ever accused of eminence or suspected of wisdom. But then he was counsel for the petition aforesaid, pre sented by Mr. Hobart, and in that capacity won the laurels which are likely to attach to a ridiculous defeat ! The third gentleman chosen was a Mr. O'Farral, a Roman Catholic of high character and good family, who was found to be a little too independent for Dublin Castle, and so was conciliated by this appoint ment. The fourth deputy was a Mr. Richards, son of the judge of that name. This gentleman, it is conjectured, as no other hypothesis is as reasonable, was selected for the office as a compensation to the baron for losing his post of judge of the Encum bered Estates Court, which was given to him as a job, and has recently been taken from him. These are the most modern examples of Lord Chancellor Brady's political disinterestedness. I can add to them ad infinitum. It would perhaps be in teresting to your English readers to have a list of the number of men promoted by this Government, who are, or were, members of the Catholic Defence Association, the Tenant League Confederacy, and the Repeal of the Union Society, with a catalogue of the number of Roman Catholics rewarded on the Bench and otherwise, in proportion to their strength at the Bar ; the Protestants being about 475, and the Roman Catholics under 100 ! But these are details which must be reserved for a future occasion. The (Mayo election is fixed for the 30th instant, and to all appearance Lord John Browne will have a walk over. Colonel Higgins's supporters have been getting up a requisition asking him to withdraw his resignation, and offering to return him free of expense. It is understood, however, that Colonel Higgins is on his wfty to Italy for the winter ; and even were there time to communicate with him, his friends do not think he would come forward on the present occa , ion. A large body of troops have been ordered to Mayo in the event of a contest ; a wise precaution, as there is much excitement in the county owing to the impending prosecution of the priests. ship books, and continued to pay the dividends to piing Taylor in bank-post bills instead of warrants. Things went on thus till the death of the elder Taylor in 1856, when investigation took place:di; covery of the fraud was made, and arrest, trial, and conviction rapidly followed. A SINGULAR CASE, in which circumstantial evi dence set aside positive testimony, occurred at Staf ford this week. Philip Clare, a miner, was indicted for the murder, by drowning, on the night of the 29th April last, at Bilston, of one Elizabeth Hopley. The principal witness against Clare was a watchman named Wall. He swore that he knew Philip Clare; that about midnight on the 29th of April, being then on duty, he saw two people on the bridge at Bilston, and heard a woman's voice say, " Philip, don't kill me ? You said you would kill me before." He saw the man on the bridge strike the woman down. Hereupon he went up to the man, whom he instantly recognised as Philip Clare, and saw him put the woman on his shoulder. " Philip," said Wall, " you'll have to suffer for this !" Clare turned upon him and said, " If you speak, I'll serve you the same." Wall at the moment let him proceed, but followed him. Clare then citified the woman upon his shoulder across the bridge, and turned to the canal, Wall following close behind him. Clare now paused, and, addressing his pursuer again, said, " Now, if you speak, or tell any one, I will kill yoa. I will serve you the same way as I served her, and set some one else to watch instead." He then turned from him, and, carrying the body a little further, deliberately, and in Wall's presence, put the woman in the water. This occurred about twenty minutes past midnight on the night of the 29th-30th of April last. Wall went on his way, but he had not gone above a quarter of a mile when the prisoner overtook him and renewed his threats, and Wall, being terrified at the threats which the other had used, and apprehensive of the consequences to himself, locked himself up in an engine-house until daylight. Such was Wall's statement. It was partially supported by another watchman, Hawes, who said he had heard a man and a woman quar relling, but then it was about 11.30 p.m., while Wall swore it was from 12 to 12.20. On the other hand Philip Clare accounted for his time on the night in question in the following manner .—From 6.30 until about 11 p.m. be was proved to have been at a public-house at Bilston. At eleven o'clock he left the public-house in company with one William Wolliscroft and three others. Wolliscroft proved that he had accompanied Clare to about a quarter of a mile from his own house, and John Plant, a cottager, who lives near Clare, saw the prisoner pass his door about twelve o'clock; stopped him, and remained in conversation till nearly two o'clock. The jury at once acquitted Clare, and the question still remains, was the woman murdered, and if so, by whom ? JACKSON AND ATWELL, AND MRS. JACKSON, engaged in the robbery of Lady Ellesmere's jewels, were tried at the Old Bailey on Tuesday. Jackson was con victed, and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. Atwell, in consideration of the valuable information he bad given relative to the robbery, was sentenced only to receive an additional six months' imprison ment. Mrs. Jackson was acquitted on the ground of having acted under the compulsion of her husband. UPON the application of Mr. Bodkin, the Recorder on Tuesday issued a warrant for the apprehension e Mr. E. A. Glover, the late member for Beverley, on a charge of having make a false declaration to the House of Commons as to his qualification to sit in that house. The Morning Star thinks that "it would be a curious subject of inquiry to ascertain how many hon. gentlemen now sitting and voting in the house might be placed in a similar position." Two HORRIBLE CASES ,F MURDER AND SUICIDE have been brought to light this week. The first, which occurred on Thursday week at Croydon, acid was in quired into on Tuesday before Mr. Carter, the Surrey coroner, arose from that "lust for gold" which drives so many men to misery and death. It appeared from the evidence that Mr. William Smithers, a clerk in the Bank of England. resided with his mother and a younger brother at Tbornton•heath, near Croydon. William, contrary to all the rules of the Bank of England, bad been speculating freely on the Stock Exchange, and had been unsuccessful. He had borrowed 701. of a friend, which he was unable to pay ; he had appro priated to his own use 201. which his mother had intrusted to him to pay some accounts, and from letters which have been found it seems that he was about assigning some life policies as security for his engagements. The mental depression produced by his unsuccessful speculations drove him to drink, and that only maddened his overexcited brain. On the morning of Thursday, Mrs. Smithers knocked at the door of Elizabeth Morgan, a servant residing in the house, and desired her to get up, as she heard Mr. William moving, and supposed he might be wanting to go out. It was *ben a little utter tivo o'clock. At that 1227 time lie was in Charles's bedroom, which was adjacent to that of Mrs. Smithers. As soon as she had dressed horself, William called to the servant, and requested her to bring him a wineglass, as he had got some medicine for hi, mother. Oa receiving the glass, he went back again into Charles's room. When she had prepared breakfast, she went upstairs to see whether the gentlemen were coming down. She knocked at the door, and receiving no answer, listened, when she heard one of them snoring. She went downstairs again, thinking she would let theta sleep on. About nine o'clock a lad brought a letter, which he said was to be given to Mr. William Smithers at once, and . Elizabeth Morgan took it up. Not being able to obtain any reply to repeated knocks, she opened the door, when both the young men appeared as though . they were lying dead in bed. Charles was foaming at the mouth. She asked a young woman residing in the next house to accompany her upstairs, and upon entering the room they found that both the young men • were dead. Morgan then exclaimed, " Good God, Anne, here is a poison bottle, and the wineglass I gave Mr. William this morning." They wore lying on the bed, between the two brothers., Morgan then went into her mistress's bedroom, and found her in a ball-sitting posture, her head resting against the bedpost. She was quite dead. Mr. Bot tomley, who was called in, at once decided that the two brothers had died from the effects of prussio acid, and there could be no doubt that William ad ministered a dose to his brother, probably in his sleep, and that he then took the poison himself. It appeared also, from the results of a post-mortem examination, that his mother, who was in the habit of taking medicine of a morning, had also taken a dose of prussic acid which had caused her death. The jury deliberated for an hour, when the following verdict was returned :—" That Mary Smithers and Charles Smithers were wilfully murdered by the administration of poison by William Holton Smithers, and that William Holton Smithers afterwards com mitted self-destruction while suffering under tem porary mental derangement." The second cas's to which we allude was that of a man and womar temporarily residing at Harper's Coffee-shop, in. Dram - .J-street, Euston square. These peopl. ,•om Dover on 25th November, and stopped at the Penton Hotel ; from thence, on the 3rd inst., after paying their bill, they removed to Harper's Coffee-house, in Drummond-street, Euston-square. From that date to last Sunday they had lived at this coffee-house without paying their bill. On that day Mr. Harper asked for payment just as his lodgers were going out. They returned to their room, and nothing more was heard of them till, on the door being broken open at night, both man and woman were found lying one over the other on the floor with their throats cut. From the blood stains on the towel, and the basin full of blood, it is clear that the man cut the throat of the woman first, held her over the basin, deliberately wiped the razor, and then, kneeling down over her dead body, nearly severed his own bead from his body. An inquiry is pending, but from en examination of the bodies of each, and of a discovery of a peculiar nature on the man, it is believed that jealousy, and a fear of parting with the woman under their necessities, I induced him to murder her. *alp anb ;polite. Mr. HENRY S. BRIGHT, up to a recent date a re spected and influential citizen of Hull, a man engaged in most extensive mercantile transactions, and taking a foremost part in all religious and benevolent en terprises, was tried on Monday at the York Assizes, for having forged certain transfer deeds of the North- Eastern Railway Company. He was found guilty of the forgery, and sentencd to ten years' penal servi tude. The case offered a curious example of the manner in which principle is first weakened and then destroyed in the minds of certain men. Mr. Bright, up to that period a man of probity and honour, in 1845, seduced by his partner and uncle, was led into the vortex of railway speculation. He lost 10,0001. He endeavoured to retrieve himself, got deeper into the mire, " agonised on," as he expressed it, for two or three years, and at length, pressed for money, stole and sold for 1,0001. forty eight Newcastle and Berwick Extension shares stanling in the name of his partner's son, Robert John Taylor. These shares Bright sold secretly, without his partner's authority, forging the name of Robert John Taylor to the transfer deed. Of the 1,0001. which were the proceeds of the sale, 5001. were applied to pay losses on a corn speculation, and the same amount was sunk in a cotton speculation. itriglit made no minute of the ask, in the, partner. - - -.-- A OPERATIVE DISTRESS. _ . Accorauxu to present appearances much distress, we fear, must be anticipated this winter among the operative classes. In addition now to the great Manchester failures, the Yorkshire wooLcombers and spinners show evident signs of collapse. Messrs. Lister and Messrs. Cheeseborough have already suspended, and their fall must bring down others. At a recent meeting at Bradford, held for the pur pose of raising a subscription for the relief of the workpeople who have beer. thrown out of employ ment by reason of the great depression in trade, Mr. John Priestman, a gentleman extensively engaged in more than one branch of commerce, addressed the meeting, and said : He apprehended that the intensity of the distress bad never been exceeded during the last thirty years, taking into consideration the shortness of the period which had elapsed since its commencement. It affected all branches of trade in the borough—the merchant, spinner, and manufacturer. It was not limited to them. It extended to the small tradespeople. The ironfounders, he under stood, were affected by it. Certainly the dyers were, and the building trades generally. As regarded the spinners and manufacturers, he should estimate that the working hours were reduced at least fifty per cent., when be took into consideration the machinery that was standing and the mills which were working shu•rt time. The deprecia tion in reference to stock lie should look upon as at least twenty per cent. Therefore, he thought he was justified in saying that the distress affected all classes. The working people of course suffered the most, inasmuch as, if his statement was correct, they had lost fifty per cent. of their labour. - - ------ - The applications to the unions throughout the whole of the manufacturing districts are greatly increasing in number, and the amount of pauperism ►ill pro. : bably within a very short time awed that of UK