The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-03-27 00:00:00

REMARKABLE TRIAL FOR BREACH OF

PROMISE!

A singular trial for breach of promise was brought
to a close at the County Court of Warren. United
States, on the Bth inst.
The plaintiff was a milliner, 26 years of age, named
.ry Ferguson, c orrying on business in the village of
ispringlarii, and the defendant was Mr. John Arm-
strong Bradshaw, who is 47 years of age, and claims
to be a descendant to Bradshaw, the English regicide.
Evidence of the " promise" having been given, the
defendant urged in his defence that the plaintiff was
of African descent, and for that reason he could not,
under the laws of Ohio, legally wed her. This was
met IT demurrer on the ground that the law of 1861,
forbidding the union of a white person with one having
a distinct admixture of African blood, was superseded
by the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, or if not by the Civil Rights Act. The
demurrer w, not sustained by the Court, and the case
was sent to the jury on its merits.
The question of the purity of the plaintiff's blond
was the most interesting that came up on the trial. It
was shown that she had lived until n ne or ten years
of age with a woman known as Betsy Ferguson, as her
and Betsy, it was shown, was a liitle lighter than
a mulatto. Shalrick Ferguson and Pete Ferguson,
two mill:lanes, testifie 1 that the plaintiff was their
niece, the &night, of their sister lictsy, and that she
was INIM Am tile Kanawha river, in Virginia, and that
a white man named William Harvey was said to be
her father. Betsy Ferguson was living at the time at
the house of her father, being an unmarried woman.
The Ferguson family, they say, came from Virginia to
Springhoro' while Mary was a nursing child. They
were with the family, and never heard anyone ques-
tion the matter of her being the child of their sister.
I hree physicians were called, who said that they had
attended Mary medically, and that as they saw her
sick in bed, not appearing as she does in the Court-
room, she exhibited undoubted marks of African ad-
mixture. Other parties, supposed to be judges of such
matters, were called upon, and testified that they
could observe indications of African blood in the
plaintiff's appearance.
On the other side, inure than twice as many persona
said they saw in her no indications of negro blood.
It was shown that she associated with white persons,
and moved in good society. The trial lasted a whole
week, and the jury returned a verdict of 10,900
dollars (£2 000,) for the plaintiff, after being out but
a few minutes.

Whatever view the jury took of the question of
blood, (remarks a London contemporary,) the trial
sh.ovs that a firer spirit towards the negro race is fast
gmwing up in the Western States. It illustrates, too,
the social difficulties which will still remain even after
the political anti civil relations of the two races have
been settled on a basis t,f equality. These are matters
which legislation cannot rove, though this trial
probably shows that the law of Ohio lags in this matter
behind the feeling of the people.

of political affairs may not fairly undertake. ..T. Almost—
the heaviest complaint against the bill is that it has esta-
lilisheit the voluntary principle in Ireland instead of the
Roman Catholic Church, and we are told of the desperate
evils that will come when, instead of one voluntary and
discontented Church, we shall have three. (Laughter.)
Surely the right hon. gentleman and his learned colleague
could not have supposed that the House could be taken in
by anything so very small and hollow as that? (Cheers.)
The Catholic Church in Ireland is not now discontented
because it is not eibloweal, but because a smaller and in
numbers an Magnificent Church is established there,
not by the power and consent of Irishmen, but by the
power and will of the Imperial Parliament. ('heers.)
And to this small and comparatively ihsignificanP church
has been handed over all the ecclesiastical revenues
which belonged in ancient times and which now justly belong
to the whole of the Irhh nation. ("No, no" and cheers.)
But some hon, gentlemen opposite have a great feeling for
the congiegations So have I. (Hear. I think that the
congregations have a right to excite the sympathy of Parlia-
ment. But I have sten other congregations and how they
have emerged from their difficulties. In 1043 nearly 500
ministers of the Church of Scotland, not waiting for an Act
of Parliament to disendow them, walked out of their manses.
They left many charming residences and many nice churches,
and they quitted the homes in which they had spent many of
the happiest years of their lives. They wentout as a Church
absolutely naked (Hear, hear.) There was not a church
left for them, nor a glebe house, nor a cartilage, m or a com-
mutation (a laugh), HIM, I will ale bound to say, with a tingle
gull wish or "Hod bless von" from any man on that side of
the If. (Hear, hear.) Do not tell tp, that your Irish
Protestant congregations are feebler or noise than the con-
gregatii ow in Scotland. Wh at have they dmie since in
Scotland? It may he told in a sentence, although it would
take weeks to survey it all. Ttsey have built POO churches,
not less than 650 manses for the residence of their ministers,
500 schools, three Theological Colleges, and two training in-
stitutions. And during the last three years I have not seen
the accounts further back—they have raised on average by
voluntary subscription of their members not leis than
£370,000 per annum. And during the twenty.tive years that
have elapsed since those 500 ministers walked out of the
ENtablished Church, their congregations have voluntarily
contributed a sum exceeding £0,000,00 sterling. (('been). ,
And yet the learned member for Dublin University has the
courage to say in the presence of many members of the Non-
conformist body that the ministers oi the voluntary churches
are rather of a low class—." II ear," and laughter —that they
are not high born As to being high burn, I think the
prophets of old were many of them graziers. The apostles
were fishermen MO handicraftsmen. (Hear, hear ' It was a
religion, as we are told, to which "not many noble and not
many mighty were called." 'Cheers). It may be that in this
age anti in this country the light of the Refornmtion alai of
Christianity may be carried through the land by men of humble
birth with just as much success as may attend a man who is
born in a great mansion or a palace. ,hear.) The right hon.
gentleman the member for Butts argued very 1111101 in
favour of the Established Church MI the ground that there
ought to be some place into which people could get who
would nht readily he admitted anywhere else. Cheers and
laughter ) The fact is that what the right. h..u. gentleman
wants is this, that we should have an Established Church
which has no discipline, and that any one who would live
up to what may be called a gentlemanly conformity to it
nifty pass through the world as a very satisfactory sort of
Christian. ,A laugh.) Sir, these are arguments that I
should be ashamed to use. (Hear, hear.) If I were a
Churchman I would either find better arguments or keep
silence,. and if I were forced to keep silence I should
... _

be obliged to give up believing- that the Church
was much better than the Nonconformiat body. My •
opinion is that hon. gentlemen opposite do a great injustice
to the Protestants if lee'! nil. Is there any reason why in
the north of Ireland the Pi esbyterians should be any less
liberal or ene; getic than their countrymen of the Free
Church of Scotland ? And if they are uptal to the Scotch,
why should the Episcopal Protratants of Ireland, when
they are free from the trammels of the State, be less active
or successful than their neighbours the Presbyterians of
Ireland and their other co-religionists the Presbyterians of
Scotland? I believe that your sickly offspring of privilege
and favouritism may become the robust champion of the
light of the Reformation. And, perhaps, we may live to see
the day when the right hon. gentleman will make a recatita-
qon at this table. A laugh.) Lord Aberdeen, who only a
few years ago was Prime Minister of this country, told me
in 1856, when I was staying at Ms house is Scotland, that no
public event connected with Scotland had during his long
life given him so much pain as the separation in the Church
of Scotland. But he added that he had used long enough to
see that all his lamentation and fear were vain, and that it
had been one of the very happiest transactions that ever
came to his country. Hear, hear.) Ile spoke of the new
churches and the schools, and said that great additional life
• was spread through the while people. If that also hap-
pened in Ireland, why then the light of the Reformation,
which glimmers now no faintly that no man can see It, may
become a light shining over much of that island. And
It may be satisfactory to hope that Catholicism, in its ex-
treme and Roman sense, may give place to a more liberal
religion and approximate nearer to that which we think
Isetter—the faith and the religion of the Protestant
Churches. (Cheers.) It is too late to-night to enter upon
the question of the surplus, but there is one thing I should
like to say about It, and I say it in the hearing of my hon.
and learned friend (Sir It. Palmer, who, as I understand,
takes a different view of this question from sonic on
this side. John Wycliffe, as the House knows, was 500
years ago horn in the town of Richmond ;a laugh'. and he
was, perhsps, the first and greatest of the English Reformers.
John Wycliffe was obliged to consider this question of reli-
gious endowments, and he said that if Churches made a had
use of their endowments Princes are bound to take them
away from them. So, if endowments are fantail to be nns-
chievims, Parliament may put thew to other uses. I some-
times wonder how it is that in 500 years we make so
little progt ess in some sub(ects. That was the opinion
of John Wycliffe in the loth century, and we are now
defending and discussing it in this House, and right hon.
nail learned gentlemen get up and comienni as almost
sacrilege and spoliation on tne part of Parliament (Opposition
cheers to deal with the endowments of this State Church of
Ireland. Then auto the uses to which these endowments
are put. 111 were particular on the p..int about the sacred
nature of these endowments ( should even then be satisfied
with the provisions of this bill, for, after all, I hope
it is not for from Christianity to charity. We know the
Divine Founder of our faith has lett much more of the
Ibinge of a compassionate and loving heart than lie
has of dogma. t Hear, hear.) I am not able to give the
verses or the chapter, but what always strisea one most
in reading the narratives of the Gospels is how niuch
of compassion there was, how much of dealing kindly with all
that were sick and all that were suffering. Do you think it
will be a rnimppropriati in of the surplus funds of tins great
transaction to suul) tiwut to some objects SIICII 113 those ‘!e-
scribed in the bill? Dmet you think that such charitable
dealing will be better than continuing to maintain by these
vast hunts three times the number of clergymen that can be
the slightest use to the Church with which they are con-
nected ? ( Rear, hear.) We can do little it is true We
cannot re-illunie the extinguished lamp of reason; we cannot
mike the deaf to hear; we cannot make the dumb to speak;
Ii is not given tons— _

„
"From the thick film to purge the visual ray,
"And on the sightless eyeballs pour the day.”
But at least we can lessen the load of affliction, and we can
make life more tolerable to vast numbers who suffer. (Loud
cheers'. Sir, when I look at this great measure—and I can
assure the House I have looked at it much more than the
majority of members, because I have seen it grow from line
to line, and from clause to clause. and have wat bed its
growth and its completion with a great and increasing in-
tereA—l say when I look at tins isis more, I look at it as
tending to a more true and solid union bet. een Ireland and
Great Britain I see it giving tranquillity to our people.
(A laugh from the Oppiantion, followed by Ministerial
cheers). When you have a better remedy lat least will fairly
consider it. ;Cheers.) I say I see tranquillity given to our
people, greater strength to the relit°, and new lustre and
new dignity ambled to the Crown. (Rear, hear.) I dare claim
for this hill the sopport of all thoughtful ammo good people
within the bounds of the British empire hear), and I cannot
doubt that it will be accompanied by the blessing of the
Supreme in its beneficent results ; for I believe it to be
founded upon these principles of justice and of mercy which
are the glorious attributes of His eternal reign. (Loud
cheers.)