The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1869-03-02 00:00:00

THE OREILT CONVENT CASE.

On Friday the dramatis persona in the greet seed. r. Star case assembled in the Canny at Quern's Beath
for the twentieth and last time.
Mies S main au simost the first of the pwreewe 'meetly
intereeted in the notion to enter the mutt. As on
former ocemions, her dress was s ash ge ee screen her
entirely fr.iin public view. An old ,-fashioned deep poke
bonnet, along, thick, black veil,* ehapslima serge draft,
Lancing in baggy folds, coastal or., e a.eiere,
effectual than any domino. V grin( the whole of the
long day's weary trial the fir ore sat motionlesc with
the head hewed deem, end th • (veered hands folded as
if screwed together. gym-, mo and then there might
he leen • httle teem** is th e folds throes her knew% as
though the fingen were t witching nervously;, bet,
otherwim, there was co sip ,ofit., on mire Seethes
right sat • bright, gooddoe' sing Irish girl, whose bonnet
sad white feather, bright •red cheeks, and gay-oeloured
drees contrasted strangely with the black figure hy her
side. On Mi.. Semite, left was Father Mathewa—a
hale, stook shrewd. his ,dly•looking old mart—the sort
of priest that Charles F .oade depicted as Father Francis
in "Griffith Gamut."

The San Yin party were seated to the left of the
Judge, on the well between the counsels' seat and the
judicial bench, and •on his right nem the nuns. There
were five of them in wart when the prooesdings
°panel. Mrs. Ste r and Mrs. Kennedy eat one clench
end of the row ; ,he other sisters being Mrs. Neligan,
}gm Kerr, and Mrs. !Moon. They all wore the
regular Sister Of Marty garb—the black drawee, white
bibe and tiaek.nç and white linen bands soros, their
foreheads ; end they looked strangely out of place in.
court of justice. They spoke but little to each other,
counted their bands from time to time, end had
breweries open on their knee.. They followed the
snorming•up alternatively ; and the eye of one of the
nitrerhood were quite bright enough to hays itilluenced
samieptible ailvorate in favour of her range. Miss
Saurin's lather and mother were Amsted throughout the
day in one of the gallery lodge. overlooking the court.
Canon Wallace sod Dr. Porter, conspicuous by their
.cierical dress, cat among the barristers.

We sisal not inflict upon our readers the wearisome
details in this estuordinary trial ; buta few broad
sages mml. out very clearly. The young Irish girl
entered a Dublin convent, and there pained her inviolate
witnout any recorded blame. Indeed, it is rather
remarkable that though the itsfendants manifested an
anxiety—we will not say unirdled.for—to expose Miss
Burin's sins U. nun, and though Mrs. Star insinuated
that the Dublin—Baggetotreet—eonveat would not
roadve her bark, yet the '.'llother Scorner of that
cheroot was not protium' to prove a single Isaltsisinst
her. She was transferred to the coarsest at Hull, and
afterwards to the operant a'. Clifford, and for some years
she and Mrs Star, to Ins a colloquial expressies, "got
on remarkably welL" in fact, all the evidence clearly
loillioetes that she was eves • ftwourite •' and sbeau
certainly employed in ealcee ueually beitowed upon the
most able, industri itio„, and trustworthy of her order;
she wee infirmarism. in charge of the mck emu ; and at
another time refeetorian, auperintending the breakfasts
and dinun of the community. She was Jac employed
in the schools. That there was afterwards a great
change is clear enough. According to Mrs. Sties
version, Miss Saurin fell away from all her good habits;
she became disobedient and untruthful; she became
• petty liar, a petly thief, • petty rebel—tinting
seventy times a day, aching pardon is frequently.
and, when linking it., making new complaints. In
religiou* Imaseege, the was "a erns." She so
wore down Mrs. Star's health that the Mother
Superior, (Way worried out, wished to resign.
Miss Searin'a account is different. She wee treat
she says, with injustice and harshness • unsuitable foal
WM forted 01111 her, petq indignities, and great
iudignines were accumulated on her head ; all that she
could do to win forgiveness or kindoes. was in vain'—
she wu being slowly killed with " unutterable tiokindli.
me.." The question was, where, between these two
opposite accounts, lay the truth? Mrs. Star's version
was sepoorted by the evidence, fairly agreeing, of all the
nun. But it must be borne in mind that in the main
than nridenee was worthless, arid for a very good reason.
A nerinery is • perfect despotism ; the rule is Implicit
.dessiikenes to the poetically irresponsible power of the
Penned Mrither"—an obedience not only in the
letter, but In the spirit—not only to the known rules,
but to her secret monitions. We do not say that Mrs.
Star wrought out wanton cruelty in form of nunnery
law; but the Rev. Mr. O'Hanlon, himself a plisse,
migrate that no nun could know whether or not Miss
Sawn wet guilty of violations of convent rule, beaten
it wag quite parable that Mrs. Stat's secret soden
might have rendered it impossible for Miss Satrin to
obey general rules. Besides, in all nuneeries the
Mother Sop/riot is • kind of female tionfessor, and
could easily make the entire community believe what
she believed, suspect what she scapula, hate what
she hated. Prat:ldeally, therefore, tos conflict of
testimony was—Miss Sanrin against Wis. Star ; and we
think it quite possible that both self substantially the
truth. It seems to us—judging from her letters,
her evidence, and the •videece of others t•oth
against and for her—that Mies Burin was
a girl of not very strong mind, paasionate,
mtbly hysterical, with • wild imagination, •
tongue, impetuous ia her character, quick to
resent wrong, quick to a* pardon, quick to rebel.
pick to "cry out befere she was hurt," 'ionised
when she was really persecuted, and, like all women,
prone to exaggerate 'Lai recounting her woes. It
I. quite possible that, to a woman of more reserved
temperament, inereregulated feeling., higher education,
and less a. naibility, this "wild Irish girl" may have
seemed intolerablo—as intolerable lo her hysterical
repentance as in her fault', as unbearable in her gush.
ing "goodues" al in her naughty ways—more maudlin
than Magdalen, and, probably, "more Irish and low
• ie bet habits and *vetoing than the other Wsters, ,
near's, ell English nuts. Such a natural contrariety of
chuadbee between the two would twoount for a great
keel—for Mrs. Star'. "trembling" when the girl came
,near, and for an coercion which probably betrayed itself
in every act and word and look of the two women
unhappily placed together. But, admitting all the
errors and sins of the " naughty" nun —bettering of
which she was soused, &emptier' the certainly unproved
thefts— we still see • intim erring indeed, yet surely
not altogether unlovable, irreclaimable, or hopelessly
tad. We think of the homes that are made bright by
girls with twenty times her fault. We think of the
women whom men can love and cherish passionately and
fondly in spite of such errors. We think of what the
poor girl might have been had she not become • nun;
bow, in the warmth of domestic life,ber better qualities
might have come out; how kindly a mother, • brother,
• loving husband would have looked on little pecca-
dilloes, small irregularities of habit, in consideration
of the love she could give, the devotion she oould
bestow. Her uncle sod her brother.priest, reverencing
the laws of the Chetah, knowing and reepecting convent
life—having beard all that could be said against her,
still Wand by her and think she was harshly used.
The Reversed Mr. O'Hanlon, a priest,• perfect 'tinnier
to her, and one of the Commirionera, came forward at
the trial, on her behalf, to declare his belief in
her innocence of all but the most trivial offenses.
The *Cdr. n whom she taught, instead of testifying to
. .
• • "or tiodoe- and

the alleged thft., spoke of her kinciness• • es.,
who is kind to children caa berdly be altogether bad.
Tbe Solicitor-General (Sir J. Coleridge) summed up
the speech for the plaintiff In a most eloquent speech.
Ile eaM :—I suppose that never before has so much
time been taken op with an inquiry into details so
wean, so petty, so paltry, so utterly contemptible, as
those which have formed, I do not may the whole, bat
the main staple of the pretreated inquiry. Whether
or not • nuns veil wee honestly torn; whether her
clothes, internally end oxientally, were worn out or
not; whether her seaplane were broken tool soon;
whether too many bits of ealin aid elk, pia., needles.
and cotton were to her pocket whether she put • pair
of boota on her feet bonitos' to another enter ;
whether a great usa
.visited thermion{ ; whether she
eat toe mush bon In the pantry when 400 ought to
hove been eating mutton Is the putout*: whether she
tailed a little to eztenn—lbeee and other matters of an
°nosily grave and important character have chiefly
on:opted the time for the hat three weeks of twelee
✓ntlemen of the oounty of Middlesex, sad of 030 Lord
Chief Janice of Foetid, in the first court of cosmos
law In the country. Perhaps, however, when you come
to reflect upon the matter, you will think that the time
thus consumed has been anything but wasted.
-Certainly, so far as the plaintiff is concerned, it has not
been wasted ; for however trivial and oontemptible the
details of the nee may appear to be, and may be in
fact to a great extent, the Mon to her is of the mod
momentous character. it is my duty to tell you now,
though I had no right to my eo before, that it Isles
truth and fact an issue to be: of social life or
death. It is a question whether shots to be permitted
to continue in • life to which she hea devoted
herself, to which she is virtually wedded sad par-
innately attached ; whether her desire to 'onions*,
what may be vouchsafed to her of health, and life, and
strength, to the nue the baa espoused is to be per.
; or whether she Is to be flung back upon the
world she believed she bed left for ever, and for which
she is now utterly aninited, with a stain upon her
sharaeler whisk no lapse of time man efface, and be
exposed to the dislike and the contempt of every well-
cogitated member of the Roman Catholic' community.
I think, therefore, rosining's, that no time ia treated
which is spent in aa attempt to do (mance to a subject
of the Queen who haa been outraged—if her story be
true—by an ingenious system of cruelty and oppression.
Neither has time been altogether wasted in exposing to
yobbo view what convent life in Snaked in the nine-
temithGentury really Is. I eannot help hoping that this
trial will do rod in two points of VlSW—first, by
showing that it is at lent possible to Sr/ • awe of the
kind, mid to lay bare the interior of • convent, without
the faintest trees—with absolutely no trace—of what is
aomniosly called immorality or modal; and, in the
next place, I think It will do good if it strips off the
veil of sentiment and removes the halo of holiness
which the devoted sad hearty imagination of some
people are fond of thinking surrounds • so-celled
ioua his. With the emenee, the substance, and the
svaiity of • religious life DO Christian men, to whatever
owe or bad, of Christians he may belong, can possibly
object. To feed the hung-y, to sloth, the naked, to
a...0h the igDorsat, to watch by the sick, to comfort the
17—wow, to pray night and may to Almighty God, to
tits imply sad b., rule, and, in short, to nee this
mom as not abusing it—tbess are things whioh,
Imlay Roman Catholics and IProteetante Mika an
bona by the •1•050.„4 thetrr•IZZZATUDIUND j sad
U they do cot practice mina
sr
at to respect find momnte* *
thontrio do.
Butler
...,°°;7,4 help thinhian that this trial will bane
this effect—t it will
triton out what *ammon
hat
wow might hen done wi ou. t. .
theexpeem mot tie..
some prooese of so lung ti trod, that order to te this
It is not nooeseary to go Into • eonvent, sad that If 7.
vent and shut Yourself OP from maa-
do go into • °°•
moms get rid of tampiatons, but that
kind. yen by n°
pimilene fez be and move
y°l "14°4 "ur"if " "re nred out of d .
oon ,
contemptible thin any to
and thud, dratted into th4Vira
&LT
this 1100•1112 sad judged by
life
common human anders
loom al Its romantic character, and turna_oet
epee:eke, to be a very poor and ordinary &Nen Indeed.
We have little eine Greeted by petty MID, Childish
POILDI4III impaled for childish faults, boots worn rotted
the wok, driers es the head, tand sod aaid_4l.
wetted and wasted as miser guards sail counts hie
di-
strayed by twaa"""*". potty ger.Ltatnr."l eand4ballamm"rindepedi-n-
-deuce of mind destroyed by La •=s.raf which Is
* soy Mffereat thin( from Ono ball"' This is
What convent Ids bat some dors to ia Idt• 1911 s apiary ;

110101.0

eit all events, as it is seen in the convent of Our Le 47
of Wray at Hell, and under the ruts of the two
defendante in this action. And I do hope that one of
the two good remits of this trial may be to show men
and women throughout the length and breadth of the
hied what thorough rubbish all this is what a parody
IL is of the true simplicity and manly SUM of the
Mashing, to use no higher or holier Lamm, of St. Peter
and St. Paul; how dull, bow unattrastive, bow prose*
how ataerly unsalted to all the great and oryieg seedi
of the world that surrounds ea.
It we* half.path five on Friday, beton the Chief
"clic* closed his charge ; and it is hardly too much to
U, that, if the jury had tilloired the spirit of his
in.troctions, they would, without leaving the box, have
raturned a verdict in favour., the defendants. His
proposal that they should be dismissed till Saturday
before entering on the deliberatioa of their matinee,
found no favour with lb* j niers ; and they expressed
their intention of finishing the matter that night. Mies
&aria and the nuns left the wart when the Judge
rote, and did not return again; but the very great
majority of the audience retained their seats,. After
two hours' absence the jury re-entered the court. The
Chief Justice took his seat upon the bench, and made
an impressive appeal to the &edema. to thista.n from
any manifeetetion of feeling, so matter what might be
the verdict of the jury. A paper WAS then handed 61
by the tortoise, and the communication was made from
the bench that the jury found for the defendants on the
plies of assault and imprisonment • but for the plaintiff
on the charge of libel and ceaspirs4. with Ave hundred
pounds damages. In court the verdict was received
In miens') ; bet the moment the intelligense
spread to Westminster Hall the crowd outside the
doors raised a loud cheer, which was beard within
the bulldog. The Lord Chief Justice made no com-
ment of approval or disapproval, but thanked the
jary for their eourteous attention, and expressed
his regret at the inadequacy of the remuneration thee
would receive for their marries. Then. with a few civil
words to the foreman, the learned Judge quitted the
*Dort, the crowd dispersed, and the great Sande IS
was at aa end.