The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-02-02 00:00:00

EXTRAORDINARY CHARGE OF
SHOOTING.

In London, on Saturday, at the Hammersmith
Police-coart, Albert Joseph Evans, a hackney carriage
driver, living in North-row, Park-street, Grosvenor-
square, was charged with firing a loaded pistol at Lucy
Bpiller, a musician, with the intention to murder her.
—The complainant, a young woman, said: I live at
80, Oxford-road, Hammersmith. On Friday afternoon
I beard the smashing of glass and heard my mother
seleaming. I ran upstairs from the kitchen, and saw
the prisoner standing on the mat in the passage,
and my mother in front trying to prevent him from
getting farther into the house. He said, "I have
got something for you now," and took a pistol
From his pocket. I ran upstairs, followed by a
dog. I heard the report of .a pistol, but the dog
received the bullet in his back. I don't know
whether be intended it for me or the dog. He ran
sway after he had fired the pistol.—Mr. Paget: He has
been courting you ?—No; he is my sister's husband,
but she is not living with him. He wishes her to
return to him. Was your sister there at the time ?—No;
she heard the report, and locked herself in the kitchen.
By Mr. Clay don: My sister left him nine or ten
months ago. The prisoner has repeatedly asked his
wife to return to him. He has said if she did not he
would put an end to her, and she should not live with
any other person. In answer to further questions, the
witness said the dog was a Mount St. Bernard, and
she said "After him." when the prisoner came on a
previous occasion. Mr. Claydon : It is a large dog,
and you set it upon him ?—Yes, certainly, when he
uses threats, Mr. Paget: Did you set the dog upon
him this time ?—No. It followed me up from the
kitchen, and it was not a minute before he fired. I
should have received the bullet if the dog had not been
close to my back. On the previous occasion he said,
"The next time I will come prepared." Esther
Spiller said : I am the mother of the last
witness. My son-in-law came to the door
while his wife was sweeping the parlour. She said,
"Don't open the door, mother." He knocked twice,
then broke the window, and let himself in. He drew
a pistol and said, "I have got something for you now."
My younger daughter came up, and, seeing the pistol,
ran upstairs, He fired the pistol, and ran away.—
Sergeant Greet proved apprehending the prisoner at
his lodgings, when he made the following statement:
"I did not fire at her ; they set the dog upon me, and
I shot the dog, She was behind me when I fired, I
went there to persuade my wife to leave the life she
was leading. I took the pistol for my protection.
' When I was there last they set the dog on to me."
Tild prisoner also stated that he threw the pistol into
the roi as he was running away. He (the witness)
saw the wound on the dog's back probed, and it went
in the direction of tha tail.—Mr. Paget remanded the
pesoner for the attendance of the veterinary surgeon
who was attending to ,the dog, and refused to grant
bail.

Of 459 stodents whn have this winter matriculsitg4
it the University of Zurich 51 were women.

MR. FORSTER ON REDISTRIBUTION.

On Friday evening in last week, Mr. Forster ad-
dressed a crowded meeting in connection with the
National Reform Union in tha Free Trade Hall, Man.
cheater. He cla,med that the extension of the fran-
chise must be separated from redistribution, and that
Ireland must be mcluded in the measure. In enlarg-
ing upon the subject of Redistribution, Mr. Forster
said:—
_ _ _

The redistribution will be no easy matter. It will
be a very hard business indeed. Just let us go over
for a moment what are the claims and wants of the
different parts of the population. What does justice
require ? First, justice requires that the three kingdoms
should be treated alike. My friend Mr. Elliot says
that Scotlend "might e,mplain if London got many
more members. What Scotland has to complain of
really is not that London should have what it has a
right to have, but because Scotland has not got its
right share. Taking taxation as the test, Scotland
would get many more members. Sir Charles Dilke
introduced a new idea of apportioning the electors,
under which, after equalizing the franchise, Scot.
land would get a very considerable increase in the
number of its members. I would give Ireland the
same franchise as England, whatever use the people
might intend to put it to. I hope there will be some
principle of finality in the bill. I ,hould not give to
Ireland more than its share of reprcsentatior. And
kind of calculation founded on taxation of property
would deprive Ireland of a very great number of v etes,
and I should not attempt to apely that principle in
that fcrm. But I should pre'er to base representation
on population by itself. Taking toe inhabited-hoeses,
Ireland would, I believe, lose close upon ten members.
That is the first principle treating the three kingdoms
alike. Then there are districts that must get many
more votes. We in the West Riding and you in
South Lancashire—l put us together because we
are very similar in our circumstances—have forty•
four members, exactly one-eleverith of the present
members for English counties and boroughs, and we
are very nearly one-fifth of the population. The
northern division of Lancashire, with Glasgow and its
suburbs and the populous districts round it, has more
than one-fifth of the population of Scotland and one'
fifteenth of its present members. London—and you
must not forget London taking the present
metropolitan district only with the suburbs which
were just like London, Around it, has twenty.
' two members, and upon a fair apportionment to popu-
lation it ought to get sixty-four. I do not think
' London, and I doubt hether we in the West Riding
or you in South Lancashire, will get all we have a
claim to, because we can only get it by disfranchising
other constituencies, who will fight very hard; but I
confess, if you will allow me to say it —for he is a very
old and intimate friend of mine—l think Mr. Shaw.
Lefevre a day or two ago put the claims of London
too low. My belief is that we shall have to consider
London more than we have in former days. The
social problems beset U 3 in London even more than
anywhere else, and I doubt whether they would have
got to the pcint of solution which they have at this
moment if it had not been that London had been kept
in the background, and had not been sufficiently con-
sidered by the Legislature. We must not for a moment
take this into account—that London is perhaps not so
distinctly, so eminently a liberal population as are
our own districts. It is quite true that the popular
vote in 1874 was not upon our Bide. I speak not merely
for myself, but of all the Liberals I see—aye, and for
thetienormous majority of the Libeoal party—that
in this difficult and most important measure of redis-
tribution we must not for a m nnent consider the
possible party views of men at present, or even of
what they are likely to be in future. Now, as to the
great question, what are we to do with the boroughs
we disfranchise, or rather with constitotencies that we
have either to get rid of or to alter? We shall have to
get a great number of fresh seats. We are not going
to increase the number of members of the House.
Everybody agrees to that: Then we shall have to
deal with the small boroughs, and they can only be
dealt with in one of three iways. They must be
absorbed in the counties, as were most of the rotten
boroughs at the time of the great Reform Bill, or they
must be grouped as in Scotland and Wales, or they
must be increased by the addition of country districts,
as at East Retford, for example, and made borough
counties, of which we have already several specimens. I
will not dwell on that question now, except to say this—
that the first of these plans is one which Ido not think
can be adopted. It will lie between the grouping and
the inereaeing of the boroughs; and, upon the whole,
I prefer the increase of them. I think the great
argument against it will disappear, which was to keep
up a separate borough franchise from the county
french ee. It will disappear when we have given the
same occupying franchise througbout the kingdom. If
not the most important, the most difficult question
will be what to do with large constituencies—the
populous, the very populous constituencies. There we
must do one of two things. We must either increase
the number of constituencies or we must give more
members to the present constituencies. Well, I ammo in
favour, as I ventured to say to my own constituents,
of increasing the number of the constituencies. Ido not
for a moment say that we are ready for electoral die-
tricts, but I would aim at that. I believe that they
are, upon the whole, the most just and the wisest
mode of apportioning representation (hear, hear) ;
and I think that, as regards the populous rural
countiee and the districts round present boroughs and
London, it would not be difficult to apply that prin-
ciple to London epecially. You have divided London
Into several electoral districts already. Chelsea, Mary-
lebone, or Finsbury might, without difficulty, be di-
vided. The difficulty really will be with our large
towns—with you, with Liverpool, with Glasgow,
with Leeds, with my own borough of Brad-
ford, and several others. Id o not think that you will
get a representation according to the fair proportion
which you are entitled to, Glasgow would have a right
to ten members, Liverpool to ten members, and Man-
chester without Salford to seven members. But sup-
posing you got anything like that, what is to be done?
You must elect your members upon some principle of
proportionate representation or by division into wards.
I prefer the division into wards. I know there will
be sentimental opposition to the proposal which
' will necessitate the breaking up of the old borough.
I am going to say something with which I know you
will not all agree. But I think you know me, and you
expect me to say exactly what I think, and I should
be ashamed of addressing such a meeting as this if I
did not do so. I think that by far the worst plan
would be to elect our members by a simple majority,
and for this reason—that if you elected by simple
majority three members or more it would be both
dangerous and unfair. It would be dangerous as enor-
mously increasing the swing of the pendulum. Tbe
real danger we have to guard against is overihaste in
legislation. I think also that it would be unfair,
becauql it would be giving to a simple majority in a con-
stituency the great majority in the representation ; and
it would be enabling a few men to band themselves
together for any sort of purpose, good or bad, and
sometimes for no purpose at all except for their own
selfish interests or vanity, thereby controlling the repre-
sentation of a great city like Manchester, where the
parties are pretty equalled divided. You know Mr.
Morley uttered a formula—a phrase—which took hold
of men's imagination and of their judgment, and th re
was much in it—" One man, one vote." I can con-
ceive no greater denial of that principle, no more abeos
lute disregard of it, than by giving to a few voters in
Manchester, by their having seven votes, an emirs
mously increased power over the men in other cone
, stituencies with only one or two members, and who
have only one or two votes; and we have some evi-
dence of this danger. It has been tried on the Conti-
nent. I think that, considering our history in Par-
liamentary government, we need not go to foreign
nations for much teaching in regard to our Reform
B.lls.