The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-03-07 00:00:00

ACTION FOR SLANDER.

At the assizes held at Warwick, the cause of "Lund
• Wamsley " has been tried, and was an action of
hinder, brought by the superintendent of police and
inspector of nuisances at Leamington, against a mem-
ber of the local board of health of that town.
The plaintiff was formerly an inspector of detectives in
London, anal officiated during the Great Exhibition of lea.
Re was subsequently promoted by Sir 8.. Mayne to be a
superintendent of the metropolitan police force, and after a
service of twenty • four years retired, in consequence of ill-
health, as pension. Upon that occasion Mr. Lund
quitted the police force with the highest possible certificates
of character, and was presented by the inspectors, sergeants,
and constables of his division with a gold watch of the value
of 5.40. Mr. Lund was appointed superintendent of the
Leamington police in ISM), and, having discharged his
duthe iu that position to the satisfaction of his employers,
has hail his salary raised three times between his appoint-
ment and the present date
•Fhe defendant is a bookseller and stationer mid a collector
01 income-tax, and, after two unsuccessful efforts, was elected
a member of the local hoard nu
The slander now complained of wan uttered on three sepa-
rate occasions: on the first the defendant was alleged to have
charged the plaintiff with perjury : on the second and third
with drunkenness.
Ttie case for the plaintiff was that, as far back as 1560, on
the occasion of her Majesty pausing through Leamington,
the defendant took offence at the conduct 01 the plaintiff in
excluding the public from a foot bridge over the Great
Western Railway, and wrote to the Secretary of State
thereon. in 1064 a public meeting was held in Leamington
for the purpose of canvassing the conduct of the local board
of health, and a Mr Heritage having speken in defence of
the board, Mr. Lund incurred Mr. Wanustey'a displeasure
by refusing to turn Mr. Heritage out of the room. On that
occasion it was stated that Mr. Wamsley said to the phiintiff,
" I told you, Land, 1S months ago, that I would get you out
of the town, and twill never leave you till I do. I will get you
out before two years are over, Again, a woman of bad
character was taken iip ens charge of stealing plate, and on
that occasion Mr. Lund took into his possession a diamond
and emerald ring, which was found concealed upon her
person. Tine woman was discharged by the magistrates,
there betty:, no evidence against her upon the charge on which
she was taken up, but the magistrate refused to order the
ring to- be given up to her, and Mr Limit retained it,
and, believing it to have been stolen, advertised for
the owner, whom, however, he was unable to discover.
This also constituted a grievance in Mr. Wamsley's eye.,
who wrote to the Secretary of State on the nut joint,
and trout tine to tinie annoyed Mr. Lund by remarks
tending to insinuate that Mr. Lund had retained the ring
for improper motives. In Ise:s proceedings were instituted
against a lortifessional gentleman in the town of Leamington
for perjury, alleged to have been committed before a master
of tone of the courts at Westminister, upon the reference of
a claim against the local board. On the occasion of the
preLmhyary inquity before a magistrate at Isow-etreet police-
court, Is London, the plaintiff and others were examined
as witnesses, hut the magistrate, deeming that a prinuffacie
ewe had been made out, committed the accused for trial.
Tim result was communicated to Leamington by telegram,
and on the arrival of the train containing the witnesses,
the defendant was found at the Leamington station with
a placard bearing the words eraionitted fir trial" upon
It. This placard the defendant was said to have attempted
to fasten round the plaintiffs hat, saying at the sanie time,
It will he your turn not You have comniitted perjury
several times, and lean prove it, lids was the slander
first complained of. It should be added that when the
charge of perjury against the gentleman alluded to came on
to be tried before the Chief Justice of England and a
epeeist jury, the indictment having been removed into the
Otieen'a Bench by certiorari, the case for the prosecu-
tion broke dovrn, and the defendant was acquitted without
being called upon to give evidence in his defence. On a
subsequent occasion, when a charge of drunkenness against
one of the pollee force wee under investigation, the defen-
dant stated that he was sorry to say that there was too much
drunkenness going on in the police force at Leamiugton,
from the highest to the lowest, and that they ought to
pnuish the highest and let the lowest off on easy terms.
Sir. Lund denounced this !statement as untrue, whereupon
the defendant said he had seen the plaintiff go into the
bakehouse' place so-called where liquors are sold' for
two hours at a time. Upon this there was a great uproar,
and the chairman demanded an unqualified retractation and
apology from the defendant, whieb, however, he refused to
give. On the third occasion the defendant was said, to have
repeated the charge of drunkenness in a private conversa-
tion with a member of the board named Ballard, and to have
told that gentleman that he hail seen Mr. Lund so drunk
that Ire could not stand, and required to be supported by
twe men.
The case for the defendant was that he had no ill-feeling
against Mr. Lund, that he had never imputed perjury to
lion, and that the placard was not intended hi any way to
atingle to Mr DIM. As to the charge of drui ikenness made
at the meeting of the board, the defendant denied that
the expression "front the highest to the lowest" was in-
tended to include Mr. Lund, and contended that at all
events the occasion was such as to make the statement a
privileged one. As to the remaining charge, the defendant
denied that he had ever sail anything of the kind to Mr.
Ballard, and stated that he was not on friendly terms with
that gentleman.
It would be perfectly impossible to give any idea of
the weight of the testimony on either side, a great
number of witnesses having been examined, and the
trial having lasted a day and a half. Judging by the
attendance of spectators, the case appeared to excite
the greatest interest in Leamington.
In summing up, his Lordship directed the jury, as
to the question of privilege, that if they believed the
words spoken were intended to include Mr. Lund, the
queation was, Nehether those words were spoken by the
defendant in the tonal lide discharge of his duty, or
whether he took advantage of the opportunity to go
out of his way from motives of malice and ill-will
to make a charge against Mr. Lund which was entirely
unfounded-
. After being absent from the court five minutes the
jury returned with a verdict for the plaintiff for £75.

DEATH OF THE EX-KING OF
BAVARIA.
• The death is announced of Louis I , ex-King of Bavaria.
The event has been for some time expected. King Louis
had attained the great age of eighty-two years. and had
heen lately in such precarious health that two of the
Princes, his sons, had been summoned to hie bedside. A
chequered and somewhat stormy existence came there to an
end, and a slight sketch of which we give, taken from The
Louis of Bavaria was one of the crowned heads of
our own times of whom it could fairly be said that he ,
was a King, and something besides. Shut out, ap-
parently, at his birth from every prospect of the
Throne, the son of a younger son of a younger branch
of the House of Wittelsbach, Louis became Heredi-
tary Prince of Bavaria in his nineteenth year, and
began to reign on his thirty-ninth. He held the
supreme power for a period of twenty-three years, and
for a score more he has takes. his place among the
" Monarchs retired from business." Destined as lie
was to become one of the most prominent German
Sovereigns of his age, Louis was by birth a French--
than. His native place was Strasburg, and his father,
Maximilian Joseph, of Zwei-Briicken Birkenfeld,
was in command of the Alsace Regiment. Louis
XVI. of France, his godfather, bestowed on the infant
• colonelcy, a large pension, and a splendid gift in
diamonds, while the grenadiers in his father's regi-
ment shaved off their moustaches to stuff the pillow
of the child's cradle! The young Prince was no more
than three years old when the great convulsions of
1759 drove him with his father as a fugitive into

Germany.
The death without lineal descendants of Charles,
Duke of Deux Pouts, in 1795, and that of the Elector
Charles Theodore, in 1799, led to the elevation of
Louis' father. Maximilian Joseph, who, in 1805, ex-
changed the Electoral Cap for a Royal diadem as first
King of Bavaria. The circumstances attendant upon
his early life, and still more the hereditary am-
bition ot his House, induced Louis, no less than his
father, to side with France against hie liege lord the
Emperor of Germany. The young Hereditary Prince
commanded a Bavarian division under French Princes
and Marshals till, at the close of the year 1813, the
patriotic movement which carried away all Germany
won even the House of Bavaria, which, disavowing
its French alliance, joined against the common enemy
just in time to save at the Congress of Vienna that
Royal Crown which had been bestowed by the Con-
queror of Austerlitz.
Upon coming to the Throne after his father's death
in 1825, Lotus showed himself in every respect an en-
lightened Sovereign. He sanctioned by his oath the
Constitution which had been adopted seven years
before, removed the shackles of censorship at least for
non-political writings, introduced important reforms
in the administration, abolished the State lottery and
all games of hazard, curtailed the public expenditure,
and mitigated the hardships of military service, light-
ened the burdens of tolls, Customs, and Racine duties,
traneferred the University of Landshut to Munich,
opened schools and raised the schoolmasters' salaries,
and made of his capital the German Athens, the seat
pf literature and art. Ile constructed the first German
railway, launched the first steamer into German waters;
he devised and completed the Main and Danube
Canal, joining the North Sea with the Black Sea; and
by a Commercial Con venti. ai with W iirtemberg he
laid this brat basis of that German Customs' League
which Prussia subsequently turned to her own advan-
tage. In Haifa however, alarmed by revolutionary
symptoms, he auddenly changed his whole policy, threw
himself into the arms of the Ultramontane and Reac-
tionary parties, awl established a petty reign of dark-
- Dreamt' terror up to the time at which Lola Monte,
same to rule for a brief period over both him and his
subjects, and involved the King and very nearly the
Throne in her ruin.
Loud as the revolutionary storms raged over Europe
in the early months of 1848, the strange romance of
the old King and the dancing girl was heard above all
the din • how the adventuress was introduced at Court
as the 'King's "best friend ;" how the rights of
Hawaiian citizenship, the Barony of 11 isenthsJ, the
-County of Lansfeld, a newly-huht palace, and a pen-
sion of 213,15.10 florins were lavished upon her; how the
Queen was compelled to confer noon the dancer, with
her own hand, the great cordon of a Chanoinees of the
order of Theresa, instituted by her :Majesty herself,
and bearing her name; how the Ministers rose and fell
at a nod from the arrogant favourite; and, finally,
how, after coquetting with and betraying now this
and now that party, she made herself obnoxious to all,
and excited such an onthruert of indignation that it
was only at the cost of his dignity, and very nearly
of his life, the Kin, was able to smuggle her across
the border, whither he was soon to follow her. Danced
by the fatal charmer out of his court and his
kingdom, King Louis regained in his retirement that
public favour which he had forfeited on the Throne.
He bad been an artist before he was a King;
aa.l an artist he was both as a crowned and as a
discrowned 4ing. In the inter.. als of rest during his
early campaigns in Hm midst of administrative or
Parliamentary labours as a Prince Hereditary, Louis
had always been devoted to art. He went to Italy as
to his real home and country; he brought Italy home
to his own German country. His talents were ap-
preciative, not creative. He did not attempt to excel
or even to rival the works of Italian art; he merely
reproduced them. The Pitti Palace, the Loggia de
Lanai, obelisks,ehurches, basilican, all Florence, Rome,
and Ravenna, rose to a new life in Munich. Every
ward in the city was like one of the courts at the Crystal
Palace. 'I be buildings outside were mere et.ies ; but
the treasures within were genuine. The Ring was a
good connoisseur and collector. Munich had its picture
and sculpture galleries ; it had its schools of painting
and statuary ; its Klenze, Waddler, and Gartner,
Its Cornelius and Schwauthaler. The King's ambition
rose with the causciowinene of his achievements.
It attempted the gigantic in the Bavaria and
in the Walhalla. The activity and munificence
he displayed seemed out of all proportion with the
duration of his reign and with the revenue of
his kingdom. The 811101 Int of work was prodigious.
Of its results time alone will enable unto judge. Real
genius will not rise at a King's bidding; Germany
had her own type of the Beautiful; she need not have
berrowed that of Greece or Italy. Quaint Nurem-
berg and dingy Augsburg are a hundred times MOTO