The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-12-05 00:00:00

A SERMON BY MR. HENRY WARD
BEECHER.

A New York correspondent writes :—On Sunday
Mr. Henry Ward Beecher delivered another of those
remarkable harangues which have given him such
wide-spread notoriety. All of the Gospel that entered
into his discourse was the text, "Abhor that which is
evil." Mr. Beecher first devoted his attention to the
alarming wickedness of the times: it seemed to him
that, what with French operas and immodest, incon-
growl, and daring dress, nine men out of ten and nine
women out of ten had made up their minds to go head-
long to the Devil. Mr. Beecher next took up the sub-
ject of the President's special wickedness. The Fre-
eident took delight in pardoning counterfeiters, mail
robbers, and other felons; a man hail but to be a
counterfeiter or a swindler in order to enjoy Mr.
Johnson's protection. The preacher proceeded to
speak upon the immense robbery of the Government
perpetrated in the evasion of payment of the tax on
spirits. He asserted that the money thus dishonestly
obtained hal been the means of corrupting A large pro-
portion of the people of the country. He further de-
clared that the swindlers enjoyed the confidence of the
President, who had invariably checked every honest
attempt to investigate the evil. Mr. Beecher used all
the slang phrases in vogue among the swindlers and
their confederates— such as "fraud whisky" (meaning
whisky upon which no tax has been paid), "rings,"
&c. Having exhausted the subject of the crimes of
distillers and their agents, Mr. Beecher took a glance
at the corruption existing in our Legislatures. "The
general rule," he said, "in our Legislatures to-day is
buying and selling. " Money " is the cry; and men
are unclisguisedly bought and mold." The preacher
finished his remarks with an attack upon our judicial
system. " Corruption," he affirmed, "desecrates the
courts. Bo corrupt are the courts of law that the name
of judge stinks. The judges plunder, awl are known
to plunder. They make decisions and hold them up
for sale. They auction justice, and grow fat on
bribes."

BREACH OF PROMISE CASE.
In the Court of Queen's Bench, on Friday in laat
week, Miss Dorah Otte, daughter of a gentleman of
German extraction, sued Mr. Grant, of the Bombay
Civil Service, for breach of promise of marriage.
Her father holds the position of agent to the British
and Foreign Bible Society. In the year 1863 she was
engaged as governess in the family of Sir Charles
Grant, an uncle of the defendant, near Inverness.
Mr. Ronald Grant, the defendant, who held a valuable
appointment in the Bombay Presidency, now worth
about £2,700 Per annum, was in 1863 home on leave,
and a visitor at his uncle's house. Ile was then about
thirty years of age, and the plaintiff was eighteen.
After some time an intimacy sprang up between them,
and be prokosed to marry her, stating at the same
time that, owing to pecuniary embarrassment, which
he hoped in a little time to get over, he could not
marry for twelve or eighteen months, but that at the
end of that time she could go out to India, when they
were to be married. To this arrangement she assented.
Defendant went to London and informed plaintiff's
parents of what he had proposed, and they, after com-
municating with the plamtiff, gave tneir consent. It