The Express.
London, England, 1864-12-19 00:00:00

ItRITANNIA.

TM! RVVIrIN4. MOLLY St LLIVAN. Mrs. S. Isne.—The
Gnat ranee. the Little Steele. 11,111 e. Dui:AL—THE NEW
BRIT SNN I k VE•TIVII. Mu Jacobs awl Ain.
S. 1... e. —And 111 11 oIIE.GIULS ul DENDLN.

MD !I wArtm AT LON DON.BR IDGF.
TriDi D►T Mot tutt, if,, 4nn Afternoon, 6h. ?IL
rt.,-Xvicrwle M..tnuug, 6h. 2216. Aftertiou4, 6h. 4261.

LONDON, MU DAY, DECEMBER 19.

Tux Court of Common Pleas in Dublin was en-
gaged during five days of last week in trying a
libel case which the reporters have modestly en-
titled " extraordinary," and which, if there were
no Divorce Court on this side of St. George's
Channel, we should be disposed in this place to
describe as disgusting. It is not, however, the
quality of the literature of this trial that boasts
an exceptional savour among the garbage of the
law courts. It is rather the relative position of the
parties to the action that appears "extraordinary"
to those wle, have not had the advantage
of being present at the triaL Those who listened
to the impassioned eloquence of counsel for the
plaintiff, and observed the injured lady in the
witness-box, are, doubtless, better able than un- 1
sympathising readers at a distance can be, to under-
stand how it happened that Miss TRAVERS, afte-,
according to her own evidence, issuing a set ies of
handbills and placards full of doggrel insults, and em-
ploying men with band-bells to direct attention to
them in public places, and publishing a ribald "story"
against the defendant and his wife, was the plaintiff
in an action for libel, while the object of all this
violent publicity was the libeller. or is this the
only singularity in the case. The plaintiff
deliberately publishes to the world her own alle-
gation that the defendant " ruined " her two
years ago, while the wife of the man whom she
accuses of the assault, and who is also a defendant,
refuses to believe the charge against her husband.
If Miss TaA V Llth had not been the plaintiff in au
action for libel, in which the damages were laid at
2,0i)0/., and if the had not obtained a verdict in
her favour, with one farthing damages, it might
occur to mere readers of this trial, that a more
fearful system of persecution in the shape of
"small unnoyalices- was never organised by the
most vindictive woman against, we do not
say the destroyer of her virtue, but against the
peace and happiness of a home in which she had
received nothing but kindness, and of a wife and
mother who, if Miss TRAVEILS' story was the truth,
was not has deeply injured than herself. Eight
years had passed since Miss TRAVERS first became
acquainted with Sir WILLIAM WILDE as his patient ;
during eight years this acquaintance had ripened
into a very intimate friendship with him and with
his family, before the alleged outrage on her
virtue was attetripb.d ; after the outrage the friend-
ship was ti.it broken off, though it assumed the
very violent and disagreeable form of asking for
money to go to Australia, taking a dose of poison,
and publishing her own sham death. And yet
Miss Taa object in destroying Sir WILLIANI
111,E'S professiotril character and his position in
society, his wife's peace of mind, and the happi-
ness of his home, was not the vengeance of a
woman wronged against her deceiver—it was
simply an act of "pique" against Lady WILDE for
having treated her more ceremoniously than •
"particular friend " when she walked un-
invited into Lady Wii.DCa bedroom.

But so niu:t lAA forget that Lady WILDE was
also a defeudant, and, except in form, the
defendant in this action for libel in which Miss
111.tior NE TRA VMS was the plaintiff. On
the 6th of last 3lsy, Lady WILDE wrote a letter to
Dr.l P.AVERS, informing him of his daughter's " dis-
" reputable conduct" at Bray, where "she consorts
"with all the low newspaper boys in the place,
"employing them to disseminate offensive placards
"in which my name is given, and also tracts, in
"which she makes it appear that she haa had an