The Express.
London, England, 1862-01-31 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, JAN. 31.

Evrarrnmo in this world must come to an end,
and only for this reason the WINDELK Inquiry it
over. It has died of sheer exhaustion. It lasted
thirty-four days, and if a sufficient supply of gossips,
grooms, end Clarvonaqq) Vbq had even once seen
Unhappy man, could have been discovered, it
might have lasted thirty more. Master Wanium
bad fixed his seat so firmly that people had begun
to speculate whether his chair or that of No None
would be removed first. But it is over, and the
jury have been permitted to say at last what they
have been longing to say for • good while, "that
" Mr. WINDHAM is of sound mind, and capable of
" taking care of himself and his affairs."
Such is the result of what is by courtesy an
inquiry, but which has really been to a great
extent a contrivance for dodging and evading the
evident fact now legally established. The best
of all possible witnesses, the young man himself,
was the last whom the Court would hear. The
evidence of the tint few days showed Mr. WIND-
HAM to the public as little better than a gorilla;
Rroducod in court yesterday, he answered all the
questions put to him in a straightforward, cohe-
rent, and consequent manner, without the slightest
hesitation. There are thousands of the sanest men in
England who could not have stood that test after an
exposure such es he has endured. The promoters
of these proceedings, the " friends " of Mr. WIND-
H•II, have carefully kept themselves out of eight.
They should have been able to inform the Court as
they had informed the Loam Jravices. But, ready
enough to make affidavits, they shrank from pre-
senting themselves in the witness-hox, and becoming
subject to the test of cross-examination. The cense-
quence was that the jury wee left to find its way
through the case by the light of secondary evi-
dence, and such imbecile wandering was probably
never sees before in • British court of justice.
The real nature of the case has long been apparent
to everybody of the least experience and reflection.
Young Wisnasu was a striking, but unhappily by
no seems rare example of the results of neglected
education. Not that his parents and friends
thought education • thing of no consequence. They
engaged expensive tutees for him, and sent him to
the most famous of our public schoola. But the
education which is of highest value—the early
influence of a well-ordered home, of pa-
rental example and authority, and of
suitable companionship, advantages which the
children of the provident and conscientious artisan
may have, he never enjoyed. Probably under
any course of education his preference would have
led him to an active life rather than to intone°
tual occupations. We fail, however, to detect
any sign that he was deficient in those faculties
which enable the majority of mankind to go
through life with fair credit for ability. But from
the tirst his energies appear to have bees under
no kind of regulation or direction. His father
seems to have treated him as a toy, and to
have indulged all his whims, and taken no care of
his habits lie was without proper acquaint-
once : passing his mornings in the kitchen with
the servants, and in the evening the servants
being called upstairs for his amusement. It seems
to have been supposed that the irregularities of
childhood were to be corrected easily by hurling
the boy into the life of • public school. And it is
not to be doubted that but for his experience at
Eton be would have sunk much lower than be
did. But as he seems to have taken no concep-
tion of self-government thither, he appears to have
brought none away. At a time of life when young
men called to the inheritance of ancestral estates
commonly awake to the sense of the dignity which
accompanies the right discharge of the duties of
their position, young WINDHAM appe3rs to have
been wanting in the most ordinary self-respect. It
was not, as his uncle's Counsel tried to show, that
he was more eccentric than many another young
man never suipeeted of insanity, but his freaks
bore the impress of the low influences of his early
life.

We shall not follow the history of his subse-
quent debauchery, or dwell on the circumstances

which led him to form an unhappy union, buying the
transitory compliances of a notorious woman,
by permanently impoverishing his patrimonial
estate. Our readers have had only too much of
that nauses:ing story. Nobody doubts that his
marriage was the act of a fool. It was the climax
and consummation of the thoughtlessness and itio

providence of his previous life. General WlNo-
ll llee Counsel urged it IM a reason why the law
should interpose to save the remaining property,
and physicians were called to state that, taken in
co inexion with previous acts, it constituted proof
of unsoundness of mind. Hut that is a matter
which may very well be left to common sense to
decide, and the law intends it should be so left
in confiding the decision to a jury of laymen.
The law of England prizes freedom so much that
it will allow a man to abuse it very far to his
owu hurt, and even to the hart of his family,

before it deprives him of it. He may be ignorant
and unskilful, and thus incapable of managing his
property, and that through his own negligence, bet
the law will not interfere. He may be indifferent
to his future, and to the prospects of his children,
even to the extent of gambling away his whole
estate, and the law will not prevent the wants.
The law will not infer unsoundness of mind from
mere foolish acts, however often repeated. If
beads of families will bring up their children badly,
unfit for the duties which attend the possession
of property in a state of society such as
sun, it is by a natural retribution that the family
gaffers in tdtertime a decline of its consideration
when the representative it has so neglected dissi-
pates its estates. The jury have declared that "Mr.
" Wl:emus' is capable of taking care of his
" affairs," but they have not said that he is likely
to do so. Their verdict, in effect, tells that young
man that it is not because of any privation,
whether natural or incidental, of effective reason
that his past life has been one of folly ; that be
still has within him, if he will only rouse them to
exercise, powers by which he may recover him-
self from the bad influences which have so
often overcome him, and walk in the
path of usefulness and credit Mr. WIND•
RAM has been very unfortunate ; be has com-
mitted some terrible mistakes, and terribly has
he been punished. We hope he will receive the
verdict of the Jury, not as conferring • new license
to a life of vanity, but rather as the indulgent
voice of the law, and in a certain sense also of the
public, which has been virtually present through-
out these proceedings, inviting him to reflect at
this crisis of his existence, and make a vigorous
effort to render himself worthy of the opportuni-
ties which his birth and possessions confer.