The Express.
London, England, 1860-11-29 00:00:00

NION_WATIR AT LONDON_UIDOL

Tins DAllw4iiiiiii-ii.ll:7:7.7ltoWste.-I.h. yawh.
To-aceamp-m•raft& saa.....Arinms, 1

LONDON, THURSDAY, NOV. 29.

" Sum; " says Loexe, referring to Sir
Roemer Foam, and other advocates of absolute
monarchy and the divine right of Kings, " Slavery
" is so vile and miserable an estate of man, and so
" directly opposite to the generous temper and
" courage of our nation, that it is hardly to be
" conceived that an Englishman, much less a
gentleman, should plead for it." If this was
matter of surprise in Loam's day, two hundred
years nearer the times of feudal supremacy and
the general prevalence of arbitrary power, the
wonder of finding any Englishman capable of taking
such a position is certainly not diminished now.
If, however, these opinions are still held in any
loarters, it is far better !they should be pub-
licly avowed, instead of being privately circulated
as the esoteric traditions of a class or order. If
there are those who still think that any form of
mixed or limited monarchy is neoessarily anarchi-
cal, and that the arbitrary will of • single
man is the best possible government under
which mankind can be placed, let us know
who they are by all means. On this ground we
heartily welcome the extraordinary letter on Oast-
BALM, signed "Rosier MONTAGU, M.P.," which
appeared in the columns of a contemporary two
days ago. It is impossible not to attribute • re-
presentative character and value to this singular
document ; the writer being evidently one to
whom nature has denied the power of forming any,
even false, opinions of his own. He panellises
apparently the cuckoo or parrot faculty of catching
up and incontinently repeating the sentiments
of those with whom he emaciates. In the lan-
guage of the phrenologists, be has large acquisi-
tiveness and no caution ; and his total want of an-1
Lion must be a terrible embarrassment to his
friends. Without any sense of time, or plate, or
fitness, he blurts or babbles out the very senti-
ments they would mast carefully conceal from
public view. lu • word, he is one of those half-
saved innocents to whom nature has denied all
feeling of public propriety, and who is, therefore,
just the man to betray and expose his friends by
his terrible indiscretion.

This private lose and grievance is, however, a
public gain. The whole value of the letter lies in
its representative character. In themselves its
contents are, indeed, too contemptible for serious
discussion ; and were it simply the expression of
an isolated opinion, the epistle would be unworthy
of notice. But as the unwitting manifesto of a
class or party, it is a political curiosity of the
greatest interest. It throws an instructive light
on the boasted liberality of certain sections amongst
the upper clause, and gives an unexpected shock
to the general belief in the political enlightenment
and progress of all orders in the nation. Who
are the people that still hold these monstrous and
exploded dogmas touching the nature and founda-
tion of government which Lord ROBERT MONTAGU
glibly repeats as self-evident truths f How did
this young nobleman get them I They must be
the maxims of a class, for he enounoes them not
only without the least misgiving as to their cer-
tainty and truth, but apparently with the as-
surance that all the world will accept them
without inquiry or dispute. This serene confi-
dence in his own views and self•complacent
ignorance of all others must be the result of early
training and the habitual intercourse of social
life. In a word, the aristocratic and exclusive
circles in which Lord Romer Mowrsao moves
support the worst excesses of arbitrary power, and
denounce the noblest forms of patriotism as
treason deserving only of death. It is something
to have learnt this much on such unexceptional tes-
timony. It had generally been imagined that the
views of even the extremest Tories had of late
years undergone • great change, that they had
abandoned their extreme opinions, and brought
their political views more into harmony with the
spirit and tendencies of the age. But this it seems
is, after all, a mere delusion. Amongst the more
politic of the titled Conservatives, young and old,
there is indeed a veneer of verbal liberality and
affected sympathy with public opinion, but the
moment it is scratched the old coarse grain of
hereditary assumption and settled contempt of
the people immediately ►ppears. Here is Lord
Rosser MONTAGC, for example, M.P. for an
English county, and a defender of small parlia-
mentary boroughs, a "warm friend of the
" Established Church," as D,KI tells us, who
" will not consent to her influence being 101-
11 paired." This exemplary young nobleman
is second son of the !hike of M ANL-Hurts,
and was educated at Trinity College, Cam-
bridge. He can hardly have picked up his political
opinions at college, though, we believe, there is a
manual of moral and political science—Seivell's

Christian .1/..rals—well known, if not in nos, at
Oxford, where the divine right of Kings is laid
down u • first principle supported alike by
reason and scripture. Cambridge has, however,
produced no such orthodox manual of mediaeval
science, and Lord ROBERT therefore most probably
took the rrineiples he avows with him to that seat
of ;,:arsu:,z, and, what is a far greater marvel,

brought them safely away
of any kind. Till the
not, it is truo, honoured
the extent that might
from his singular want
occasionally delivers a speech

Commons in which the

that have been dropped by everybody
are carefully picked up, strung together in a
schoolboy declamation, and confidently paraded
as original discoveries. Then, moreover, Lord
Rosatr patronises the working classes, and coos-
lousily cognate with them in a delightfully ma-
mental manner. Not long since, for instance, he
took the chair at a public meeting of artisans,
and quoted Longfellow. But notwithstanding all
this, when he gets back to " Invernam-
" terrace," and mingles amongst his own order,
he boldly denies that the people have any
rights at all, and morn that they cannot legiti-
mately lift a hand against the worst tyranny under
Heaven. We are heartily glad that he has at
length spoken kis mind, and only wish that others
who hold the same sentiments would follow his
example. Henceforth, however, there can be no
mistake so far as Lord Roarer MONTAGU himself
is concerned. If the people of Huntingdonshire
re-elect him it will be with the full knowledge that
he is the public apologist of tyranny, the only
Englishman who in these days has dared
to outrage the public ear by defending
the base and degrading dogma of political
slavery. If any body of working men ever again
ask him to preside at their meetings, it will be in
perfect recollection of the fact, never to be for-
gotten, that he has denounced the purest patriot
and noblest hero of the age as guilty of treason
and worthy of death; that he has called Gsax-
SALM a "filibuster, murderer, and cutthroat
" adventurer." If any body of Englishmen share
theme sentiments, let them select Lord Rosier
MONTAGU as their representative. But if not,
he will henceforth be justly condemned to the con-
genial obscurity of his own narrow circle and his
own exploded doctrines.

THE great SIMI= case, that has occupied for
nearly three weeks the entire time and attention of
Sir C. Cal/SWILL, Mr. Justice WIGHTMAN; and
Mr. Justice WILLIAM, has at length COMO to an
end ; and the nnsatidactory result is, that a cause
that has for upwards of a fortnight obstructed and
impeded the regular business of the Probate and
Divorce Courts, is declared to have been a piece of
"unjustifiable litigation," so that literally hun-
dreds of divorce cases and scores of probate cases
have been postponed to make way for what the
Court has found itself obliged to characterise as a
" relentless persecution " by the petitioner, Mr.
SHEDDES, of " an aged man of unimpeached in-
" tegrity." Much curiosity and some practical
sympathy have been excited by the advocacy un-
expectedly mimed and ably sustained by the pe-
titioner's daughter, Miss SHEDDEN ; and the Court
in its judgment has not included her in the
sweeping condemnation passed upon the petitioner,
although its remarks must have given her ample
food for very bitter reflections. Still the public—
especially when they learn that this case is
only the precursor of others of the same class, and
probably to be in like manner recommended
to their sympathy by female advocacy--
will be disposed to grudge the time de-
manded for the purpose of obtaining for each
applicants barren declarations of legitimacy ;
or will at least be inclined to insist that such
eases shall be heard and disposed of before some
more fitting and convenient tribunal. The
activity of the SHILDDINB in their own un-
righteous cause has been allowed to work a
public wrong, and one that has yet to be remedied.
The history of the statute under which the Divorce
Court had jurisdiction of this cause is curious, and
may be of interest, although it involve the story
of the SHZDDITSB themselves, which, clothed in
legal verbiage. and encumbered with minute de-
tails, has, pediaps, been scarcely comprehended
by the majority of our readers. The petitioner's
father was of Scotch origin, and went to
America in the year 1764, and with the exception
of a short visit to this country in 1768, resided in
America, and carried on business there as a
merchant until his death in 1798. In 1793 the
petitioner, Wiwas 81118/111, was born, and his
mother, Asir Wnams, who had lived with the
petitioner's father for some years, was formally
married to him six days before his death in 1798.
On the assumption that this marriage did not legi-
timise the petitioner by the American law,
although by the Scotch law it would have had that
Offset, Rosier PATILIC/L, who was nephew and
next male heir of the petitioner's father, claimed
his landed property in Scotland ; and on the arrival
of the petitioner in Scotland for education a suit
was in 1803 instituted by the petitioner's guar-
dian against Rosa= Parana to decide the vali-
dity of this claim. The Court of Session decreed'
in ROBERT PASSIM'S favour, and from that decree
there was an appeal to the House of Lords, the
appeal case being drawn by Lord (then Him)
BaoroaAir, who was also one of the appellant's
counsel at the hearing, which lasted four days :
but the House of Lords affirmed the judgment of
the Scotch Court, and confirmed Rosier PATRICK
in the possession of his uncle's property. The ,
petitioner, Wuziax SHIDDEN, at first entered the
East Indian naval service, but soon relinquished
this employment and engaged in mercantile pur-
suits abroad ; and, after amassing some fortune,
returned to England, with apparently the express
intention of prosecuting what he deemed to be his
rights to his father's Scotch setae. Accordingly,
in 1848, he eommenced fresh proceedings in the
Court of 541.014 in which he complained that the
former judpment had been obtained by the fraud
of the Pararcis in concealing certain letters, which
showed that the petitioner's father had always in-
tended to return to Scotland, and conse-
quently had never lost what is called
his Scotch domicile ; and, therefore, that
his marriage was good by the Scotch law.
Among these letters was the letter denounced by
the petitioner—not then, but at the recent trial—
as a forgery; and in what Is called a supple-
mentary case a previous secret marriage was
alleged ; but the only proof of this consisted in the
open cohabitation of his father and mother as man
and wife prior to his birth. The Court of Session
again decided against WILLIAM SHEDDLN ; they
held that there was no fraud, that the letters did
not have the effect alleged, and that there was no
proof of a marriage previous to the birth. Wu,
Lux SSZDDIN again, in 1864, appealed to the
House of Lords, and after a hearing of twenty
days before Lords CILANWORTH, Bv. LSONARINI,
and BILOCONAS (his former counsel), WAS once
more—and as might be supposed at last finally—
defeated. The case upon this hearing was in
allegation, and almost in evidence, identically the
same as it was developed at the react hearing in
the Divorce Court ; as is obvious even from
comparison of their Lordships' judgments with
that just delivered by Sir C. Cantwell. ; and the
forte of their Lordships' arguments and conclu-
-1 Eons would to ordinary minds have been thought

them, _ pockets might
citing them again to disprove WILLIAM 811EDDEN'S
legitimacy.
In the Parliamentary Session, therefore., of
18158, a Bill was brought in and passed through
both Houma "to enable persons to establish
" legitimacy and the validity of marriages, and
"the right to be deemed natural born subjects."
It passed almost unopposed—but one member was
found to object that litigation might thus be re-
opined. It was urged that "after a man had
" litigated to the utmost in the courts of tin
" country, and had established his rights to the
" last, and had been put in possession of the
" property--after all, his right might thus again
"be disputed, and a new litigation set on foot
"to disturb his right if not his possession,
" wed establish that of another person."
Hp a anions coincidence the member making
this objection was Mr. Partucx's leading counsel
M tin mend trial ; but the only effect of his ob-
Jodi= at the time was the addition to the statute
of an ambiguous clause that might mean anything
or nothing. The Divorce Court was then in
infancy ; and the Legislature, having no promisee*
of the extent to which ill assorted couples would
pray the interference of Sir C. Osseeweit, and
only too fearful that his position might be so much
a sinecure as to give no excuse for the pecuniary
burden of an extra court which they had imposed
upon the country, could think of no tribunal
before which legitimacy suite could more conve-
niently be instituted than the Divorce Court. And
minder this statute the SIIIIDDE4 case has been re-
vived, like a mummy, and with much the
name result. The complicated details have resem-
bled lir munerous wrappings of the dried and
withered Many, and when the details have been
mastered and elucidated, and the wrappings all
unwound, both the case and the corpse dissolve in
thin air. Upon the propriety of Sir C. CRESS-
wsiem comments on this case it would be as im-
pertinent as it is perhaps superfluous for us to
observe, and we may safely leave our readers to
draw their own inferences ; but upon the impro-
priety of this and similar cases being allowed to
engross the already overweighted Divorce Court,
we trust that the public will allow their voices to
be beard, and in no unmistakeable terms ; and we
again warn them that this is no solitary case, but
is to be followed by others no leas lengthy and of
much greater importance.
We must not be understood to decry the value
to individuals and families of these declarations of
legitimacy, however small their practical result
may for the time appear ; but they are not to be
preferred to the consideration of those COR4I that
affect the happiness or misery of multitudes of
families, and for the determination of which this
Court was originally constituted ; nor is there any
reason why legitimacy causes should not be de-
cided before juries and by the judges of the Superior
Courts, as in ordinary civil mita.

ti
Till ;•EXPIES* WPM EkO
wi4,firci irresisll4 uto *mind; • SOO*.
wet* he pence. Sob; ikowever, ,did ni# 1 k Wn.uass
ml them m public to 8111EDDEFOD did 110$ think other twits, piers,
have been expected and laymen, whom he or his daustiter contrived
of reserve. But he to interest in his behalf. If the PATILICILS could
peach in the House of no longer be directly attacked, they might be in-
the exploded fallacies directly assailed—if the estate could not be taken
id by everybody else from them, their pockets might be invaded by