The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-28 00:00:00

NIGI! WILT= AT LONDON RRIDOS.

IWO Dtt —Morning 3b. 44ra.
TO-110azow—MornIng, 4b. 121..--Attaruoon. 4h. Dm.

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28.

IN Dublin, during the past fortnight, attention
has been diverted from the public disgrace and
danger of Fenianism to a private scandal of the
most attractive character, involving almost every
element of interest. The reputation of a Queen's
Counsel of high eminence and until lately popular
in his profession, and of country gentlemen of HD-
stained name, were directly concerned. Secret
transactions and conspiracies, private consultations
and chambering; key-hole listenings and reports,
Jew money-lending and Christian forgery, a
sudden and mysterious flight and an audacious
return, confessions of guilt and retractations of
the confession, hard swearing on both sides, and
wholesale perjury on one aide or the other, are
but a few of the morsels which for days have
whetted and fed the appetite for scandal
in one of tho oldest and moat gossiping
cities of the empire. Add to all these tit-bits a
family quarrel of the most comprehensive charac-
ter; and only malicious cynics can blame the people
of Dublin if of late they have crowded the Court of
Common Pleas, have forgotten Fenianism for for-
gery, and have been more eager as to the fate of
Mr. WILLIAM SIDNEY than for that of Mr.
JOHN MARTIN. A trial in which mothers and
daughters, sisters and brothers, friends and near
kinsmen of various degrees swore dead against
each other ; which exhibited the spectacle of great
abilities pitiably prostituted, of bright prospects
hopelessly overate; and of a natural ambition
thwarted, might be a theme for nine days'
wonder, and for a longer period of compassionate
or indignant moralizing, among a busier and
less excitable population than that of Dublin. Since
thatamusing profligate and memoir writer, Si RJONAH
BARRINGTON, was dismissed from the Irish Bench
of Justice for embezzlement, more scandalous reve-
lations affecting any member of the legal profes-
sion have not been made than those which the
SIDNEY case has brought out. The character of
the Dublin bar, it is superfluous to add, is in no
way involved in that of Mr. SIDNEY, any more
than that, of the London bar in the conduct of
Mr. EDWIN JAMES. M. LEONCE LAVERGNE has
recently expressed an opinion that the Irish bar is
superior to that of England. It is certainly not
inferior in professional or moral qualities.
In the course of last year, Mr. WILLIAM JAMES
SIDNEY, a Queen's counsel in large and lucrative
practice in Dublin, who had risen, and was still
rising rapidly at the bar, and who enjoyed un-
usual popularity in his profession and in society,
suddenly and secretly fled from both, and from a
future which appeared as brilliant as ambition
could desire. A professional income of between
two and three thousands a year measured by
English standards is not perhaps an ex-
traordinary prize, but it implies a large
share of the business of the half occupied
courts of Dublin. Rumours of a delicate
character had preceded Mr. SIDNEY'S flight ; and
naturally they did not lose strength when it
became known that he had decamped. It
was whispered that he had raised money by forging
the names of near relatives to bills of various
kinds. The action which has just been concluded
brought out the real facts of the case. A more
extraordinary tale has seldom been disclosed in a
court of justice. The conflict and contradiction of
evidence were such that the jury have been unable
to agree upon a verdict. We shall not attempt to
draw the positive conclusion which they have
shrunk from establishing. The chief physical
facts in the case were, however, admitted by both
parties. The dispute turned upon the interpreta-
tion to be given to them by considerations of
the authority and motives diversely alleged on one
side and the other. The allegations on which
the action was brought, and the counter allega-
tions advanced in defence, admit of short state-
ment. The jury were shut up between two hypo-
theses, the character of which, as well as the
undisputed facts on which both rest, will appear
from what follows.

In the action, which has just been closed,
SIDNEY, although the interest of the strange
drama centered about him, appeared only as
a witness. The plaintiff was Mr. LEWIS
HARED; a money-lender of Dublin, who sued
Mr. JOHN LOYD BAGOT, a country gentle-
man and justice of the peace, residing in the
county of Galway, upon two bills of exchange,
one for 2001., the other 3001. Mr. Ilium. pleaded