The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-12-15 00:00:00

THE TALBOT CASE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STANDARD.
SIR.—It was not my intention to have resumed
my pen in reference to this case further than to
express my satisfaction that it is now in the far
abler hands of your correspondent " Cujus," and
the gratitude which, in common with every lover
of justice, I feel to yourself for your powerful ad=
vocacy of the cause of truth and innocence,
I believe with you that the victory is won, and
that public opinion has already reversed the decis-
ion of the three law lords.
My object in now addressing you is to seek
your assistance to solve a riddle which perplexes
me more, the more I consider it.
Who and what is Mrs. Tennant, alias " Mrs.
Truman ?"
That she was all along the agent to Mr. Talbot
there can be no doubt. The single fact that,
whilst in her correspondence with myself (I have
dozens of her letters in my possession) she was
expressing the utmost abhorrence of Mr. Talbot,
she sent copies .of that very correspondence to Mr
Talbot's attorney, is conclusive upon this.
Whilst this correspondence was carried on by
her under the name of " Truman" with myself and
the Rev. Mr Gage, the other brother-h.-law of Mr.
Adair, the Rev. Mr. Kemmis, through whose hands
it passed, swears he never knew that she went by
the name of " Truman" at all
I well remember, is one of my early interviews
with her, when, in answer to her inquiries as to
Mrs. Talbot's family, of whom she either was, or
professed to be, in entire ignorance, I told her that
her father, M. M'Causland,was a deputy lieutenant
of his county, that one sister was married to Mr.
Senior, the commissioner of poor laws, another to
Mr. Vaughan, of Harrow, another to a son of Mr.
Bright of Abbots Leigh, and another to my brother,
she paused for a moment, and then said, as if
thinking aloud, " Oh ! then they are not sach snobs
as he says."
Who was the he? I supposed at the time that
it referred to something which she had heard from
Mrs. Talbot of the slighting way in which her hus-
band had spoken of her family. Now, I am die
posed to think it referred to some more direct
commun:cation.
To Mr. Gage and myself she was " Mrs. Tru-
man." To Mr. Kemmis Mrs. Talbot was " Mrs
Armstrong ;" in the house she was " Marie ;" and
there was, and perhaps still is, another unhappy
prisoner, who passes by the name of " Rosa."
There was an Italian maid serva,t in the estab-
lishment, and a " Helen A." Never, surely, in one
house were so many persons collected, each passing
under an "alias!'
That I was for months the dupe of her artifices
I freely admit. Any one of your readers who can
honestly say he has never reposed a mistaken
confidence in a woman is entitled to a laugh at my
expense. To detail a tenth part of the arts which
she employed to throw dust in my eyes, would
occupy half your paper. At last she threw off the
mask, locked the door in the face of Mrs. Talbot's
sister, Mrs. Tertius Paget, denied that she N‘as in
her house at all, and then surrendered her pri
soner, with hardly decent clothes, and with all
the precaution which befitted a lunatic or a dumb
animal !
This is not the first time that Mrs. Tennant's
name has appeared, and her establishment been
referred to, in a court of justice. One of the wit-
nesses in the Achilli case came from the House
of Mercy, at Windsor, recommended to Mts. Achilli
by Mrs. Tennant." If the story told by this
woman was true, after being a common prostitute,
and having professed to have been reformed at
the establishment of Mrs. Tennant, she lived for
five months in adultery with Achilli in the same
house with his wife. That was her own story. If
true, she was infamous ; if false, more infamous
Now, passing over Mr. Talbot and Mr. Adair,
I
did the Rev. Robert Gage, and the Rev. George
Kemmis deliberately place Mrs. Talbot in an
asylum for common prostitutes, and leave her there,
concealed from her friends, for six months? Who.
I ask, is Mrs. Tennant, alias " Mrs. Truman ?"
What is the nature of her establishment? Is it a
private lunatic asylum, or is it a reformatory for
prostitutes ? Or is it simply a place where any
gelideman who wish es Lu get. rill Of ills wife may
have her placed in seclusion, under a false name,
whilst he procures a divorce in the Ecclesiastical
Court ?
If any of your readers can answer these ques-
tions, they may very possibly further the ends of
justice. I shall have pleasure in contributing to
the same object by giving every information and
assistance in my power to any father or brother
who may have reason to suppose that " Rosa" is
some unhappy daughter or sister who has been
spirited away to that " House of Mercy," which
Mrs. Talbot " took for hell," and believed she was
consigned to by the devil in the shape of the Rev.
Mr Kemmis.
One thing is certain. An insane person has been
confined for six months without any legal authority,
under a feigned name, in the house (f a woman who
passes by an "alias." Beyond that, all is mystery.—
I am, Sir. your obedient servant, JOHN PAGET.
3, Brick court, Temple, Dec. 10, 1856
[The Stand ,rd of Saturday, in giving insertion
to the above, introduces the letter with these re-
marks :—" We feel that we do not, in inserting the
letter, deviate from our premise of suspending
original remarks or the communications of anony-
mous correspondents. The writer gives his name,
and his 'noble conduct,' acknowledged by the
House of Lords. gives the highest possible authority
to that name.'']

FATAL COLLIERY ACCIDENT.—Mr. E Herford, city
coroner, held an inquest at his court, Ridgefield, on Friday,
on the body of John Monks, aged 21, of Kersley, near
Bolton, who was employed at Mr. Jacob Fletcher's Clifton
colliery in wasgoning. On the 18 hof November last, he
was pursuing his ordinary avocations in the Moss pit, when
the chain attached to two waggons, to which he was attending,
snapped, the waggons ran back upon hire, and broke his right
leg. As soon as might be he was removed to the infirmary,
bit eventually died from the injury he then sustained. Evis
dente was given to show that the chain was stronger than are
used for the same purpose in another part of the colliery,
and that there must have been some flaw in it incapable of
detection. Upon the evidence, the jury returned a verdict
of " Accidental death."
BLUNDERS OF ENOLI9II. JouasmisTe.—English writers
should really let Scotch matters alone ; for, to use a homely
phrase, whenever they write upon them, they are sure to
" put their foot in it." Examples are not wanting. Not
many weeks ago, Mr. Sala, in Household Words, spoke of
crossing the Grampian hills from Northumberland, and so
entering Edinburgh ! The Examiner, not long ago, in
reviewing Mr. Massey's volume, spoke of Craigcrook castle,
the residence of the late Lord Jeffrey, as a ruin. The
Saturday Review talks of the same place as the residence of
an eminent acconcheur. The Edinburgh Directory says
it is the house of John Hunter, Eq., auditor of the Court
of Session. Not many weeks ago the Times did not know
the difference between James and Professor Aytoun. Punch
is of course a privileged joker, but his j Ike! against Scotland
are often marred from his ignorance of the people and their
habits ; nor will. his shabbiness in criticising all ill written
advertisements as a part of a Scottish penny paper be soon
forgotten. This was a piece of trickery that he of the hump
could have easily dispensed with. In fact, the Eiglish
gentlemen of the press should leave the Scottish thistle
alone. Let them remember Remo use impune laces it.—

North:Briton.
CARDSHARPERS IN GLASGOW.—Our cotemporary, the
North British Daily Mail, of Friday contains the following : I
—"B inds of these vagabonds continue to haunt the steam-
boat quay, the railway station, and indeed everywhere in
this quarter where they are likely to fall in with victims.—
On
Tuesday, in the gloaming, one of them stopped a young
man at the foot of !Manse Lane, and politely asked him if he
knew when the train left for Ayr. He then pressed the
stranger to go with him into a spirit shop at hatd, to par-
take of lemonade. They were scarcely seated when other
two of the gang entered, and then a third, who professed to
be a pedlar, and, pretending to be strangers to one and other,
the peeler tried to force a sale of a mock silver pencil-case,
not worth 2d, for 7s 6d. He then produced cards, and the
other fellows appeared to fight shy. They then played with
each other for flash noes, but could not induce the stranger
to join ; and at length he got out of their company by pro-
mising to go to fetch some money to play with them. Thus
the mode of operation pursued by the rascals may be under-
stood. They contrived to defraud a man, a few nights ago,
out of £7 in a spirit shop in the neighbourhood of the rail-
way station. From the great passeniger traffic going on
between the steamers and the railway, even at this season of
the year, they evidently find this locality congenial to their
calling ; and we repeat our warning to travellers, to beware
of their machinations.