The Express.
London, England, 1868-10-07 00:00:00

AATILER CRAIG BD 111711.11 LIAILLUNGI
.1418 8011.
At the Mansion-house yesterday a gentleman,
carrying on business as • jeweller is the City, appeared
before the Lord Mayor to answer • summons charging
him with unlawfully writing and publishing. andeansing
to be written and published • fraW and scandalous de-
f 007 libel concerning his son, well knowing the same
to be false.
Mr. Kemp, barrister, appeared in support of tbe com-
plaint; and Mr. ()serge Lewis, junior, for the defence.
The son, a wine merchant's clerk, said the envelope
produced was in his father's handwriting. In it was en-
closed the letter produce& in the following terms:
" Loudon, September 16, 11$8.-84,--I am unable to
procure you any situation in London. With respect
to the other remark, let me toll you (to prevent any
further self-delusion on your part) that since
the period of April last year, when your 000 duct
gave occasion to me to recount to you the salient
points of your whole pad life from the age of
about 13 or to to that time, showing what an utterly dis-
honourable youth you had been in regard to moral pro-
priety; that I ray I have become circumstantially ac-
Iluaintedwith all your life since that period of your (despite
the warnings of your comrade and acquaintances) tacking
up with a girl-frequenter of • pit of • tbestre, the natural
child of a Bristol attorney by one of his mistresses, and
devoid of education ; that you deliberately perjured your.
self in order to marry this individual, and deceived the
minister of religion also who married yea ; that you then
began practices at the Bank until it discharged you in
&grew ; that you then praised yourself into connexion I
with your comrade, M. P., who never engaged you nor
wanted anything to do with you, and who left you
money, and himself (not you) was the injured party
that after this you turned to roguery and defrauded by
lying and deceit a pour widow trade.ipenion of a gold
watch, and turned (as usual) impudent towards her, so
that the pour widow was robbed by you with im-
punity ; that you defrauded, as a further act of
roguery, your friend, the young man at the L.
and b. W. Bunk, through an artful scheme, by
the grocer's boy, of the value of a false cheque
for 61., and he remains robbed of that sum by you
to this day ; that, iu fine, you have been a bankrupt, ga-
vetted, Ac. I need say uo more. Your sisters and myself
know of all thew things, and they and I feel you are an
arrant disgrace to our family. I no longer, nor they, can
ever associate with you again. Your tomfoolery, bra-
vado speeches at Highgate !set winter and since only
show what • degraded arid villanous wretch you arc
become. Keep yourself and your wife and
your child, to yourself, and do not venture
to intrude yourself or them upon our notice;
we have nothing more to ray to you, only this much, that
if you will agree to change your name to Pickford by a
regular deed, so as to make the distinction and separation
between us henceforth absolute, I will pay you so much
money for that act, and I promise you not to carry my
displeasure at the disgrace done by you to my name and
family by forgetting you were my son in the distribution
of my property. But we can never again have any inter-
course with you. If you agree to my proposal you may
communicate with Mr. Trice, who I feel sure will kindly
act in the matter for me. On condition you legally re-
nounce, your name and adopt instead that of Pickford as a
finality, I will give you fel. You can send this letter to
Mr. Thee if you agree to it.-1 remain your siucere well-
whher and father ' ' •
" P.S. You understand I cannot hold any more direct
eorreepondence with you. You cannot alter your princi-
ples, and you will go on worse and worse until you die to
3 our self and mice hi a new nature. You will, I fear, stop
at nothing now, except where the fear of personal punish-
ment deters you. Think of this fact of nature, to sink
morally wore and worse and worse here and in/ lade.
hies after. Such your youth and adolescence, the slave of
lust.. meanness, and depravity—unmitigated sell, nut one
Ittletioing point."
Examination eentinuid—The letter is in my sister
Antnee handwriting'. hut the initials are those of
my father. '1 be statements in the letter are untrue. It
had been forwarded to Bristol and re-addressed, and it
was reteivid by me at Dowgete-hill.
Mr. Lewis read a letter addressed by the complainant
to his father stating that he felt remorse for his miscon-
duct, end asked his father's forgivenees for his wickedness
towards him.
lie complainant was cross-examined at some length.
after which Mr. Kemp asked the Lord Mayor to c unmat
the defendaut for trial. Me admitted that the com-
plainant hail made a deed of composition, but that was
we only pretence for any of the charges that had been
made against him. Ile had previously received letters of
r similar character.
Mr. Lewis,* for the defence, submitted that the letter
was • perfectly Privileged one which the father was
writing to the son. In 1566, when this lad was In years
of age, his father, who had previously educated him
alsind, obtained for him an appointment ni a bank at
Bath. and now, two stars afterwards, they found him
tooteleing that he was a bankrupt at 21; that he had
been iliemeoed from his appointment: and that he had
drawn • cheque which had been dishonoured. In addi-
tion to that he had been running
_in debt to other people.
After all these transactions his Who. was perfectly justi-
fied in !peaking out his mind to him, sad that was all he
had done.
Defendant—All I wish to say isr, that I wrote him a
private letter as a father, as I was bound to do, for all his
misconduct. lie has not stated what I thought he was
bound to state, namely, that he wrote to me to receive
him into the
The Lon d Mayor—Your answer is that you wrote it as
a father.
Defeedant—Certainly I did.
110 was then committed for trial, and liberated on his
owe recooisauces, to appear at the Contra] Criminal
buret.