The Express.
London, England, 1861-09-26 00:00:00

in evidence.

The Chairman—ls the letter materiel!
Mr. Cooke—it is material only as ehowing that the primmer
informed his wife that the child wu dead, and that he had
paid for the funeral.
The Chairman—My opioion is that a letter from a hus-
band to the wife in such a CUM may be read. (Applause.)
Mr. Philbrick—l must really ask to be protected by the
bench in the exercise of my duty in a criminal case from
these very indecent exhibitions.

The Chairman--The interruptions which have taken place
by the audience, it must be obvious, have a tendency to im-
pede the administration of justice. I am sure you all wish
that the guilty alone shall be convicted, and It must be the
feeling of all present that it is proper in them to hear the
evidence in becoming silence ; but the noise and tumult
which had arisen both oo the present sod the former occa-
sion have interfered with the gentlemen of the press, who
are here in the discharge of their duty, and in some degree
have prevented the magistrates from hearing the evidence.
I hop that after this we shall have no repetition of these
improper interruptions.

Mr. PhilbrickLlt is A cardinal principle in criminal juris-
prudence that a husband and wife cannot be called to give
evidence either for or against each other, and it necessarily
follows that on a criminal charge the communications which
have pissed between husband and wife cannot be given in
evidence. The text books are clear and explicit on the sub-
ject, and I, therefore, firmly object to this oorrespondence
being received. If the bench require any authonty upon
the point, I would refer them to "Taylor on Evidence, in
which it is said that the first class of subjects which the law
protects from disclosure is that of communications between
husband and wife. This wise enactment, it is added, rest.
ow the obvious ground that the admission of such testimony
has a fearful tendency to disturb the peace of &milieu,
cause domestic broils,and destroy that feeling of mutual con.
Memos which is the endearing solace of married life. Upon
that authority, which is dear and unmistakeable I ask the
bench to decade that all these communications between Mr.
and Mrs. Hill shall not be admitted.

The bench decided that the letters should not be received.,
and the chairman observed that they could be produced at
the trial, when it would Deepen to the prisoner's counsel to
object to their admission as evidence.
Mr. Cooke said this concluded the evidence for the pro's-
cutlets, and he asked that upon that evidence the prisoner
should be committed for trial.
Mr. Bloxam, the clerk of the magistrates, then read to
the prisoner the charge made against him, and with the
usual caution asked him if he had anything to say.
The Prisoner—l leave it to my counsel
Mr. Phillrick then rose to addles. the magistrates upon
the part of the defendant. He said it now became his duty,
as counsel for Mr. Richard Guinness Hill, to address some
observations to the bench, by way of remark upon the
case generally and in answer to the specific charge upon
which he appeared. At the outset he might state that the
extraordinery public interest which attached to the case,
the romantic details respecting it with which the public
press teemed, the peculiar circumstances under which the
charge had been preferred, and last and not least the
excitement it occasioned, an exhibition of which,
even in a court of justice, could not be restrained,
I alike conspired to reader that duty one of some
difficulty and emberrastrient. Mr. Hill was a
' gelation= of birth and petition, whose connexions were of
the highest respectability, and against whom until this case
arose there never existed a breath of suspicion ; and he was
satisfied that io a case involving such a charge against a
'gentleman of that description, /4 body of country gentlemen,
sitting there to administer justice, would not allow them-
selves to be influenced in the slightest degree by what had
pored out of doors, and that. Mr. Hill would receive what
the meanest person in that town and every British subject
was entitled to—a fair and impartial bearing, and an honest,
candid, sod just &deem. When the facts came to be care-
fully looked iato and divested of all extraneous and Mina.
tared matters, as well as of the prejudice which had been
excited, for a purpose very well known to these who
conducted the defence, he would venture to say that
a moreouiserable rag of a case, on which it was naked that a
gentleman should be committed fur trial at the useless, had
never been presented to a bench of nui4istratee It must be
quite obvious to every person who had watched the proceed-
lugs that the prosecution had been instituted from motives
of personal revenge sod malignity towards Mr. Hill. Had
they not been asked to divulge the confidential
communications which had passed between man
and wife? Such a thiug bud never been herd
of before in England. even in the moat troublous
times, and especially in ease in which the letters were used
with a view to the prejudice of the husband. A strong
motive—nod an exceedingly strong one—had been shown
for the prosecution. It wet quite clear that it was the wife
and her advisers who bad instituted and conducted these pro.
mediegs. It could not he denied that it was a
contest between husband and wife, and that the
wife appeared here as the accuser of her husband.
As the case was opened before the bench, it became im.
portent to ascertain what were the pecuniary motives by
which it wax alleged that Mr. Hill had been influenced, and
the relations in which in this respect the husband and wife
stood to; each other. The prosecution said that Mr. Hill
had wilfully falsified the register, and it was insinuated that
hie motive was to obtain some pecuniary advantage for him•
self. He (the learned counsel) objected to the production of
any widen°, having reference to matters that happened
subsequent to the alleged falsification, on the ground that
such evidence could not have effect in law, as bearing on a
cam which was complete when the false information by
which the register was falsified was given. But that objec-
tion had been overruled, the bench having decided that it
was competent to adduce evidence of what afterwards
occurred, in order to show the motive that was supposed to
influence the act charged. He (Mr. Philbrick) was glad that
it was so. As he understood the case brought forward
on the other side, it was that a child having been bora of
this marriage between Mr. aid Mrs. Hill, Mr. Hill himself
coused to be inserted those false statements in the register,
in enter by concealing the existence of that child to secure
to himself some pecuniary benefit under the marriage settle-
ment. But how did it appear? First of all under the set-
Moment Mr. Hill hail a life interest, which no child nor any
number of children could deprive him of. Sothatany objeethe
might have had in suppressing the birth of the child as re.
eluded pecuniary advantage ariaing out of the marriage set-
tlement must refer to some ulterior result after his decease.
How stood the case in this respect? They had it in evidence
that the property was to go to the children of the marriage
if more than one, or if one only then to that one under a
joist power of appointment. If there were no children Mn,.
Hill took it absolutely in the event of her surviving her
husband, or if the husbeud outlived the wife, and no power
of ippointment was exercised by the wife, then be took one
moiety, the other moiety going to her next of kin.
There was this material fact in the case, that
the only interest Mr. Hill could have in the
settled property was to the extent of one moiety in
the event of there being no issue by the marriage, and even
as to thee it was in the power of his wife to defeat hfm. If
she survived him she had the whole, sad if she did not still
she bed full power of appointment over it if she chose to
exercise it, aced by a stroke of her pen could prevent his
touching one peony of the money. I.le suppression of the
fact of the child's birth, therefore, so far from producing any
pecuniary benefit to him, would have been perfectly useless ;
and in this way the motive which had been brought
forward on the part of the prosecution was a double-edged
sword which recoiled with force upon those who used it.
It had been said in the public papers that the property in
question amounted to about 14,000 f. a year. This was one
only of many exaggerations which had been invented by
the ingenuity of those who had compiled the narrative
with so much ingenuity from information web
deadly furnished—whether from the office of the solicitor
for the prosecution, from the gleanings of the detective, or
from the statements of Mr. Maltby, it was needless to in-
quire. One thing was clear, and that was that the trust
fund was not 14,11001., but, as he observedby the 20f. stamp
affixed to the deed of settlement, the whole value of the
=y, both in possession and in reversion, did not es-
OM ; and the magistrates were asked here to believe
that for the sake of a moiety of 8,009 f. after his decease,
be had been guilty of this *impression end this unnatural
cruelty. If there hail been suppression, and it had been
influenced by pecuniary motives, it was perfectly clear
that the wife must have been beset and part hi it.
Let them follow out the question of pecouiery
motive on the part of the husband. Mr. Hill,
it appeared, was married in the year 1852 to
Miss Bardset, who was than about 19 years of age. She
was a Loadooer, and be was an Irishman. They lived abroad
npontbe continent
A young wife .
entuntilshewas 20 yeas
r. sooldg beforehba. t.d living
there
ewir
any hopeof ig
together for nearly seven years, and uo issue. Then they
were told that the lady suddenly proceeded from Dublin to
Leiden, in Janury, Dtriee, to be confined, but whet they
ntenheardt
masdhoeuthythteh:itlteicritliz
wardpros prosecution.
thutelio'°Ed. tedolfttaihrimepearedst:
tot..
no
where the was known, sail where every attention would
visaheitwbaarnt t4husintainidd'es°4-TiteendtisetbrL'ueeltninstead of staying there,
have been paid to her, she left, and came on towards Loudest
to be confined, nod under circumstances of such pressure, '
and so clam to the pitied of her confinement, that she was
taken ill by the way, and compelled to stay at Rugby,
where at • little she was weaned,
where not a single friend or member of her or
her husband's family could be pelisse. It was a Ida
gular feature in this case that DO friamd or noussidas of time

lady's had been called to prove that the ever said she wax
in the family-way, or that • word was ever heard before
she Wee at Rugby of the expected birth of • child. Why
did she leave the place where she would have found friend.
in that most trying and critical period" It meet have been
for the purpose of concealment, and oonceshment on her
part. Then the confinement having taken place, they
found her left by her husband, who went to Leedom. He did
not want to can attention to whet Mr. Hill did there ; but
it was quite clear that while he was away she sent off
her child, her tint-horn, an infant ten days old, in the deed
of scold winter's night, by railway to Landau. She soot it
by a girl fourteen years old, and by a train which srrived in
London at eleven o'clock at night. Could the court believe
that that child was seat in opposition to the mother's wish?
That was the point ; that was what it came to, and here was
the explanation of all the care that had been taken to get up
a prejudice against Mr. Hill; and here they had some clue
to the reason why ithad been attempted to charge him with
biotin bees actuated by pecuniary motives. Pecuniary
motives there could not have been ; sad as to other motives,
the wife must have participated in them to the full extent.
Could it be believed by any man er woman that without
the knowledge of the wife the child oink' have been cos-
signed to the persons with whom it hod been placed? The
facts spoke for themselves. The wifesaust have known all
that was done and all that was proposed to be dams, and
her conduct at this stage of the pniesedings afforded a
pretty clear index of her bona fides throughout They had
had one of Wee wretched women brought up from the
House of Correction at Westminster, and through her it had
been proved that some baby limn had been sent up for the
use of the child. Who sent it up? The smother of source.
Then there had been an endeavour to excite prejudice
against his client in reference to the marking of the baby
linen. It had been said that the marks had been cue out.
He appealed to any mother of a family present whether
it was custoniary to mark baby linen at all. Then se to the
proof that was brought forward of the erasure of media—
• piece cut out from the collar of an infant's nightgown and
filled in was simply absurd. This was sample of the
whole. It was like the 14,0001. • year to which
the child was said to be heir, and it marked the
whole character of the pressoutio2 In regard to the con-
duct of the accused, the evidence of Brett, the detective,
showed clearly that whatever might be the cause of the re-
moval of the child to London, the prisoner gave every in-
formation in his power for the purpose of recovering it.
He (the learned counsel) held that it was perfectly clear
that in all that was done, the wife must have been io com-
plicity with the husband—that if the existence of the child
Mid been suppressed it must have been with her know-
ledge and consent, and if there was guilt anywhere it was
equally clear she must have been a partner and partici-
pator in it. She must have known of everything
that happened to the child, and in this they
bad some indication of the motive which led her
to in this prosecution of her husband. For a mother,
under the circumstances stated, to suppress and conceal the
birth of her child, and that child her firstborn—to allow it
to remain for more than two years without a word of in-
quiry as to its fate—showed that she must have had the
strongest possible motive for that concealment, and it must
have been • motive of the deepest possible pressure to have
thus overcome the natural yearnings of a mother's heart.
What that motive was it was not his business now to inquire.
He would not go into the question whether it waste conceal
bee own shame or hide the dishonour which she might
have brought on her husband's nuptial couch. These
were matters that mast be gone into hereafter •
and if the object of the prosecution was, in the course they
had adopted, to elicit what facts might be forthooming at
some future period to sustain a charge of adultery against
the wife, they would be disappointed. Those were circum-
stamen which must be examined before Sir Croswell Craiga-
von, and no part of the evidence that might be brought
forward in the prosecution of ulteii.o• proceedings would be
even alluded to on the present occasion. His instructions
restrained him from further alluding to those circumstances.
As unnecessary annoyance had also been inflicted upon Mr.
Hill by calling him throughout the proceedings "prisoner."
He had always understood that in a case of misdemeanour
the person accused was styled defendant.
Mr. Bloxam said if there was any fault in that respect he
was chargeable with it, as he had styled the accused " pri-
soner," according to the usual course.
Mr. Pbilbrick gave every credit to Mr. Bloxam for hiving
discharged his duty in this painful matter with kindness and
consideration to the accused. Mr. Hill was there to answer
a charge of having, on the 7th January, 1869, made certain
fahe statements to the registrar as to the birth of his child,
for the purpose of their being inserted in the register—
an offence which by the act of parliament was made
a misdemeanour liable to the penalties of perjury.
Now, the section which referred to the matter war the
2002, and that required that the father or mother of the
child should, on being applied to by the registrar, give
within 42 days from the date of the birth, the necessary In-
formation for the purpose of registration ; but there was no
such application in this ease, as far as was known. On the
cannery. they had it in evidence that fdr.,Hill himself went
voluntarily on the 7th of January, two days after the birth
of the child, to Mr. Herbert, the assistant registrar, whose
decease was much to be regretted, as it threw a gnat ob-
stacle in the way of a satisfactory investigation of this part
of the casejand furnished him with the requisite particulars.
Much had bees maiden legal duty, but there waste, legal duty
on the part of Mr. Hill to register the child until he was called
to do so by the registrar. Could it be said, then. that his
object was to supprre the existence of the child, when
within two days of is birth he went to the registrar and
gave the information required by the act ? Could it be
supposed that at that time, with all the excitement conse-
quent upon the birth of his first child, he would have gone
to the registrar to furnish him needlessly and unnecessarily
with facts for the purpose of making materials to found •
charge against him! Surely no man in his senses would be
guilty of so great an absurdity. Then, as to his signing the re-
gister, Mr. Maltby swore that having seen Mr. Hill write more
than • dorm times, the five letters, " R. Hill." atthched
to the entry in the register were in the defendant's hand-
writing. He would only ask the bench on that point to
compare the five letters with the signature on the deed of
settlement. Redoubt it was Mr. Hill's signature, and
though he chose to leave out the fall name, " Richard
Guinness," there was nothing extraordinary in that, as it
was a common practice amongst many persons, and even
judges, Mr. Baron Bramwell, for instance, to use only one
initial, although they had several Christian names. There
was so inaccuracy in' the signature, though it was not
given in full, and those parts of the entry which
were inaccurate were not in the handwriting of the defen-
dant, but of Mr. Herbert, the late usistant.registrar, who
they had been told by the chief registrar had so frequently
committed errors that he had been celled upon to resign his
office ; and it was under such circumstances that Mr. Hill
was charged with falsifying the register. Had it not been for
the excitement raised in the public mind by the many mis-
statements which had been put forth betore the defendant
had an opportunity of offering a word in explanation,
could it be supposed that any magistrate would commit, or
any jury couvict ? Looking, then, at the case in all
its beariuge—to the evidence as to the imbecility of Mr.
Herbert, the local registrar, and the fact that Mr. Hill
need not have gone to the registrar at all, he con-
tended that the charge of wilful falsification had
woefully and lamentably broken down ; and be called
upon the magistrates not to commit his client, urging
upon them that there could be no failure of justice if they
discharged him, seeing that the prosecution might if they
pleased prefer • bill of indictment before a grand jury, in
which case he had no doubt as to how the matter would be
dispose! of by a superior court. He bad shown that there
could have been no pecuniary motive in thecae.. and thabeven
if the case for the prosecution could be believed, Mrs. Hill
i must have been cognisant from first to last of all that had
been going on as to the disposal of the child, and most
have been • party to it. Could they suppose that the girl
Parsons did not, ou ber return to Rugby, tell her mistress
of the sort of persons with whom she had left the child?
Yet they found that the mother bad preserved a dead
silence for upwards of two years. Was that consistent
with the statement put forward on the part of the prose-
cution! With regard to the falsification of the re-
enter, he had the authority of Mr. Justice Blackburn,
in the case of the queen against Barbour, tried at wild-
ford, in IMO, which involved a charge of falsifying the re-
gister, that the object of the act was to prevent falsibcation
for pecuniary advautage, and to mark his sense of the
frivolous nature of the charge he iotlicted • floe of a shilling
upon the defendant. In conclusion, he would all upon the
bench not, front any prejudice which had been excited
against the defendant, to commit him, nor to deprive him
of that fair measure of justice to which even the meanest
subject of the realm was entitled. There was evidently
some mystery in the um, something concealed on the part
of the prosecution which was kept back for their own pur-
poses. But he trusted that the magistrates would do their
duty with firmness, and spare his client the annoyance and
disgrace of being committed for trial upon such a charge.
At the coachmen of Mr. Philbrick's address the magis-
trates retired to a private rOOOl, and during their absence,
which ;Anted little more than five minutes, an intense feel-
ing of anxiety was evinced by the crowded court to know
the result.

Their worships having returned and taken their ants.
The Chairman said—The inamstndes, hawing considered
the case, are unanimously of opinion that the defendant
should be sent to take his trial for the offence with which
be stands charged. They are also of opinion that, should
bail be staked, the bail should be himself in LOW., and two
sureties in 5001. each.
_ _

Yr. I'hilbrick applied to have the hail eodoreed on the
back at the writ, in order that it might be taken by a War.
widish** magistrate in Loodoo.
The Chairman said the application would be acceded to.
The prisoaer was then fiirmally committed to take his
trial at the ensuing Warwick assizes, and Mr. Cooke, as the
proaseator, and the witnesses, were severally bound over to
promote.

The proceeding,' then concluded, and the prisoner was
conveyed, with fle mune arersry with which he wee bmogbt
to the wort, to the lock•uy to Rugby. lu the evening he
was conveyed by train to Warwick, cod cooligocd to the
custody of the governor of the meaty gaoL