The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-08-06 00:00:00

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Jititt*u times

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1856

THERE are some stories in real life which are too
incredible at..d revolting for a novel, and which
*infra never be suffered to pollute the columns of
a newspaper, if the safety of the public did not
require their exposure. Poor Mrs. TALBOT'S case
furnishes one of those frightful episodes, and from
the universal' interest the TALBOT divorce trials
fava excited both in England and Ireland, a brief
lautline of the persecu.tion the unhappy lady
Aierienced will not be thought out of place, or
igtogether unnecessary. 'We cannot pretend to
-oat= into a full history of the affair.. We can
iiiiitbring under notice those portions of the pro-
-dings which are of importance to society at
pirge; :sum for example, as the loose way in which
rentity of accused parties is dealt with, and
3 —.l-A4raoter the. evidence relied ori by the
tytruse of -Lords • in, such matters. Secondly, .the
irele4tiOn 'of witnesses, whowe testimony is
Iveteaived by, the Ecclesiastical 'Courts
.in
-sogfecting the honour% peace, and hapapiness of large
'circles of the community. And, lastly, the extra.
-,.ordinary and unpardonable part taken, not by one
cr two members of the Irish Church, but five or
lig of the Protestant priesthood of Ireland. The
terrible tragedy in which Mrs. TALBOT is the
heroine does not commence and proceed. like
Jihose of our greatest dramatists, in which the
victim of a foul plot drOps Walesa on the stage as
,‘Ahe curtain falls. She had to endure the most
"'horrible brutality from her husband's servants.
.1,;31r5. TALBOT was first insulted by her protector's
-vaervants in her own house, dragged from her home
ah,d akild, her friends being denied all access to
54 her, and Placed under restraint in the house of
a woman who had as many names as a
heathen goddess. She was doomed to lose her

senses, and be carried away an irreclaimable

lunatic in the first scene -of the first act. The
heart of the wife and,mother having been broken,
the delicate mind of a .virtuous woman ravished,
it was only necessary to carry away the wrecked and
frantic remains to some safe place of keeping, in
order to leave the stage clear for lawyers and
divines"
of various degrees. The lady, accused
gone raving mad, and, could
,of the criminal act, had
not, as matter of course, be produced to defend
either her own character, or the future happiness
of her °ffePring. Mr. TALBOT and his servants—
the chief, a convicted male felon—had it all their
own way. They -enter the Trish Consistory Court
-.-the depository of many frightful enormities—
and there, by the aid of hard swearing on the
part of Mr. TALBOT'S butler, HALLORAN, the Con-
vietaxi felon fresh from prison, Mrs. TALBOT is
found guilty, behind her back, of having dig.
graced" - herself with - -her husband,s filthy

groom. This was the charge, mind, brought
against the accused in the Ecclesiastical Court,
and it succeeded. This left Mr. TALBOT free to
go to the House of Lords for a divorce bill—which
simply means, leave to marry a second time—and
he accordingly appears in Parliament, but not with
the witnesses upon whose testimony he had
obtained 2,0001. damages, and his degree in the
Consistorial Court. Base servants, whether
housemaids, or convict butlers, have a very
dubious locus standi at the bar of the Lords, and
as the convict was no longer required, ha was
permitted to sail from Glasgow a day or two before
the movement in Parliament was made.

The Protestant clergymen—the friends and
acquaintances of the wretched lady, alas !—how
we blush at the thought—were equal to the
remainder of the work. There were five of them
in all—Mr. SARGENT, Mr. M'CLELLA'NT), Mr.
KEmmrs, Mr. Coats, and Mr. GAGE—all clergy-
men, if not vicars. The first of these gentry,

Mr. SARGENT, was tha gentleman who was an
eye-witness to the commission of adultery by
the accident of suddenly opening a door, under
the influence of sudden fright, but he swore that
MULLEN, Mr. TALBOT'S groom, was not the man
he saw in company with Mrs. TALBOT in her
husband's drawing room. Nor did the clerical
gentleman tell his hearers who the man was. All
he could say was, that he wore a gold chain,
but he could swear that the woman he saw was Mrs.
TALBOT ! Here, then, the identity established
before the Ecclesiastical Court was broken up, and
yet the Law Lords proceeded without calling the
servants, on whose testimony the decree of the
inferior court was obtained! There were witnesses
of a "higher" order ready to be examined, and to
prove Mrs. TALBOT'S guilt, by repeating her own
confession. Mr. M'CLELLAND trys to establish

the guilt of the accused by repeating conversations
he said he had had with her, but which he con-
tradicts when before the House of Lords, where
he is told by the LORD CHANCELLOR that ho is " an
" Over zealous 'witness." Here the charge had
again broken, when lo I the five " clergymen"
came forward in a body to prove their victim's
guilt by " her own confession." Now, what v,as
this " confession ?" The Protestant public should
rnark it well, as it is enough to bring scandal on
the whole Church.

The Rev. ROBERT PAGE, of the county of Derry,
is a cousin of Mrs. TALBOT'S, and has been on
terms of intimacy with her, and was her
" spiritual" guide for many years, and this is the
account he gives Of that lady's " confession,"
made at the time he, declares she was raving mad !
" I drew up ft form of prayer, in which I put, in
" the way of confession, what 1 conceived to be the
" state of her case, and I said, you will go down on
" your knees and pray that prayer with me." This is
the groundwork of the TALBOT divorce—this is the
conduct which is going on in society under the
mask, the hideous mask of religion. Five clergy-

men rush up to the seat of justice to accuse a
maniac of a moat abominable crime, and the

House of Lord's grant a divorce, in the absence
of the evidence given in the earlier portion of the
proceedings, without waiting to see the identity of
the man or woman proved, and while they were in
great doubt as to whether the witnesses before
them were not too "over-zealous" to be credited !
The conduct of the " clergymen" who have played
so conspicuous a part in this notorious case, we
will leave to the public and their Bishops, whilst
we simply ask, where is the safety for any high-
minded, virtuous woman, the peace, happiness,
and respectability of any family, where such things
can be done with impunity ? Of Mrs. TALBOT'S
innocence, every man who has read the evidence
brought against her must be satisfied, and that her
destroyers should escape the 'punishment due to
their conduct, will be long regretted by every honest
lover of justice.