The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-08-19 00:00:00

THE TALBOT DIVORCE CASE

We quote the following &dm the London Standard of
Saturday, which we earnestly recommend to the attentive
perusal of air readers :
We have received a pamphlet on the °diens and most
painful Talbot case, published bY Messrs. Richardson, of
the Strand. The pamphlet consists principally of four
very eloquent letters, first published in the Dublin
Morning Register, a very ably conducted journal, but
inculcating political views of which we rarely can approve.
The letters, as we have said, are eldquent, and to our
mind would be perfectly conclusive of Mrs. Talbot's
innocence, had we ever a doubt upon the subject, which
we never had. Not the least interesting, or, in our
opinion, important parts of the pamphlet, are two closely
printed unpretending pages with which it concludes.
These pages contain about twenty-five extracts from
newspapers of all shades of political opinion, and pub-
lished in all parts of the United Kingdom. These
extracts concur in indignantly condemning the sentence
of degradation passed upon one whom they believe
to be a pure and innocent woman, the victim
of as foul a conspiracy as was ever exposed
to the horror and disgust of the nation. No single journal
rhich we aro aware of that has touched upon the subject
has taken any other view ; and it' the press fairly repre-
sent public opinion, as we think it does where party bias
does not sway it to one side or the other, we may not un-
reasonably conclude that Mrs. Talbot is honourably
acquitted by the people of the United Kingdom, notwith-
standing these exceedingly anomalous law and parliamen-
tary proceedings of which she has been, in her unconscious
insanity, mile the victim. Our only quarrel with the
pamphlet before us. hut that is a serious one. is its title__
The Talbot Case and the Protestant Clergy. Pudei nos heec
dici, et non posse refeili. It is but too true that five indi-
viduals in the orders of the United Church did appear
as Mr. Talbot's witnesses against his unhappy wife—some
of them, as Lord Crane orth reproachfully observed,
"over zealous witnesses." These witnesses wire—The
Rev. Abram Sargent,Vicar of Derrygar' h and Prebendary
of Cashel. The Rev. Wm. M'Clelland, Vicar of the parish
of Mount Talbot. The Rev. Mr. Collis, Mr. Talbot's
brother-in-law. [We do not find the nt;me of this gen-
tleman in Thom's Irish Clergy Li,t, and, therefore, we
presume that he is unbeneficetl ] The Rev. Mr. Kemmis,
the brother-in law of Mr. Talbot's attorney. Mr. Kem-
mis is stated as of Mauntmeilick, but the nature of his
benefice is not described. The Rev. Robert Gage, late
rector of Tamlaght and now of Garvalgh. We have
given these gentlemen's names, and, as far as we could,
their additions, as a preliminary to asking of our readers
whether they have heard before the name of any one of
them, either as a scholar, a writer, or a 'divine, or as in
any other walk in which a clergyman may be properly.
distinguished ? We for ourselves must answer in the
negative; we never heard of the name of any one of them,
and for more years than we like to tell we have been
diligent observers of whatever concerns the interests of
the Church Establishment in Ireland, and of the Protes-
tant faith, of which, under an awful responsibility, the
clergy of Ireland are the proper guardians. The state of
the Irish Church has been for many years that of a mili-
tant church, and during its long contest it has exhibited
a splendid host of defenders of the faith, such men as the
Bishops of Ossory and Tuam. as M'Neile, Drs. O'Sulli-
van, Drew, Martin; Messrs. M'Ghies, Massie (alas! the
" faithful shepherd " has gone to his rest), Dallas, Nangles.
Scott, &c., &c., in addition to such men as Dr. Crory, and
hosts of faithful men such as the Magees and Tottenhams,
who have justly impressed the people of England with a
deep sense of the talent, zeal, and piety of the Irish
clergy; hut in this illustrious body we do not remember
to have met the name of Sargent, Collis, or M'Clelland,
or Kemmis, or Gage. We will not, in the rude language
of the old Covenanters, say that the gentlemen in question
have been "dumb dogs," but certainly their voices have
never been heard, that we are aware of, either in the
pulpit or upon the platform, maintaining the Protestant
faith, which, as ministers of the British Church
militant they are more especially bound to maintain.
We will not be so unjust to his reverend friends as to say
that Mr. Talbot collected his synod of spiritual advisers
upon the same extremely liberal principles upon which he
collected that numerous, but very homogeneous, house-
hold of O'Hallorans, Mullanes, Mooneys, Finertys, Berms,
&c., &c., at, whose mercy he placed his unhappy wife-
The list of domestics is an enormously long one, even for
an Irish following; but we are gratified to see that in the
regiment there is not a single Protestant ; had there been
one, but one, Mrs. Talbot could scarcely have been sacri-
ficed by a succession of foul conspiracies, as we, and we
rejoice to believe the people of England, think she has
been. But, to return to the charge against the " Pro-
testant clergy," in the title of the pamphlet before us.
We firmly believe that Mr. Talbot's synod—Sargent,
M'Clelland, Collis, Kemmis, and Gage—no more represent
the 2,000 faithful men who constitute the Protestaat clergy
of Ireland than they represent the priests of Tongataboo,
if Tongataboo has any priests. Mr. Talbot has proved by
the constitution of his exceedingly numerous household,
all Roman Catholics, in a country where Protestants con-
stitute two-fifths of the population, and much the most
intelligent division—in this selection, Mr. Talbot has no
doubt proved himself an exceedingly liberal Protestant,
and no doubt his liberalism has extended to the selection
of his clerical associates, all of course as liberal men as
himself, and as ready to receive the testimony of Romanist
conspirators against a Protestant lady of a Protestant
family. This is the case of the " Church of Ireland," and
here we leave it.

EXCURSIONS TO THE ISLE OF MAN