The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-12 00:00:00

—"------11 afford to defray the
money, and might we
People have been busy
a grand 15 dol. subscription ball, in
getting up s
nle Sams natural allies." Hitherto,
consisting of the greatest
ue cho.mpliment.
the city, have only ma-
Pheonnsoeusr'noff t‘h'
L-nittee,nf
' and merchants
bmgers
4'
ma-
managed to collect the sum o. 6,000 ~
mana,,
however, the cora
scheme has given rise to no little
g:ambling on the
part of earnest patriots, who think the Russians
can only be disgusted at the heartless levity of a
people "fiddling and dancing"at such a calamitous
season as this, It appears that the Russian Admi-
ral himself has thrown oat some hints that
" the money would be better employed in aid
of the Fund for the Relief of Sick and Wounded
Soldiers." The ball is likely to come off neverthe-
less, and the Russian fever, while abating in New
York, is likely to spread to other cities, many of
which are vieing with each other in their pressing
invitations to " the representatives of the only
European Power entitled to genuine American
sympathies."

Serious Charge of Libel against a Clergy-

man.

Yesterday, at the Westminster Police Court, the
Rev. Thomas Richardson Birch, of 2, Alpha-road,
Slough, appeared to a summons, before Mr. Arnold,
charging him with unlawfully and maliciously pub-
lishing a defamatory libel of and concerning Felix
Frederick Taylor, of Herschell House, Slough.
Mr. Pawle, of the firm of Pawle and Lovesey, 7,
New-inn, conducted the prosecution, and Mr. C. P.
Barrett, of Eton, the defence.

Mr. Pawle, in opening the case, said he regretted
to have 1.4: appear at that court to prefer a charge
of libel against :he defendant, who was a clergyman
of the Established urch, at present holding a
clerical appointment at NV inds,:7-
His (Mr. Pawle's)
client had two sons, one of whom N,Tas in such ill
health that he did not think it advisable to send
him to school ; he therefore applied to Mr. ,Tohnson,
clerical agent, to procure him a tutor for his boys.
By him he was introduced to Mr. Birch, and after
a correspondence between theta, the defendant en-
tered on his duties on the 3d of June, 1863,
and re-
mained there until the 3d of July in the present
year. Shortly after entering Mr. Taylor's family,
the defendant succeeded in obtaining the appoint-
ment to the Windsor Union ; about the same time
Mr. Taylor had reason to complain of the way in
which the defendant educated his children, and that
ultimately led to a rupture between them. Mr.
Taylor then again applied to Mr. Johnson, who re-
commended a gentleman of the name of Lott, but
the latter was acquainted with Mr. Birch, and left
shortly after accepting the appointment, putting
Mr. Taylor to a great deal of inconvenience. A
third time Mr. Taylor applied to Mr. Johnson, who
then recommended the Rev. Mr. Sharpe, and while
negotiations were pending between him and com-
plainant, Mr. Sharpe received the following anony-
mous letter, which was the subject of the present
action :
Windsor, Berkshire, Oct. 15, 1863.
Rev. Sir,—For the present, in common justice to a
stranger, all are quite willing and ready to believe that you
do not know that you have entered into a sink of the gross-
est crimes and iniquities and vilest disgrace, or else are
going so to do. If you still keep your engagement, you will
roc&ve, and deserve it too, the contempt of all decent people
who are not in the Church, and the greatest disgust of all
gentlemen who are so. Inquire of the police of this borough,
also of Eton and Slough. If likewise you can make up
your mind and think it right, you can apply about these
dreadful things of the house at Slough to the ministers
there, viz,, the Rev. Mr. Cree, the Rev. Mr. Birch, and
the Rev. Mr. Sykes—counsellors to one whom we think
need coun.7elo COUNSEL.
That letter he
Would distinctly prove was written
by the defendant, an. upon its receipt Mr. Sharpe,
acting in a very proper Lnanner, took it to Mr.
Johnson, by whom he had been L:\ trociuced to Mr.
I
Taylor (he not having yet entered into L's enr;.afoe-
ment) and placed the matter before him. Mr..).. --
son at once communicated with the complainant,
who at first sight pronouncel the letter to have been
written by Mr. Birch, and said to Mr Sharpe " MY
acts are quite open to inspection ; pray make every
inquiry that lies in your power before entering into
my family; write at once to any one you like in
Windsor and the neighbourhood, especially to Mr.
Birch." Mr. Sharpe accordingly wrote to the de-
tendant, and in reply received a second letter, which
would no doubt be deemed a privileged coromunica-
lion. In consequence of inquiries he felt perfectly
satisfied as to the character of Mr. Taylor, and ac-
cepted the appointment, which he still held ; and
it was very probable that, notwithstanding Ile
shameful way in which his character 11',Id been
attacked, Mr. Taylor would not have taken any
steps against the defendant, had he not received
on the 25th of October last a letter of the most
horrible description. Mr. Pawle then proceeded to
read as follows ;
Slough, Oct. 24, 1863._

You loathsome and most contemptible animal —. No
decent man who knows you could possibly be surprised at
anything you could do, but I am disgusted, beyond all power
of expression, at your revolting insolence in presuming to
address to me or any other gentlemen one of your filthy and
contaminating letters—for polluting and contaminating any
letters of yours must needs he to any one who is not, like
Yourself, an outcast from society. As far as I can make
what vulgar people of your sort call " head or tail" of your
drunken and every way truly disgusting rubbish, you want
me to make out that somebody or another has written an
anonymous letter about your detestable life. Can they tell
me anything about your infamy? You horrible animal, I
know it to my cost already. Is not the allusion to such a
letter another rascally scoundrel lie. You know full well
that I must be ready to believe that it is. And now as to
other lies. You induced me to become the tutor of your
bastards—bastards of the most loathsome circumstances of
all bastardy, they being the offspring of a low, paltry
tradesman at best, by a certain creature whose antecedents,
when even imperfectly set forth, were disgusting, and are
now almost unutterable—by audaciously assuring me
in Bond-street, London, that you were a " gentleman
of large independent fortune," of considerable landed
property in the counties of Buckinghamshire and
Berkshire; " that you lived at Herscholl House, a
small, very small part of your estates, as the third landed
proprietor in Buckinghamshire ;" so that you were "an
Oxford man ;" that " about 14 years ago you married the
daughter of a Colonel of a very distinguished regiment, who
was connected with some of the highest families in Eng-
land, and one of whose ancestors came over with the
Conqueror ;" that your "dear wife had several of her
papa's medals for services performed during the Peninsular
war, amongst these ono for Waterloo ;" that your house
was visited constantly by, and you also visited, all the
county families," Many of these detestable lies—as for
instance, those about "colonel's daughter," and the
"coming over with the Conqueror," were afterwards even
constantly persevered in, outrageous as they aro and must
be. But also amongst those lies, outrageously told me in
Bond-street aforesaid, and afterwards as outrageously re •
peated at Slough, are these : that there w„s "no one of the
ladies of this place—as they called themselves—whom your
wife could visit, became she had from her very childhood
been so very chaste and virtuous that she could not bear
the presence of those who were not quite like herself 1"
You say something in the letter which you have had the
unequalled impudence to send me, about "a criminal
court." Is or is not that a place in which rascals, scoun-
drels, rogues, scamps, and blackguards, appear to an-
swer for running away with the virtuous wives
of other men, "colonel's daughters" and wine-dealers'
consorts ? Or is it a place in which a brother of a colonel's
daughter might appear to receive the sentence of
transportation; or further still, is it a place in which those
stand who can be charged with crimes still more horrible ?
For the present I seek this information if you can believe I
do ao. You also, I think (your sottish jargon is all but un-
intelligible; you could not yourself the next morning dare
to hope anyone could understand it) speak of a " strong
right arm ready to defend you." For whom these words
are intended it is utterly impossible for me to conceive,
but they do suggest to me this inquiry—Do you, or do you
not, you wretched varlet, you, remember the evening when,
in the place towhich your lies entrapped me for my corruption
and pollution, my upraised arm and clenched fist accompa-
nied the expressions of my honest heart's indignation at
your beastly outrage in taking my wife into public with
yourself and that woman, and your bastard cowardice found
a vent only in a horrid stench, which compelled me to eject
You from tho room—a being loathsome first to my eyes and
than__ to my nostrils ? If the " anonymous writer" were not
v
one of
al
°1 Your lies, but a real character, I could tell him of the
withpresumneotnoymenostinsarleetetevresna
which I was assailed as to
the il
anY of one detestable and low-lifed wretch who could
clergyman into an association
with him (a clergyman's
duction with the she
.rerl--the worthy sharer—of his gross,
abominable infamy)
would, .tell him of the shouts of
"Barlow" and 'I Bastard'
Nvh lehassailed my ears when I
first took out the rascal's offspring,
modest women either shunned the house I could tell him that all
house in which the tutor
nd.
—deceived and defrauded tutor—livo edi, or
his
puils never b visited it
subjected
only
under an honest promise that they
Rhcou
e tell
to the horror of seeing the parents of
him of the blasphemous obscenity, drunkenness' i e
and could
•
blee, amidst which these children lived. I could tell
hima