The Sun.
London, England, 1830-04-03 00:00:00

actinistee. rklyoree Bill passed through the House
' ref -Peers :the .piesence- of the Right Reverend
Prelates of the Church. No Bishop was at the
/Jujus to examine a witness, or satisfy his conscience
that there was no collusion in the case. No one in-
quired into the nature of the evidence—every thief;
was believed on the authority of the Counsel in-
terested and the witnesses they produced. Perjury
was not suspected—fraud was not dreamt of—and
upon the worst and most objectionable evidence
ever tendered in a court of justice the unfortunate
and deeply-injured Lady Ellenborough was con-
demned as an adultress, cast dishonoured and de-
graded upon the world,and branded as the only guilty
party, while her noble-minded and innocent husband
was enabled to sanctify his wife's errors by a
third sacrifice at the shrine of beauty and religion !
How refreshing is it to turn from this mockery
in the Upper House of Parliament to what has
passed and is passing in the House of Commons.
Sir Charles Wetherell is there to see justice done
between Lord Ellenborough and the public. The
public are deeply interested in the result. They are
disgusted with what has been done elsewhere, and
they anxiously look forward to the decision in the
House of Representatives, and we sincerely trust
that their sanguine expectations will be realized. It
is clear that the testimony of the Brighton waiters
was suborned. There is perjury somewhere. One
fellow says that lie received twenty pounds from
Lady Ellenborough for hush money, and that he di-
vided, after the lapse of six months, this sum with
the fellow who pretended to be the only witness of
the scene he described. The latter denies the hush
money—denies the alleged period of payment—and
ere suspect, if pushed much farther, will be forced
to admit that the whole infamous story has been
concocted to promote the divorce. But, even ad-
mitting their evidence to be true, they are unable to
identify Prince Schwartzenburg ; they do not prove
that Lady Ellenborough was in the room at the
time the Prince is said to enter it ; and they more-
over agree in nothing, and establish nothing but col-
lusion. There are only four parties privy to the al-
leged transaction; first, I,ady Ellenborough, second
the landlord of the hotel, and thirdly and fourthly
the two waiters. All this has been sworn to.
The landlord, for his own sake, was not likely to
blab a secret like this, and indeed he is not sus-
pected. The two waiters swear that they did not
divulge the intrigue till waited upon by the agent
of Lerd Ellenborough's professional advisers. How
came this agent to have cogrioscence of the trans-
action ? Surely Lady Ellenborough did not inform
Mr. Freshfield, by letter, that such and such things
occutred at the Norfolk hotel at Brighton ? If she
did then is there gross collusion—she is a suitor for
the divorce—the willing and ready instrument of
her own degradation. God forbid that we should
believe this!, We do not believe it. We believe
the whole to. be „a concocted story of which it was
intended she should be the victim. For we do well
recollect that the Counsel for the Bill, when in the
Lords,were desirous to rest the proof of adultery upon
the rotten evidence of these discharged waiters.
They even contested its sufficiency, and, when
this was demurred to by some Noble Lord, they
then, and not till then, produced the female witness
Steele. Upon this damsel's evidence—for as yet—
and this is one of the evils of Newgate—we can
only speak of that which she gave in the Lords—
we have but one observation to make. Suppose
A. B. had confessed to C. D. that he had seduced
the wife of E. F., his friend. The wife of E. F.
meanwhile proceeds to the Continent, but he, the,
husband, brings his action against A.B. Would
this solitary confession, made to one person, procure
a *verdict for the plaintiff ? This is Lord Ellen-
borough's case. The witness Steele is unsupported
—she sees nothing—there is no Prince in the case—
she has only a confession, which is confided to her
alone, and yet upon this confession the absent wife
is to be declared an adultress ! Such things could
not be unless we had one law for the rich and an-
other for the poor, and it is high time the distinc-
tinn should cease to exist.—Morning Journal.
The Ellenborough Divorce Bill begins now to
'mistime rather a serious complexion. It has been
said, and this may be true, that if the party suing
for a divorce had not been a Cabinet Minister, the
evidence in support of the Bill would have been re-
ceived without scrutiny, and that it would have
pleased -as a matter of course. This might ra-
ther be an argument against the character of the
tribunal, that party feeling is necessary to induce it
to act, than against its conduct at this time. It is
quite clear, for instance, that if Parliament bad
sifted the evidence in every one of the twenty Di-
. voree Bills'paieed last year, in the way the House of
Commoristehas sifted the evidence in this, Parlia-
ment would have been able ..to attend to nothing
else than divorces. Only -think of seven hundred
persons busied in examining a witness, and the fa-
cility with which. food for a question arises out of a
previous answer! But still, as every Member of
Parliament is a Judge, and ought to take a part in
the proceedings, a protracted examination is always
to be calculated on when Parliament discharges its
duty properly. The eae"C,with which Divorce Bills
are generally obtained, is rather a proof that Par-
liament too often neglects its duty, than it has done
more than its duty in this case. It will, no doubt,
be deemed by his Lordship and his friends, a hard-
ship, that the circumstance of his being a Cabinet
Minister should inflame the two Houses, and parti-
tarty that of the Commons, with so strong a sense
of duty. It is a hardship. Perhaps, however, as
in many other cases of individual suffering, the pub-
lic may be benefited by these proceedings. And in
the first place, it is quite clear that if two or three
Members of the House of Commons were in every
case to pursue the course which has been pursued
with regard to-Lord Ellenborough, the higher ranks
of England, who can feel so keenly for themselves,
but who look down with such beautiful indifference
on the sufferings of the people, would soon become
sick of the privilege which they now have of setting
aside the law in favour of themselves. " Sir Henry
Hirdinge was surprised to hear the Hon. Member
(Mr. Hume) talking of stopping the progress of the
Bill. Good God! When the feelings of the fa-
milies were concerned—when the Bill had had such
an extraordinary, sifting, could it be wished to sift
it more ?" Good god ! the feelings of the families !
It never, we suppose, occurred to Sir Henry Har-
dinge that arty untitled man had feeling;. The law
. of England says that there shall be no divorce from
the tie of marriage. And what right has a Lord,
because he can afford to pay oneZor two thousand
pounds, to have the lawrsset aside in his favour ? It
is well and truly observed by the Standard, that
" If we leave this particular ease to speak of the
general question of divorce, we must only repeat
that there is no part of our law in which the ine-
quality of the pressure upon the rich and the poor
;s more severely manifest. The enormous expense
precludes a poor man altogether from procuring a
divorce, and yet we suppose it will be conceded
that his feelings may be a; much outraged, and his
domestic peace as completely destroyed by the infi-
delity of his wife as those of a rich man," Our contem-
porary might have gone farther, for a rich men suffers
little from infidelity in comparison with a poor man.
A rich man does not require a wife to relieve him
from the pressure of domestic cares, and as a friend
in whose bosom he may deposit his uneasiness, his
apprehensions, his doubts and fears, in the many
trying emergencies which befall almost every man
whose circumstances do not exempt him from the
toils of life. The business of the rich is pleasure,
and it is pleasure rather than necessity which brings
the husband and wife together. The management
of the property devolves On stewards ; the manage-
ment of the house devolves on servants, and the
couple have merely to decide between one descrip-
tion of pleasure and another. It. is wounded pride
more than anything else that drives a rich man to a
divorce. But when the partner of a man in humble
circumstances desertshim, the consequence, in nine
eases out of ten, or rather in ninety-nine cases out of
a hundred, is complete ruin to him. His domestic
ffa go to wreck, his home (and home to him is
fte4thislit) blank, be is robbed and plundered