The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-24 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEAIBER 24, 1863.

undertaking, he has at the same time gained de-
served popularity and rendered special services to
a noble cause. Well does it portend for the country
where learning flourishes, not in secluded halls of
study, but through the limits of the land in its
length and breadth; the more widely diffused is
education, and the greater its influence is paramount,
the higher will be the position of the state, and the
more proud and prosperous its career. Sir J.
PAKINGTON'S remarks were throughout very
appropriate, and they evinced that thorough appre-
ciation of his subject, and that earnestness of ex-
pression, which in themselves are such thrilling
accompaniments to a discourse, and without which
the most glowing eloquence, and the most
astute erudition becomes as sounding brass
or tinkling cymbal. He took a *bold course,
and advocated the adoption of straightforward
measures for the success of the undertaking.
He urged in impressive language the most enticing
prospects and the most special inducements which
brought forward the cause in which they were
then engaged, and most unquestionably pleaded
for its prompt attention by all who had the time
or power to do so. He forcibly pointed out the
moral of his address, by declaring that all who
assisted in the undertaking, or associated in its
cause, were engaged in a work " to which, through
life, they must always look back with satisfactien."
This is strictly true, and when the mazes of public
affairs have confused their minds, and the ascerbi-
ties of political feeling engendered bitterness among
opponents, and, perchance, alienated friends, there
will be a rallying point for divers interests, and a
neutral ground found on which all differing parties
can assemble frankly and fearlessly in the discus-
sion of the prospects and the essays for the pro-
gress of education. Apart from theories and plans,
there is the convincing evidence of facts by which
to test the validity of any new or great endeavour,
and Sir J., PAKINGTON brought forward an un-
answerable argument of the efficacy, and a striking
instance of the success of the undertaking, to do
honour to which they were then and there assem-
bled. In 1859 there were only three candidates for
the examination ; in the next year, 44 ; but in this
one the numb3r was no less 473. Surely this is a
proof before which cavillers must be silenced, and
at which demurrers can find no ground to stand
upon. Yet the speaker did not confine his state
merits to the flattering side of the picture only, but
wisely and kindly brought before his hearers the re•
verse side of the picture. Thus he evidenced the fact
that in many of our colonies and in the various
countries of Europe, mon were ahead of us in point
of education and information. This, however irri-
tating it may be to dwell upon, is a topic that should
stimulate all who hear it. They should disparage
no efforts of those who were superior in their actual
attainments, but be resolved to emulate, if possible
excel, all other competitors in the noble race of self-
improvement. The more these subjects are dwelt
upon the greater good will be effected, and the more
widely diffused will be the elevating influence.
" Knowledge is power," is a well known saying,
but how few really act upon what they profess to
practise, and seek with might and main to enrich
themselves and their neighbours with that solid and
lasting possession which the chance and changes of
this fluctuating state cannot affect, and which remain
after houses and land are gone and spent, a most
excellent treasure, and a most enduring heritage.
Sir J. PAKINGTON exactly specified the object of
such institutions as that which he then advocated
with so much eloquence and earnestness, to enable
the working man to make the most of the intellect
which GOD had given him. There can be no higher
end for human efforts than to ennoble the species,
and by thus cultivating their faculies, and raising
their aspirations, to fit them for further and better
duties in this world, and to train them for the en-
joyment of a greater and holier existence hereafter.
Altogether it may bd considered that this meeting
at Stroud was a most successful one, and, as it
eminently deserved to be so, it is the more gratify.
ing to notice its happy issue, and to expect from it
an augury of future promise to this and similar
admirable institutions.

Another of those painful cases of starvation which
of late have become distressingly frequent among
us was brought before the notice of the coroner i❑
the east end of London last week. The case pre-
sented some peculiarly painful features, and an im-
portant caution may be taught by it. There was
no question in this instance of the negligence of
relieving officers or the harshness of workhouse
regulations ; the fault lay rather at the door of a
body who usually discharge their arduous duties
with tact, discretion., and efficiency. It seems that
a policeman, abon.t ten o'clock at night, found the
deceased lying insensible in the street, Supposing
him to be intoxicated, he got a stretcher and re.
moved hien to the station, where he was locked up
all higlat without food under the same impression.
The next morning the mistake was discovered, for
h'e was token to the workhouse, where all he could
do was to tell his name and ask for a drink of water
before he again relapsed into unconsciousness, from
which he passed to death. In all probability nothing
could have been done for this poor man had hiz
wants been attended to earlier. He was most
likely too far gone for any care or kindness to have
rescued him, but the fact is, nevertheless, the same,
that a man dying of exhaustion was locked up al;
night without any assistance, and, if the case had
admitted of a favourable termination the negligence
or ignorance of the police would have destroyed
the chance. It is not by any means the first time
that such an accident has occurred, nor will it be
the last unless more care is exercised. A very
melancholy case occurred some time ago, when a
respectable middle-aged woman, being suddenly
taken ill at some distance from her home, was
locked up in a similar fashion, to be found dead
from apoplexy some time after. Such instances
are, no doubt, rare, but they are not sufficiently so
to justify the custom of locking up persons found
insensible in the streets without first having the
opinion of a surgeon on the matter. It is difficult,
no doubt, for an unprofessional eye to detect the
difference, and the police are naturally influenced
by the much greater frequency of the one case than
of the other, but the sooner a change is made in
this respect the better, and we regret that the jury
did not think it necessary to append a hint on this
matter to their verdict. As any person may be
liable to a sudden attack of illuees, it is a
matter of general importance that proper pre-
cautions should be taken by the police in
cases of insensibility, and it is to be hoped that
the recent unfortunate occurrence may have the
effect of inducing greater care.

LITERATURE,

The Wife's Evidence. By W. G. Wills, author of
"Notice to Quit," &c. Threw vols. Hurst and
Blackett.
The two great orators of ancient times elicited
from their hearers a widely different species of
approbation. The Humans listened with rapt
attention to the eloquence of Tully, and at the close
of the discourse were be lost in admiration! at the
genius of the orator—" What an orator is Cicero !"
Far otherwise was it with tha listeners of Demos-
thenes. At the close of his impassioned
" Philippics," no word of praise was bestowed
upon the speaker ; but, carrid away by the power
of his discourse, with one Noico his hearers would
exclaim, "Let us march against Philip!" We are
not going to compare Mr. Ville with these giants
of old, but the comparison is suggested to us by the
conviction that he has framed the arguments and
incidents of his story so happily, that his readers,
before they stop to admire the eloquence of the
author, will all be willing converts to his theory.
Mr. Wills' own convictions upon the subject he has
chosen, are evidently very strong, and there is
nothing so powerful as conviction for convincing
others. The preface to th 3 book consists of a few
lines from two totally different legal enactments.
The first is the Act 12 and 13 Vic., c. 106, in which
permission is given for the wife of a bankrupt to
give evidence before the Court of Bankruptcy ! The
other is the well-known formula of our common law
which forbids a wife to give evidence for or against
her husband in any crininal proceeding. Upon
these two facts Mr. Wills has very ingeniously
constructed a story, that with no great
improbability brings both laws to bear at
different periods upon the same wife and
husband. If the construction of the story is inge-
nious, the manner in which it is worked out is
simple truthfulness and
in thehoswith which the domestic tragedy
deep sin-
gularly
natural
jat
is imbued. There is here no striving after sensa-
tional effect, but again and again the hearts of
many readers will thrill and their eyes brim at the
touch of that mighty power that " makes the whole
world kin." The very opening gives a happy speci-
men of the simple, natural manner of this nar-
rative :

He sought to toll her these many days. Only yesterday,
when he returned from his office in Fleet-street to his house
in Hornsey-road, he laid a plot to tell her; but aa he came
languidly upstairs, his throat adust with the heat of a Lon-
don midsummer, and saw her bright welcome awaiting him
on the landing, he lost heart, and bethought him it was a
pity to lose that garnishing of smiles to his dinner and their
light to the restful evening. Last night he was on the
brink of a disclosure, as they lay waking and talking, but
the announcement still faltered on his lips. He was a man
on the verge of bankruptcy, and hit wife must be made
aware of his position somehow—he was obviously the pro-
per one to tell her, but still he held back the blow with a
half-selfish mercy.
And so, day by day, be defers the explanation
until " at last, she told him," for not in vain had
the devoted wife watched her husband's growing
abstraction—" She had taken him by surprise. Sne
had turned his flank with her ambushed sunshine,
and whilst he wavered and doubted how to comfort
her under the intelligence, her heart had read his
secret, and she had applied herself to comfort
him." A very charming, loveable character is
Eleanor or Nellie, the loving, devoted wife of the
bankrupt, and afterwards of the supposed murderer.
At her husband's trial before the Court her evi-
dence turns the scale in his favour. Later on the
husband is arrested, and under most Suspicious
circumstances, for murder. At first poor Eleanor,
knowing his innocence, is unalarmed. She declares
site can explain matters in a moment, she was with
him all the time ! Among all with whom she comes
in contact no one ventures to undeceive her. Pious
frauds are adopted, various excuses are made. As
the time passes by, she grows suspicious and un-
easy. At last she forces the painful truth from
her husband, who thus gently and tenderly tries
to break it to her.
" Answer me now—you promised to answer me—are you
going to reject me as a witness ?"
" I will answer you; I have no power, love, to call you
or reject you."
" Are you going to shake my statement to the court ?
Deal fairly with me before you commit me, for with God's
help I shall appear."
" I am not going to shake my statement, Nell; I shall
not even speak. Come, you are under delusion ; we have a
good case, thank God, and your evidence will not be
needed."
" Not needed ?" she cried. " Why—why, you have no
other
~I
tis evidence
happilythan e
emd
li
ense ? s
,;
;said he, "so slight is the case
against me; and I shall not have the pain of seeing you
come into a large public court, Nell, . . Thank God,
my girl, we'll both be spared from such shame."
" Shame!" she repeated, clinging to him. " I tell you,
Will, when it is your lot I share I'd rather have it than
half a throne."
He caught her nestling figure into him with a moment's
ecstasy of pride and gratitude. " I'd face the world with
you, love," he said tenderly. " And so they never told you
—they never told my poor girl ?"
" Told me what ?" she cried, breaking from him in a
terror. " Any bad news ?"
"No bad news. There, be tranquil ; it is old, old news,
old as the laws. Don't be uneasy, Nell ; we shall have a
quiet talk, as you wished, about this same evidence of
yours; we don't mind who hear us. There, don't look so
wild ; there is nothing I have to tell you worth that wild-
fowl look. Now, Nellie, I suppose you, who have quite a
business experience, remember that in business matters a
wife is not recognisable as an agent in law. She is sup-
posed to be under her husband's influence and control. If
you had debts, Nellie, which you never had—debts for
bonnets and shawls and trinkets, which you are reasonably
fond of, on reckoning day against whose names would these
debts be entered l'''
" You are trifling with me, But to-day I will not be set
aside : you must meet my questions," she said, again re-
called by his light manner to her resolve and mettle.
" I am meeting your questions, Nell, but I may choose
my own way. Who is liable for those debts, you or I?"
" You would be," she said, impatiently.
" And if you were to be sued for non-payment in a court
of law, whose name would head the action, yours or mine i"
" Yours."

" And so poor Nellie seems to have no existence in law,"
he said, looking in her face with a nervous calculation and
forced smile.
'• I see your drift, but you are not putting it fairly. I have
read cases in the newspapers too often to be deceived. If a
wife commits a felony, her husband is not answerable—she
will be tried by herself; as she has existence in law."
" I am talking of a wife's evidence, Nellie," ho said,
solemnly watching her. " You are supposed to be under
my complete influence, and your statement is assumed in
law to be under my undue direction, The law exists chiefly
in mercy that a wife may not be forced to appear against
her husband, but if she would appear for him, it is naturally
supposed she is in collusion with him, don't you under-
stand : shg is ix fact flesh of his flesh, and must be pardoned
should she perjure herself for his sake."
"You cannot deceive me," she said indignantly. " You
know well I was called as a witness in your examinations in
the court of bankruptcy, and gave evidence perfectly good
in law as to the surrender of all your property."
" That was a civil case," replied her husband, "and the
law with respect to civil cases is altered; but in criminal

cases-"

" In matters of life and death, you would tell me," said
she vehemently, " a wife is silenced, when a word from
her would save her husband's life. It is not true—l do not
believe you; if I believed that, it would kill me," cried the
poor emphatic Eleanor.
The best argument poor Eleanor brings forward in
favour of her cause is when, a little later, she is ap-
pealing to the counsel :

THE BENEFIT OF A DOUBT.
" I do not know the law, sir. It seems tome like a
prison, shutting out life and truth. But I have heard that
you give the prisoner the benefit of a doubt. You even
receive the prisoner's own statement, and give it weight."
"It is nut given on oath," interposed the counsel.
Lot us say that the evidence of a Christian woman,
given on her oath in favour of her husband, may be liable
to suspicion—the utmost suspicion and doubt—and be only
the weight of a feather in the scale. Still, why should he
not have the benefit of a doubt? Why must his wife sit
silent till liar heart bursts, whilst servants and enemies
swear Lis life away ?
['he lawyer replies to this with equal truth
:
"It is a law, besides, that really has a humane and
merciful intention. Now, suppose you were possessed of
evidence against your husband—just the missing link that
might be necessary to convict him, and you loved hint as
you do now—would it not be a painful state of things if
you could be dragged into the witness-box by a subrowna,
and forced to give evidence which must convict him ? But
here is the law you complain of, which has been framed to
shelter him and you from such an unnatural position."
These two considerations—the wife's plea that she
may speak for her husband as he speaks for himself,
and the lawyer's threat that such a permission
might compel her to speak against him—these two
considerations taken together seem to afford a solu-
tion to all the difficulties of ,the case. A person
under accusation is not compelled to criminate him-

self, but he is allowed to make any statement he
pleases, his statements of course being regarded
with suspicion. Why should not the same liberty
be accorded to the wife of the accused ? Without
being compelled to criminate her husband, why
may not her evidence as to facts be listened to—as
the evidence of the culprit is listened to, with sus-
picion and incredulity perhaps, but still with the
possibility that it may serve to elucidate the truth P
The readers of Mr. Wills' powerful pages, who
sympathise with the cruel heart-threes of poor
Eleanor, will be solicitous, one and all, for some
amelioration of the law which may render such a
case as her's an impossibility. To strengthen the
force of his appeal, and exhibit the unnatural
anomaly of the law, Mr. Wills has introduced an
episode of peculiar painfulness. Eleanor has a child,
a little son of seven years old, who, by a sad
fatality, had slept in the room in which the
murder had been committed. The boy had been
aroused after the murderer had left the room, and had
beheld his father with the instrument of death that
he had wrenched from the murderer's hand. This
boy, unknown to his mother, is cross-questioned by
the servants, and placed in the witness-box. His
guileless, inconsiderate evidence seals his father's
doom, Here is a glimpse of this powerfully written
and most heart-rending scene :