The Sun.
London, England, 1839-02-08 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

QUEEN'S BENCH, FEB. 7.
CHIN. CON.—WALTON V. GOMME.
(Continued from our First Edition of jesterday. )
Sir Pommel( then proceeded to address the Jury on
The part of the defendant. This, he said, was one of the
most extraordinary cases that had ever been brought before
a Court. Cases of this description were deserving of the
most serious consideration on account of the great mural
principles bound up in their investigation, and the large
share of human happiness that depended upon a correct
view of the social relations imported into these inquiries ;
and he should very much regret if, even by accident, any
remark should fail from him which was in the slightest de-
gree calculated to raise a smile. His Learned Friend had
desired the Jury not to measure their damages by the
Which the husband had to their sympathy— to that
sYmpathy exercised on the cruel wrong of being deprived of the wife of his bosom and the partner of
his affections. But there was one person in this ease,
above all others, entitled to their sympathy, but who, unfor-
tunately in proceedings of this description, was entirely
forgotten--he meant the wife—whose situation had been
bought forward ; she was arraigned of a crime, calcu-
lated, if it were true, to drive her from society, to rob her
of the protection of a husband, deprive her of the counte-
nance of her friends, and place her in a situation far worse
than if on her death-bed she was expecting a life of shame
and misery would terminate ; and all this took place in a
Court of Justice, with all the artifices of nisi pries, with
Counsel looking only to the pocket interest of the
husband, who asked the jury, by their verdict, to load
his wife with the infamy of an adultress—to charge upon
the defendant participation in the crime, and then to fill his
pocket as largely as he could with damages. It was one
of the anomalies in inquiries of this nature, that no one
appeared to defend Mrs. Walton, who might cast back
perhaps upon the husband some of the imputations which
were sought to be thrown upon her. Ilcre was a husband
asking a jury for damages—seeking to load his wife with
the highest offence that could be committed against mo•
talky, and the wife so undefended was dragged into court
to gratify the avarice, and possibly something worse, of the
plaintiff. It was the universal rule that when an imputa-
tion was sought to be cast upon any one, the inquiry
should at least be conducted properly, by laying before
the jury all the matters which belonged to it. The
plaintiff, when he came into court, ought to have
Come with the fullest history of his domestic life.
He ought to give not a mere case to entitle him to the
SYrnpathy of the Jury and their verdict, but to lay before
them evidence which could not be questioned, every fact
and circumstance upon which he presumed to ask them to
dip their hands into any man's pocket; and lie appealed
1 the Jury as men, as the husbands of their wives, as the
Perms of theirdaughters, as the brothers of their sisters,
to tell his Learned Friend and his client, that when the
11)riolar and character of a woman was assailed, he who came
to assail her must not come in apparently with clean hands,
but with an open heart lie must tell all that belonged to the
case. The man who came into Court to state just enough
*
Tstamp a verdict of guilty, and procure an award of da-
agee, dishonoured the term ; it was not obtaining a ver.
rnutet fairly, but it was attempting to get one by unfair
yreans. Here there was nothing to show the course of
he which had been led in this house ; from the first
week after the marriage all was blank up to the month of
a'aseb or April,and then it appeared that this was
he o.)arle, of domestic life which then prevailed in the fiily, They ought to have shown the manner in which the
Parties had lived together during the two years preceding
these tra
called, nsactions, but no relative of the family had been
The Learned Gentleman, after commenting at
endued ength on the._ evidence
.adduced, concluded by remark-
mg, that eve" •by she witnesses,
-.lf the jury believed all that had been stated
their sense' cosfses' there could be no coin too small to express
thel", the injury of which the husband complained,
..nandl tglected and exposed his wife for months toge-
wbo concealed ever thin;; wide!, could t,•11,1
to
throw any light ou the subject. Looking to the sizuati,ai
The defendant, who was not proved to be in a condition

to pay any damages, looking also to the conduct of the de-
fendant, and to the sympathy which the exposed situation
of the wife entitled her to, he was quite satisfied they
would give such a verdict as would meet the justice of the
case.

Lord DENMAN then charged the Jury, leaving it to them
to say, if they believed the testimony of the witnesses, to
what amount of damages, under all the circumstances, the
plaintiff was entitled.
The Jury, after consulting for a few minutes, returned a
verdict for the plaintiff—Damages 301.