The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-28 00:00:00

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tin on each other cruelties which would be disgrace-
ful
interfere
ew. t
hT he
vigour.time has comegood
fttiolinitferienfflee inflicted
and
n to o a
deal depends on the firmness and decision of the
magistrates before whom King and Heenan will
appear; and without wishing any unnecessary
hardships to be inflicted on two courageous pugilists,
we cermet help believing that the magistrates in
question will not be worthy of t heir office unless the
penalty be sharp, decisive, and, final.
SPECTATOR.—Tue Fitzger :Id divorce suit, besides
amusing the town for a week, has done a substan-
tial service. It has revealed to the public a defect
in English divorce law long since patent to lawyers,
and which may be productive of almost infinite mis-
chief. It is open to anybody from jealousy, or
hatred, or blindness, or the hope of extortion, to
include any innocent person, man or woman, among
the co-respondents in a divorce suit, and so either
permanently damage their characters or inflict a
crushing amount of annoyance and anxiety. So
long as the liability was felt only by men, other men
well aware how leniently such offences are judged
might afford to shrug their shoulders and
congratulate themselves that nobody had any
handle on them ; but the introduction of a
woman into the same situation alters the
aspect of affairs. The most unscrupulous are apt
to grow savage when their own wives are attacked
in public, and the mischief having occurred in one
case, we may fairly expect some effort to modify the
law. The cruel wrong endured by one of the parties
in this singular suit, singular if only as exposing the
persistent ignorance of the public on the subject of
legal cruelty, is not attributable to the Divorce
Court. She would have suffered it just as much
under the old procedure, and without -so prompt a
relief ; but it is due to a defect in the law itself. A
greater wrong effected through legal forms it would
be difficult to imagine. Major Fitzgerald, son of
Lord William Fitzgerald, and an officer of some dis-
tinction, having earned the Victoria Cross in
'Crimea, married in 1857 Miss Georgiana Bettis-
worth. The major had little but his pay and his
debts, the lady between twenty and thirty thousand
pounds, and the marriage on the husband's side al-
most avowedly made for money. Such matches end
every day more happily than they deserve, but in
this instance the bridegroom was disappointed, or
thought he was disappointed, of some of the money
promised; the bride looked after her property with
penurious cue and vigilance, and both parties wore
on the evidence of high and uncontrolled temper.
The major snubbed his wife, according to het evis
deuce, after the most unpardonable manner ; ac-
cording to his, with the kind of" chaff" women can
never understand or bear. Mrs. Fitzgerald, es
time went on, became more and more irritated; the
loss of a child, which she attributes to his language,
and everybody else apparently to bad medical ad-
vice, aggravated the disunion, and at last the wife,
tired out by reflections on her person, whether good-
humoured or not, accused the husband of infidelity.
She fixed, as the Mrs. Naggletons of society
do fix, on the lady her husband best knew, a
Mrs. Mallet, wife of Mr. Mallet, holding
an appointment in the Foreign Office, who, to his
misfortune, had been a kind friend to Major Fitz-
gerald. Taxed for whole years on end with inti-
macy with this lady, threatened with the loss of
all he had married to obtain, and badgered out of
his wits, Major Fitzgerald, as he says in a letter
published in the Times, went temporarily out of his
mind—a statement which, unusual as it is, seems
the only one which explains the facts, and which is
supported by medical evidence. In this condition
he wrote letters to his wife admitting the truth of
her accusation, and, all efforts at reconcisiation fail-
ing, she brought her action for cruelty and adultery.
For months Mrs. Mallet's name remained on the
file as co-respondent in a case in which a Major on
the Staff, a man of the class against whom society
always presumes, and in whose favour it usually
condones, such charges, was also implicated. For
all that time none but the intimate friends of the
accused family had any means whatever of know-
ing whether any portion of the implied charge was,
or was not, in any degree true. The only thing
they were certain of was the bitter, but unavailing
wrath of her husband, who, though willing to go
all lengths in his wife's defence, had not even a
right to a hearing within the Court. So bad is the
law that he had not even the right to send counsel
into the Court, to promise the complete refutation
he and his friends knew that it was in hie power to
adduce. At last the trial came on, Mrs. Fitzgerald
gave her evidence, the letters were produced, and
the plaintiff's side, and that alone, appeared in
the mere of the following day. For twenty-four
hours, at least, Mr. and Mrs. Mallet must have
suffered torture ; but, fortunately, the law left them
one solitary chance. It was open to counsel, though
not compulsory on counsel, to place them in the box,
and to bring forward evidence they had collected
in disproof of the charge. Had Mrs. Mallet been,
as hundreds of women would have Leen, half-killed
or wholly killed by appearance before a public
court in order to rebut such a slander, even this
chance might have failed. As it was, through a
concurrence of favouring circumstances and the for-
titude of the witnesses, the truth was for once made
clear. There was not a particle of evidence worth
one straw to justify any imputation of any sort or
kind, except that Mr. Mallet had the misfortune to
be on friendly terms with a man subject to halluci-
nations, and to lend him, through his wife, £25. It
was not a mere break-down of evidence leaving still
a shade of suspicion. There was counter-evidence
as complete as it is possible for evidence of a nega-
tive ever to be, accounting for almost every mcment
of Mrs, Mallet's time, and so deeply did that lady's
bearing impress the jury that they refused to hear
plaintiff's counsel or Judge's summing-up, and at
once, as 'by acclamation, exonerated the accused.
SATURDAY REVIEW.—The politicians of old days
were not expected to stump. Extra-Parliamentary
utterances are an invention of modern times. The
older view of a Member of Parliament's functions
was limited to the assembly which he was sent to
join. His constituents troubled themselves princi-
pally about his votes—that is to say, if he sat for a
constituency which took any interest in political
matters beyond that which could be expressed in
the coin of the realm. If he chose to indulge in
utterances of any kind within the walls of Parlia-
ment, it was entirely by his own choice, and for the
purpose of pushing his own way in the world. A
totally different conception of the character now
prevails. For some time an idea appears to gave
gained ground among the constituencies, the. t itms
ei is
part of the duties of every 'amber of Paraltut.east
to take care that his name shall appears
imprac-
occasionally, in the debates. The
PhY elbee:n obvious
ticability of this pretension must have divide the
to any one who would take the trouble to
the House of
number of hours at the disposal be
s it
contains.
Commons by the number of lk!ear r
difficulty made
In course of time, this practice
s accepted. Instead
itself felt, and a compromise wa
Commons, where the
of speaking in the House
offastidious, most constitu-
audience is impatient and
a oratory they expect
encies are now content that the
11 be executed, for their own
from their member she
during the recess, Thi,
edification and diversion,
undoubtedly tends to 8
arrangement, which _
isprobably the origin
the
time of Parliament,_ origin of
of autumn stnm •
ng.
the modern system go through
Members of Parliamentcrutablemany vexations
ror the sake of the inscrutable . pleasure of writing
name,
two letters after their that one misery more
or less is not of much importance.. It would be a
s evil if this obligation of exhibiting during
serious e
recess tended nu b
the re dd to lessen the ra er of candidates
for the privilege of gratuitously performing it. Bat
in England, the charm of standing one round
higher on the social ladder than your neighbours is
so irresistible that, if
-- a member of Parliament were
obliged to dance upon his head for the amusement
of his constituents, it is
that men of probable
for-
tune and independence would be form
to assure the spectators that the.time devoted to the
feat was the proudest moment of their lives. Nor
that the
can it be said t practice does any injury to
the ordinary race of members of Parliament. Their
stYle °f orat • ite safe from deterioration.
Unfortunately,
orator qu
imperious usage ex-
urt nately, however, the even the
tends to andconsequently includes
all ke a share in the
moat eminent men who have tau on them the habit
administration of the Empire.
of platform eloquence has a decidedly detrimental
ff°ct. As the House of Commons is about the best,
so a platform
y far the worst,
school of oratory.
It has been well
is
b- said that sermons would be free
from most of the defects that are laid to their
were only liable to a reply. It
charge if the cleurmgyan
zeal and virtue to supply the
requires superb
which would be imposed by the fear
salutary check ,
The platform has all the vices of the
of criticism.
pulpits
a to a license in point of facts and prin-
„ples which is special to itself. Few public men are
ci
sufficiently masters of themselves to resist the tempta-
tion which is held out by the impossibility of a reply,
and by the peculiar impressibility of their audience.
The knowledge that a practised debater is prepar-
ing to pick to pieces a speaker's reasoning, and to
scrutinise his facts, the moment he has sat down,
enforces a caution in the selection and treatment of
topics which self-imposed scruples will not entirely
replace. The consequence is, that orators who are
fond of starring it in the provinces are generally