The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-15 00:00:00

is given for that object, so it would have turned into one
of such feeling of unbounded gratitude as the highest are
honoured fh receiving from the very lowest. Could I have
served him at the sacrifice of my life, it would have been
given without question. Has it come that hearts, bought
with kindness, once regarded as the best ornaments of a
throne, are now of such little worth ? lam informed that
his lordship has saved his brother's honour before, and, if
not, must plead that the consequences shown beforehand
of this unfortunate occurrence would justify an exception
!to ever so wise a rule.

" This statement is roughly and hastily drawn out; ab-
sence of detail is caused by want of time; and if the tone of
expression is not equal to the grave circumstances sought
to be represented, it is not for want of truth in the facts,
but of descriptive power in the writer. I submit the truth
to the world with painful reluctance. Penance does not
atone for wrong, and I seek the power to make repara-
tion ; money represents that power. I urge the sacred
plea of mercy.
" Mercy for thoso who are innocent. Shall it be urged
in vain ?

"ERNEST W. SOUTHEY.
"10, Castle-street, Worcester, March 16, 1864."

ANOTHER LETTER.—LSLpeyotitaolnly.3 addressed to Sir E. B.

I feel it my duty to bring before the public a matter
deeply affecting its general interests, in which the force of
a mass of circumstances (including bitter wrongs, suffer-
ings, starvation, misery, and despair) have brought about
the greatest danger of the ascrifice of the lives of ten per-
sons in the fearful occurrences stated below. The shooting
of a nobleman, as an act of natural justice, a justification
of the deed being thus founded. That the wrongs which
he has inflicted are murder, only inflicted indirectly, and
skilfully avoiding the penalties of the law, and such
crime as all men acknowledge to be really greater crime—
than the act of taking life itself. That as the law provides
no remedy for these wrongs, no punishment for this crime,
the case reverts back to the fundamental law of nature—
the law of self-preservation. The injured one being left
to himself by the state has to do the best he can for him-
self, as well as to vindicate and 'uphold justice. These
views being supported by arguments quoted from Scrip-
ture, john Stuart Mill, the' late Poet Laureate, Southey,
Bishop Burnet, Mariano, Mazzini, Buchanan, and many
other learned men, as well as by the sense of justice and
common sense of the many millioned to whom the facts
of this case have been made known. The other occurrences
are the poisoning as an. act of mercy by a mother of her
family of young children and of herself, in order to save
them such sufferings as her own, which have at least
crushed out of her mind the veil love of life, making her
willing to escape her misery in that fearful way, seeing no
other remedy possible. And lastly, the husband of the
fore-named, whose greater fortitude and power of endur-
ance has been the means up to this time of averting and
preventing the occurrences of which I have already
spoken. He, stripped by suffering of much of ordinary -
belief, searching out into deeper truth for a stay and sup-
port, perplexed and distressed beyond measure by the
dark and subtle problems of ethics, metaphysics, and re-
ligion, without guide and instructor, and wanting food for
sometimes as long as two days at a time ; he also is at
last so utterly broken down and exhausted by intense
anxiety, over exertion, privation, and bitter disappoint-
ments, that he has openly acknowleged that, looking to
the terrible nature of the sufferings endured by his wife
and family, the certainty of even worse sufferings in the
future, the hopelessness of life both for them and himself,
and the danger of their all sinking down to become a curse
to themselves and to the world, and viewing the fruitless-
ness of all his utmost efforts to bring about a remedy,
that giving these and all the other many facts of the case
the deepest, most careful, and most anxious consideration,
he has been driven by them (and one other to be yet
named) to the conscientious conviction and one absolute
belief that it would be an act of virtue to save his family
from further suffering and evil by mercifully putting an
end to their lives; that the accident of the absence
from him of some of the eight children and persons
whose wellbeing is so entirely, so hopelessly bound
up in the matte; has alone been the means which
prevented him from carrying that conviction into execu-
tion, and that he should then have submitted himself to suf-
fer the penalties of our present iniquitously imperfect law
of justice. The additional consideration referred to, as
supplying a justification of the deed is this—a conviction
that it would prove the means of saving thousands of others
from like sufferings from death, and from that even worse
form of death—moral death. That the facts of the case
1 would reveal such a striking and convincing exposition of
some of the defects which are still allowed with criminal
neglect to underlie our social system generally, our social
justice in particular, that it would so clearly show their
fearful results as to awaken the public mind to a strong
and abiding consciousness of their magnitude and iniquity;
that the case would supply such a tracing up to its original
and truo cause, that mass of misery, vice, and crime which
disgraces England, which defies the remedies, and thwarts
the best efforts of her public men, which threatens the
moral health of the whole nation, without being under-
stood, that the case would supply such a convincing and full
explanation of this most grave social question as would
greatly help to elucidate the truth and bring into operation
more effectual and needed remedies. And that thus the
act of putting an end to these hopeless sufferings and lives
together would but be mercifully applying a last desperate
remedy, when all hope of other remedy had failed (as in
the case of Virginius), would but be of inevitable evils ac-
cepting the least, would, in saving thousands, be certainly
bringing great good out of evil, and prove a real service to
the cause of humanity, civilisation, and truth, these views
being supported by arguments from "Paley" and others,
who justify, in certain emergencies, such exception to or-
dinary rule of conduct, recognising utility as the founda-
tion of virtue itself. It will appear to others, as myself,
that the State should supply in such a case the proper help.
' It does not. I have tried, tried fully in every way, from
the highest to the lowest authorities in the land, the
Church, justice, and police ; but I have tried in vain ; the
State makes no proper provision to meet and remedy the
case. The whole matter is one made up of strange, con-
tradictory, and seeming incongruities, and unless fully ex-
plained, could not be understood. Among the rest of the
anomalies is this—That not only does our present incon-
gruously imperfect social jusiice (I quote Sir E. B.
Lytton's adjective and opinion) make no Provision
to remedy the case, but the law is itself ac-
tually exhibited as having, by its injustice, been one of
the main causes of bringing about all this evil. Goldsmith
said years ago, " We made more laws to make more crimi-
nals." Judge Wilde said from the bench a few days since,
" The law worked a great injustice." And at present we
have the two Lord Chief Justices themselves diSagreeing
as to what on a certain subpsct is law. The law is positively
a criminal in the case I bring before the public, and it there-
fore would be anomaly indeed to accept its arbitration if it
afforded one (which it does not). It would be simply mak-
ing of the criminal a judge to try its own suffering victim.
In this dilemma I appeal to the people. I
.have exhausted
all private measures. Sir E. B. Lytton, writing on the sub-
ject of our social justice and its iniquity, says, " I direct
myself to the conscience that reigns superior to all law in
men's hearts and souls, and few who have had anything to
do with law will be willing to contend that, but for that
higher law of conscience, our present degree of social order
could long be maintained or retained merely by our social
justice alone." As a last appeal, I here also direct myself
to this highest tribunal, and request an immediate investi-
gation of the facts of this case by a few of those men who
seek to serve thopeople by studying and promoting the in-
terests of truth and justice. I know that although I openly
declare these serious facts, it is exceedingly doubtful
whether they will be realised and acted upon with the re-
quired energy. I know that it is only when some such ap-
palling occurrences have already happened (such as those
circumstances threaten), that the .defects in our system
which cause them, and the need of a remedy are acknow-
ledged and provided ; still, I fulfil my duty, and make the
trial whether it is possible, in this instance, to save the sac-
rifice of human life, seeing that so many have been brought
into danger, and among the rest, that of a nobleman. This
short account of the matter would, in any other form, have
on most minds the effect of conveying a false impression,
and then practically be a lie, while in the manner adopted,
the real truth is conveyed and asserted, so as to be misun-
derstood by no one. Less than the whole truth (or an epi-
tome) is often as much a lie or more than the whole truth
would be. Since writing the first part of this letter events
in connection with the matter have already happened,
which leave the case (to my judgment) so extremely
critical that any one most trifling additional weight of cir-
cumstance, or any momentary and realised impulse added,
to the
sufficient-alr etaod
byr
ionvge rasbt roauitn
tehd
es t
saddestate o f mind
and pworstrod u c
oe
fd ,the
i 1 1 hoc-
currences of which I have spoken, and make that help
which I ask too late. John Stuart Mill says, " The opera-
tions of the will are caused that they may be predicted by
persons' adequate knowledge." I am acting here under
such a conviction, and deduce from the action laid down
that when one person has that brought upon him which
no mind could successfully resist or bear up under, which
on its overpowering force must coerce and control the will,
and possibly direct it to actions greatly inimical to general
interests (as may be the case in this instance), I conclude,
when this is the case, that it ]oust be the duty and interest
of the people to instantly see that such a case has proper
attention. For the duty of fellow help rests imperatively
on all men, as self help and individual responsibility on each
one of us. On the axiom 1 have quoted rests the funda-
mental social principle of the mutual dependence of man,
the sacredness of human life, and the high duty of fellow
help to keep it sacred, and on these sacred principles I base
this most earnest appeal. Shall it be made in vain ? I
have specially addressed this letter to Sir E. B. Lytton, for
this reason—he is acknowledged to possess a widely-ex-
panded judgment on the question which would arise in the
proposed inquiry, both to the power of circumstances and
the psychology of the mind. If Sir E. B. Lytton will,
with two or three others, meet and hear the case, the hus-
band of whom I have spoken has pledged himself to make
a full statement of the whole facts to them, to be taken
down in writing. The facts are uncommon, complicated,
intricate, and would demand the speciality, acumen, and
power of such, a mind to form true judgment thereon. I
• feel if this is done at once it may prove the means of saving
the publio mind from a violent and painful convulsion,

such as recently seen in the States of America. It
might save a fearful precedent too likely to be fol-
lowed. It might save from being brought before
the minds of the uneducated that which they
would be most unlikely to form correct judgment upon,
but which would be very likely to mislead them
to disturbance of public order, by creating dis-
respect and contempt for our justice and social institutions.
It might effect all the good sought to be effected by these
suffering and much wronged persons. Save their lives.
Save all the evil, and the good be accomplished without
sacrifice. It might save its being said of the people of
England that they had practically denied the sacredness of
human life, and in the year 1865 repeated Cain's heinous
impiety, "Am I my brother's keeper ?" Why is it that we,
as a nation, continue to cry, " Oh, how shocking ! Who
would have thought it ?" when human life has been al-
ready lost through criminal neglect, only to renew our la-
mentation when the same thing occurs again. What is
everybody's business (everybody's duty) is shamefully
often attended to by nobody. Among the other attributes
which mark man's relation to the Supreme, he possesses a
measure of Divine prescience. It is, then, to those to whom
this talent has been specially entrusted, to the wise up-
holders of right and truth, that I once more address my-
self, and wish the whole force of every earnest feeling of
my nature. I request them not to let it be seen in the
coming future that I sought to do a great public good, and
that they would not help me. The case has now gone be-
yond relief by pecuniary assistance ; such assistance is,
therefore, not asked, and will not be received by me ; but
any person taking a higher interest in the matter will re-
ceive every attention by addressing as below.
Putney, July 12, 1865. ANALYTICUS.

The following, which is from Bell's Life in London, ex-
plains itself in reference to the murderer :

AN APPEAL TO THE SPORTING WORLD.—We have re-
ceived a long letter, signed "Fair Play," for which we have
not space, accompanied by letters from certain noblemen,
which bear out the truth of the matters contained in it,
appealing for support and assistance to the sporting pub-
lic. The writer gives us his name and address, and offers
to produce evidence of the truth of his statements to any
one who will take up his case. We make the following ex-
tract from his letter:—" Two years ago I won at billiards
£1,172 of a nobleman, under special agreement, proposed
beforehand by himself, that whichever lost must pay the
same day. When ho had lost he asked to be allowed to send a
check the day following. But he did not fulfil this promise,
and nothing was heard from him for a fortnight. He then
wrote from the Continent that ho could not pay, thus lite-
rally confessing, after having bound me to this agreement
to pay at once, that he had actually made bets to this
amount without the money to pay if he lost. He wrote
now promising to pay as soon as he could. A month after-
wards, on being pressed for payment, ho said, if the matter
was made at all unpleasant to him, it was only a debt of
honour, and he then should not trouble himself about it ;
but if it were left a few months ho would pay. Two
months afterwards, being again asked for a settlement, he
wrote to say that he would not pay at all. I then requested
that the case should be submitted for arbitration, naming
a high member of the Jockey Club who had kindly con-
sented to act on my part as one arbitrator, if he would
name another. But to this request he did not even reply.
I accepted grave responsibilities on the faith of my having
won this money, and the non-payment of it, with the after
consequences thereof, have utterly ruined me and brought
me to beggary, hemming me in with such a complication of
unusual, desperate, and fearful circumstances, as would
seem almost incredible. There are facts in this matter
more serious than those I have stated, and I am well as-
sured, if the whole truth were fully known among the
noblemen and patrons who lend their influence to enforce
honesty and uphold the honour and morale of English
sports, that they would regard them as claiming strongly
their serious consideration. My debtor has now returned
to England. I have again requested him to submit the
matter to the arbitration formerly proposed. But again I
do not even receive a reply to my letters, and I have
exhausted every measure in my power. The nobles of
England have ever shown themselves firm and zealous
in upholding the honour of their order in such cases,
often supplying our want of a proper tribunal by some
mode of private or combined action, so bringing about a
fair and proper settlement. I therefore now appeal to
them. I offer the fullest information, and court the
keenest scrutiny, fully and firmly confident that their in-
vestigation will prove that they are justified in. giving
me the support I ask." The writer concludes with an
appeal for pecuniary assistance, to be forwarded through
us. This we cannot permit, as it is contrary to our rules;
but wo shall bo happy to give his address to any gentleman
willing to investigate his case, or to assist in arbitration,
should wo be called on so to do.

EARLY PREPARATIONS FOR THE MURDERS.—Th follow-
ing report appears in The Sun of the 15th of December last
of an application which was made to the sitting magistrate
at Marlborough-street police court the day before :
" A well-dressed man applied to Mr. Tyrwhitt for advice.
He said that he had made the acquaintance, some time ago,
of a lady of great attainments, but of no property. She
had so far sacrificed herself to her children as to reduce
herself to indigence. He had made a vow to see her
through her difficulties, but being, as far as pecuniary
matters wore concerned, somewhat similarly circumstanced,
he had suggested that they should unite their fates, and
make a joint effort to raise themselves into that position in
society they were entitled to occupy. Ho found, however,
that ho could not marry the lady, as she had a husband
from whom she was separated, and they could not get a
regular divorce for want of funds. They had come to the
determination to form a union which should be binding on
each other. At the same time they stipulated that if they
failed to raise themselves into a higher position, they
would commit suicide. Tho drugs wore purchased, and
they continued together, but, failing in their object, they
reconsidered their determination, and had now resolved to
separate and not to commit suicide. He now begged, to
hand over to the magistrate the bottle containing the
poison, as a proof that all rash resolves had boon given up.
" Here the applicant offered to the magistrate something
wrapped in paper.
"Mr. Tyrwhitt—What, is' this poison ? I don't see that
lam required to receive it. Take it to the police.
" The applicant continued. Ho said that that was the
first part of the case. The second part was of greater im-
portance. He was desirous of assistance in raising him-
self again to that position ho once filled, and which he felt
he ought to occupy.
" Mr. Tyrwhitt—what has a magistrate to do with such
a matter ?

" Applicant—lf a gentleman of your large experience, in
concert with the Earl of Shaftesbury and Sir Edward
Lytton Bulwor—men who have studied life and who are
skilled in its mysteries—will join with the all-powerful
press in this work, I cannot for a moment doubt that they
will at once decide on the value to be placed on my moral
and intellectual attributes.

"Mr. Tyrwhitt said ho had no time to devote to such
affairs. As ho had no control over the press, he must refer
the applicant to its conductors."
This is about the time, it is supposed, that Southey and
the woman White separated, and since then, as before, he
has been constantly in the habit of writing begging letters.