The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-30 00:00:00

7HE WINDlitiM CdIEE.

4:The adjourned inquiry into the state of mind of
Mr. W. F. Windham, of Felbrigg-hall, Norfolk,
was resumed yesterday in the Westminster Sessions
Roane, before Mr. Warren, Q.C., one of the Masters
in lunacy, and a special jury.
Mr. Chambers resumed by calling the attention of
the jury to the marriage of Mr. Windham—a mar-
riage, he said, in which a bridegroom was not taken
to the altar, but a victim was led to the slaughter.
He contended that if the marriage stood alone no
man who gave his cool and impartial consideration
to the case would hesitate to say that it was the
marriage of an imbecile, and not that of a sane man.
From first to last, Miss Willoughby seemed to have
treated Mr. Windham like a child. At one time
she told him that her father had left her £6OO per
annum, but shortly afterwards the representation
was changed, and then she said she had an allow-
ance of £2,000 a year from the gentleman under
Whose protection she was living. The poor idiot
appeared to have believed every word she uttered,
and he really imagined that Agnes Willoughby, nee
Rogers, was going to descend upon him, like an-
other Jupiter, in a shower of gold. When the time
came for preparing the marriage settlement Mr.
'Windham had mind enough to make a feeble
struggle against the extortionate demands of his in-
tended bride, but he was speedily overpowered, and
Miss Willoughby easily persuaded him to settle
upon her, not for her life, but in perpetuity, an
amount of money so extravagantly large in propor-
tion to his means that no reasonable being could
ever have dreamt of entering into such an engage-
ment. The learned counsel reflected with severity
upon the conduct of Mr. Bowen May, the solicitor '
who drew up the marriage settlement, and ex-
pressed a strong doubt whether such a document
was ever prepared in a respectable office before.
He maintained that Miss Willoughby kuvw the
state iu which Mr. Windham was at the time
of the marriage, for she had been previously in-
formed of it by Mr. Johnson, the surgeon, in
Saville-row, and ridiculed the idea that after
the marriage an enormous quantity of jewellery
was presented to her by her husband, as compensa-
tion for an injury which, in every sense of the
term, was self-inflicted. He minutely described
what he called the desecration of the marriage cere-
mony, which took place in the church of All Saints,
St. John's-wood, on the morning of the 29th of Aug.
last, and dwelt with some humour on the motley
crowd assembled on the occasion. One of the prin-
cipal personages in the scene was a venerable lady,
tlie widow of the late Rev. Mr. Rogers, but she
wAs supported, rather unfortunately, by three
clowns disguised as gentlemen. He did not allude,
of course, to Mr. Bowen May, who was the very
pink of fashion, and in all respects worthy of fol-
lowing the Royal staghounds. Nor did he refer to
Dr. Whidborne, the paterfamilias, who took part in
the ceremony with a couple of broken ribs; but the
jury would recollect that, besides the eminent soli-
citor and the eminent physician, in addition to the
venerable Mrs. Rogers and her fascinating and
accomplished daughter, Mr. Windham was sur-
rounded on the most fatal day of his life by three
individuals who seemed to have been picked off the
streets, taken into a ready-made clothing establish-
ment, and there rigged oat for the occasion. The
learned gentleman accompanied the happy couple
to Paris, where they spent the honeymoon, re-
turned with them to London, went down with them
to Felbrigg-hall, and related the events and inci-
dents which occurred at that place. He stated that
during the residence at Felbrigg Mrs. Windham
twice left her husband, for the purpose of following
a person whom she had addressed in post-nuptial
letters as " My dear, dear —," and with whom
there could not be a shadow of doubt she had acted
the part of an adultress. Meanwhile, how was Mr.
Windham conducting himself! In the month of
October, or about that period, there was a sum of
£1,908 standing to his credit in a bank inNorwich.
By the middle of December the whole of that money
had vanished, with the exception of something like
£l7, and no funds remained for the payment of the
bills held by Emmanuel, the jeweller,to the amount
of £13,000. On one day Mr. Windham gave his
wife two cheques, one for £3OO and the other for
£157, while Roberts obtained from him no less a
sum than £137. For what was that money paid
by Mr. Windham? Several witnesses had ex-
pressed the opinion, founded upon personal obser-
vation, that Mr. Windham was entirely ignorant
of the value of money. Their statement was con-
firmed in the most conclusive manner by the way
in which he squandered away the £1,900 placed
to his credit in the Norwich Bank, and the jury
could not fail to see that Mr. Windham, whatever
might be said of him in other respects, was utterly
incompetent to the management of his affairs. The
learned gentlemen next dealt with the timber con-
tract, which he said was unfair in its terms, and
enough in itself to prove the mental incapacity of
Mr. Windham. Roberts, he declared was the real
author of the contract, and the object of it was to
cheat a poor imbecile. He directed attention to
the extraordinary will which, according to Mr.
Bowen May, Mr. Windham executed after his mar-
riage. By that will he left the whole of his pro-
perty to his wife for her life, with the remainder
to her two sisters, the one wl.o married first to take
the name and arms of Windham. A more alarm-
ing act could not be conceived with reference to the
evil and pernicious influence exercised overMr.Wind-
ham, and certainly no argument could be required to
prove that he ought to be protected from a repetition
of the same piece of madness. It was true the will
had been destroyed; but Mr. Windham was again re-
conciled to his wife, and he might at any moment be
persuaded to make an equally disgraceful disposition
of his property. The law of England, said the
learned gentleman in conclusion, distinctly declared
that there was a state of mind existing between ab-
solute idiotcy and positive lunacy, which disabled
a man from managing himself or his affairs. Suoh
was the doctrine laid down by Lord Eldon and Sir
John Nicholls, and the medical joined with the legal
authorities in establishing the existence of an im-
becile condition requiring the protection of the law.
As crimes were punished and property was pro-
tected in England, so the weak and imbecile were
under the guardianship of our happy constitution,
and the Sovereign, as she reigned over all her sub-
jects with jestlce, reigned over the meanest, the
youngest, and the most helpless with kindness and
benevolence. It was in the spirit of benevolence
and kindness—a spirit which pervaded our law in
all its branchee—that protection was given to un-
happy youths who were made the subjects of depre-
dation and destruction in wealth, in health, in cha-
racter, and in life. There were certain ugly birds,
which, the moment they saw a feast spread out
upon the ground, left their darksomo recesses and
descended, not merely to devour voraciously the
viands arrayed before them, but to pollute and con-
taminate everything they touched. Sir Hugh Cairns
had culled from classical literature a quotation which
was strictly applicable to the present condition of
of Mr. Windham, and to what his state would be
if the jury Were to pronounce him sane and compe-
tent to manage his affairs. His learned friend had
quoted from the description by Virgil of the horri-
ble condition of the man who, by the invention of
an ancient tyrant, was chained to a dead body. Mr
Windham, not by the invention of an ancient tyrant,
but by the cunning and craft of modern sharpers,
was chained to corruption of the vilest kind, and
would continue in that condition unless they' de-
clared him to be entitled to the protection of the
law. They had been told that by returning a verdict
of sanity they would do an act not only of or! justice,lvind
but of kindness an :,evolence to
Wind-
ham. Vain and en' words ! Let Mr. Windham
.„,-;Dfd what would follow ? Fell-
be pronounced s,
f his early and childish en.
brigg Hall, the se •
joyments, and Fei.origg estate, the boast of his
little mind, would speedily pass from his posses-
sion. 'The ugly birds would fly into the portals of
the ancient mansion, and Mr. Windham would be
turned adrift, a beggar and an outcast. Whither
could he go ? Would he return to the metropolis
and revisit his old haunts in the Haymarket ? The
hospitable doors of Mr. Barnes would before long
be closed against him, and if he attempted, in his
rags and wretchedness, to renew his acquaintance
with the " pretty horsebreakers" in Rotten-row, he
would be made to feel all the humiliation and de-

gradation of his fallen fortunes. Dr. Tuke had
declared that, if Mr. Windham continued to con-
duct himself as he had hitherto done, h 3 would
either be in a lunatic asylum or would ki i himself
in four or five years. Mr. Windham therefore must
be saved, and saved too from. ruin of health and
character, from disease, from wretchedness of life,
from disgrace, from scorn, from repulsion from the
doors of his own wife living in luxury on her £BOO
or £1,500 a year. From evils worse than death
itself he could be saved only through the interven-
tion of those relatives who had come forward, in
spite of evil report and gross abuse, for the purpose
of discharging a disagreeable duty, by the interpo-
sition of the law of the land, and by the verdict of
a jury of his countrymen.
The Master briefly summed up. At length, he
said, this important, difficult, and unprecedented
case had come into their hands. It would be their'
duty to deal with it calmly and dispassionately,
as became men acting under a solemn sense of re-
sponsibility, engaged in an inquiry involving issues
of tremendous importance to the gentleman imme-
diately concerned, as well as to every reflecting
and right-thinking man in England. He was not
surprised at the sensitiveness which the public had
displayed, but if those persons had become irritable
and impatient who voluntarily day after day had
read the newspaper reports of details which must have
shocked the feelings of every one of the least preten-
sions to right principles and purity of character,what
must have been the case with the jury and himself,
who had been compelled by their sense of duty to
sit there and listen often with loathing and disgust?
No one was entitled or justified at present in pro-
nouncing an opinion upon these proceedings, or as
to their final determination, who had not been there
from first to last, seeing and hearing every witness,
and weighing the evidence under the pressure of an
oath. The inquiry heAa I—u s•-•satintail ~,;ti
plary regularity and with a rigorous adherence to the
law of the land. At%;mpts to raise irrelevant issues
had been repressed, and the attention of the jury had
been kept steadily fixed upon the fact that the only
question before them was whether Mr. Windham
was a lunatic, and as such not sufficient for the go-
vernment of himself or his property. By the second
section of the Lunacy Regulation Act it was pro- ,
vided that the word " lunatic" should be construed
to mean any person found upon inquisition to be an
idiot, a lunatic, or of unsound mind, and incapable
of managing himself and his affairs. When the
case was opened on the 16th December last, Mr.
Chambers laid before them a mass of facts of a very
grave nature, and if, at the end of the evidence in
support of the petition, an application had been
made to him for an interview with Mr. Windham,
he should have taken it into his most serious consi-
deration. But Sir Hugh Cairns, instead of alleging
that no case had been made out for the petitioners,
and intimating his intention not to call witnesses
for the defence, delivered a speech of uncommon
brilliancy, closing with a peroration severely classi-
cal and elegant, and then proceeded to adduce a great
mass of evidence on the part of Mr. Windham. The
inquiry had now extended over 33 days, and, while
50 witnesses had been called in support of the pe-
tition, no fewer than 90 had been examined against
it. He was glad that the counsel on both sides, whose
speeches had occupied more than a week, had so ex-
hausted the subject that it would be unnecessary for
him to go through the evidence. It only remained
for him to address a few general observations to the
jury. They were not trying the validity of the
acts of Mr. Windham in point of law. They were
not trying the validity of the marriage settlement,
of the disentailing deeds, of the timber contract, or
of the bills for jewelry. In short, they were not try-
ing the validity of any one of the instruments which
bad been produced in the course of the inquiry, and
all they had to do with those documents and trans-
actions was, simply to deal with them as media of
proof in deciding the issue before them. Nor were
they trying the motives or conduct of the petitioners.
The conduct of General Windham had been sub-
jected to severe censure ; it had received from Mr.
Chambers a splendid vindication, as far as eloquence
could go ; but, following in the footsteps of the late
Lord Cottenham, he had excluded all evidence
upon that subject, which was one entirely foreign to
the present inquiry. What the jury had Ito decide
was, whether Mr. Windham was of such sound mind
as to be able to govern himself and his affairs. In
the time of Lord Hardwicke it was necessary to
find a msn absolutely insane, but in 1802 Lord
Eldon declared that the Court of Chancery thought
itself authorised to issue a commission provided
it were made out that the party was unable
to act with any proper and provident management,
was liable to be robbed by any one, or was labour-
ing under that imbecility of mind which, though
not strictly insanity, equally required the protection
of the law. Lord Lyndhurst, in 1827, adopted the
ruling of Lord Eldon, which might be taken, there-
fore, as an authoritative declaration of the law of
England. Another doctrine laid down by Lord
Eldon, and sanctioned by his successors, was that if
a jury found merely the incapacity of an alleged
lunatic to manage his affairs, and did not infer from
it unsoundness of mind, upon that finding a com-
mission could not go on, though the party might
be living where he was exposed to ruin every in-
stant. From all this it resulted that, in order to
justify a verdict against Mr. Windham, the jury
must be satisfied that he was incapable of govern- '
ing himself and his affairs by reason of un-
soundness of mind. Mere weakness of charac-
ter, mere liability to impulse or susceptibility of
influence, good or bad, mere imprudence, extrava-
gance, recklessness, eccentricity, or immorality—no,
not all these put together would suffice, unless
they believed themselves justified, on a view of the
whole evidence, in referring them to a morbid con-
dition of intellect. The question was essentially a
practical one, and must be decided upon the evi-
dence. It was their duty to weigh carefully the
character, the position in life, and the probable mo-
tives of the witnesses. He would not presume to
indicate the effect which the evidence had produced
upon his own mind. The responsibility of deciding
i the case rested with the jury alone; but he might
be permitted to say that, instead of fixing their at-
tention upon particular points, they ought to look
at the evidence as a whole, and be guided by its
general tenor. He remarked upon the great conflict
of medical evidence, which, he said, was not unu-
sual in lunacy cases, and advised the jury to judge
for themselves, and not to allow their minds to be
confused by the contradictory statements of skilled
witnesses. They were not trying, he repeated, the
conduct of Gen. Windham, but the transaction
which took place at Follbrigg-hall on the Bth of
August was entitled to their consideration, so far
as it might show that, in his opinion, his
nephew was then of sound mind. Let them not
apply too high a standard to Mr. Windham. It was
not their business to consider whether he was a
consummate man of business er the reverse ; the
question which they had to decide was, whether he
was of such sound mind as to be able to take care of
himself and his property. The letters which had
been produced were well worthy of their most
serious attention. He regarded them, for his own
part, as exceedingly creditable to Mr. Windham,
and if the jury were satisfied that they were actually
written by the alleged lunatic, without help from
others, it would be their duty to give them all the
weight they deserved. Large portions of the evi-
dence of the Lewellins had been corroborated by
other witnesses, and it was for the jury to say
on which side perjury had been committed, whe-
ther on the side of Mrs. Lewellin or on that of her
sister and brother. Imprudent marriages were
not unfrequent. It was a common saying," Marry
in haste, and repent at leisure," and the mar-
riage contracted by Mr. Windham might be taken
as a transaction of that type. But they were not
trying the question of its validity, and therefore it
was not necessary for him to go into the unutter-
ably.. disgusting evidence which had been laid before
them. They were not there to read moral lessons
to Mr. Windham 'or anybody else, and, though
there had unquestionably been frightful vice and
wic§.edzasss; the cardinal question for their conside-
rationwhether the marriage and all the cir-
cumstances
mental connectedcondition of
it threw
allegedt hw re any
lunatic. light upon,so
cumstances
also, with respect to the timber contract. The con-
struction of that instrument was a matter to be
' decided in the ordinary courts of law. What the •

jury had to consider was, whether the contract was
of so absurd and destructive a character that no man
in his senses could have entered into it; in other
words, they could deal with it simply as a medium
of proof. The learned Master referred to the con-
duct of Mr. Windham since the commencement of
these proceedings, and told the jury that, while
they should not attach too much importance to his
visits to the Haymarket, and his behaviour at Fel-
brigg-hall on Christmas night, they ought not to
lose sight of those matters, but should give them
all the consideration they might be thought to de-
serve. He stated that he had decided upon public
grounds alone, and not for merely personal reasons,
in favour of a 'private examination of Mr. Wind-
ham, and cited the authority of the late Lord Camp-
bell for the course he had adopted. Finally, he di-
rected the jury to look at the case broadly and
steadily, to discard such portions of the evidence as
were either incredible or irrelevant, and to give
their verdict upon what remained firmly and con-
scientiously.
The examination of Mr. Windham will take place
to-day at 11 o'clock, in a room adjoining the court.
At its conclusion the jury will be left alone to con-
sider their verdict. We presume it will be deli-
vered in public, but even upon that point it is im-
possible to speak with certainty. The parties pre-
sent at the interview with the alleged lunatic will
be the Master, the jury, counsel, and an official
short-hand writer.

LAW IN TELLIGENCE, Jim. 29.

EQUITY COURTS.
(Before the Lord Chancellor.)

THE GOVERNORS OP ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL V. THE

CHARING:CROSS RAILWAY COMPANY,

In this case Vice-Chancellor Wood had granted
an injunction, restraining the Charing-cross Rail-
way Company -n a part, of the land
attached to St. Thomas's Hospital, which, with ttae
hospital and land on which it stands, having been
baught by the company, and the price fixed by
arbitration, workmen had been sent en the bit of
land in question, and had commenced certain work.
The matter now came by appeal to this court, and
the arguments for the appellant had just com-
menced, when

The Lord Chancellor interposed, and urged that
it was desirable that litigation should not go on
between the parties, and as the interruption of
necessary works of the company would involve a
serious loss as well as some public inconvenience, he
suggested that some compromise should be come to.
It was accordingly arranged that the workmen of
the company should be allowed to proceed with the
work on the piece of land to which the dispute re-
lated, the company undertaking that due care should
be taken that the comfort of the inmates of the
hospital in the wing abutting on the piece of land
should not be interfered with ; this arrangement to
be without prejudice to the right of either party to
apply to the Lord Chancellor to give further direc-
tions in reference to the arrangement, or to apply
to have the hearing of the petition of appeal con-
tinued.

COURT OF DIVORCE.
(Before the Judge Ordinary.)
FULLER V. FULLER.

Mr. Sergeant Pigott and Dr. Wambey conducted
the petitioner's case.

Mrs. Mary Fuller, the petitioner, charged her
husband, Charles Fuller, with adultery and deser-
tion, and prayed for a dissolution of her marriage.
She was married to the respondent, who is a veteri-
nary surgeon, in February, 1857, and they lived
together at Altonbury, in Huntingdonshire, until
1859. In the early part of that year Mrs. Fuller
found in his coat pocket some letters written to him
by a young lady living in the neighbourhood, and
when she remonstrated with him for carrying en a
clandestine correspondence, he told her that he
hated her and loved the young lady, and he should
leave. On the 2d March, 1859, he left her, and she
saw no more of him, except once about two months
afterwards, when he called at her mother's house
and asked her for some money. She afterwards
went to him at Whittlesea, but he refused to re-
ceive her, and sent her back to her mother. On
the 2d of March last she received a letter from
him, in which he said that he was about to
leave England, and that he should do so with
a great deal of pleasure in order to get rid of her,
that he hated her family, and that he would
rather suffer death than live with her again. In
1860 the respondent was living at a village in Essex,
and eloped with a girl of 16 years of age, the daugh-
ter of a farmer, at whose house he had been staying
for a few days. He lived with her at an inn at
Watford, representing that .ho was I,zo Nylfo, uutta,
be saw an advertisement in a newspaper offering a
reward for her discovery, and he then sent her back
to her parents.
Decree nisi granted with costs.
GAMBLE V. GAMBLE.

Mr. Powell appeared for the petitioner.
The marriage in this case took place in 1842, and
shortly afterwards the parties were appointed mas-
ter and mistress of a national school at Slough. The
respondent, Joshua Gamble, lost his situation, and
they then lived in different parts of London. Mrs.
Gamble charged her husband with having beaten
and illused her in various ways from the time of the
marriage until 1852, when they separated. In the
same year he went through the ceremony of mar-
riage with a woman named Herrington, at Poplar,
and afterwards lived with her as her husband.

Decree nisi granted with costs.
BAMFORD T. BAMFORD.

Dr: Phillimore, Q.C., and Dr. Wambey appeared
for the petitioner. The respondent had entered an
appearance, but filed no answer.

Dr. Phifiimore stated that the petitioner, Mts.
Lavinia Jane Andrews Bamford, prayed for a judi-
cial separation on the ground of her husband's adul-
tery. She was the daughter of Admiral Sir Edward
Chetham, who, since his daughter's marriage, had
take the surname of Strode. The respondent, Cap-
tain Robert Carter Bamford, had been in the 73d,
59th, and 63d Regiments successively, but had now
sold out of the service. The marriage took place at
Alverstoke on the 11th February, 1843. The adul-
tery was charged with various women, but the
respondent having eloped with a lady named Agnes
Serrel, and lived with her at Pangbourne, it would
be unnecessary to prove, more than his cohabita-
tion with her.

Admiral Sir E. Chetham-Strode proved the mar-
riage of his daughter with Captain Bamford, and
said they had visited at his house at South•hill, in
Somerset, and that he had visited them at their
residence at South Norwood. They were living
together down to September, 1860.
Joseph Heywo:ed, a clerk to the petitioner's
attorney, proved that he had served Captain Barn-
fordwith the citation in February last, at the George
Hotel, at Pangbourne. Captain Bamford said that
if his wife chose to leave him for no reason, he had
a right to go off with her cousin if he pleased. He
also sent his compliments to the petitioner's attor-
ney with the message that he was " as happy as a
sandboy," and had never known what happiness
was before.

Mr. Seymour, the landlord of the George Hotel,
proved that in February last Captain Bamford was
living at hit, Itoueo with a lady whom he had before
known as Miss Rigby. Captain Bamford said he
had married her, and they lived at his hotel as man
and wife for about two months.

His lordship decreed a judicial separation.
CHILMAN V. CHILMAN AND HOW.
_ _

Mr. Kerslake, Q.C., and Mr. A. Staveley Hill
appeared for the petitioner.
The petitioner was a clerk in an insurance office.
He married the respondent in January, 1845, lived
with her in different parts of London, and had seven
children by her. Li December, 1857, he was obliged
to separate from her in consequence of her having
taken to drinking, and he made her an allowance
of £1 a week. In September, 1860, she went to
Dublin to stay, as she represented, with some
friends who were living there. The petitioner
soon afterwards discovered that she had formed
an adulterous connexion with a man named
How. He caused inquiries to be made, and
obtained evidence that How and Mrs. Chilman
had cohabited as man and wife at Dublin and at
other places.
Decree nisi granted, with costs against the co-
respondent.

CENIR.IL CRIMINAL COURT.—Tam. 29.

OLD COURT.
(Before Mr. Baron Channell.)
Walter Crane, 22, a determined-looking young
man, described in the calendar as a traveller, was
charged with feloniously wounding Christopher
Crane, with intent to murder him. In other counts
of the indictment the intent of the prisoner was
laid to be to do the prosecutor grievous bodily harm.
Mr. Daly prosecuted, the prisoner had no counsel.
The circumstances under which this charge was
preferred against the prisoner were of a very extra-
ordinary character. It appnred that he and the
prosecutor were brothers, the latter being the elder
of the two by a few years. Ile had been abroad,
but had returned to England, and he met the pri-
soner accidentally on the 3LI of December in the
neighbourhood of Islington, not having seen him
previously for a period of two years. They went
to a coffeeshop and had some refreshment, and the
prisoner asked his brother to meet him on the fol-
lowing night, for the purpose, as he said, of intro-