The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-10 00:00:00

vernment in the proposed mediation—first, because,
as he avers, there are as yet no signs that it would
be received by the United States' Government with
favour; but, secondly (and it seems to us mainly),
because that 'up to the present time the Russian
Government had not agreed to co-operate, '
although it may support the endeavours of
England and France. We do not wish
to suspect the English Government of
malevolence towards us, verging to unfriendly de-
monstrations, but we do not like that phrase in
regard to Russia. If it-is ' moral suasion' only
that England was contemplating, in what respect
was the absence of the active co-operation' of
Russia a baulk to mediation, provided that Power
'supported the (moral) endeavour' of France and
England? 'Was there anything contemplated in
the contingency of the utter rejection of mediation
that rendered the active co-operation' of Russia a
desirable thing to have ?"
Certainly there never was a people with whom it
behoved us more to act on the principle of doing
right, and leaving them to snarl and grumble on if
they like. Even if it be true that "the Union was
a nuisance to be abated," we have taken no steps
that way, while France has proposed to us to do so.
Numerous individuals, some of them members of the
Legislature, hare, indeed, said as much, but we do
not remember that any Minister of the Crown has.
Indeed, Mr. GLADSTONE, who has so strongly ex-
pressed his belief that JEFFERSON DAVIS had
made a nation of the South, distinctly stated his
opinion that the vastness of the American Union
would not be a politically undesirable thing. Pro-
bably conscience tells our Yankee cousins that they
have made themselves a nuisance, and if they could
say all they thought it would probably come
out in some such shape as this—" Yes; and the
more of a nuisance we are to your effete old coun-
tries of the Old World the better we like it."
Happily for the principal of those old countries that
it cares little about the American nuisance ; and
did not their quarrels interfere with our trade,
would care still less.

The singular :trial of "HALL v. SEMPLE" reads

like a chapter out of Valentine Vox. Among the
incidents recounted in that whimsical narrative,

he readers of the novel may remember the illega

capture and imprisonment of one of the characters
—his capture by medical harpies, and his imprison-
ment in a madhouse. That such things still may

be, and overcome us not by any means as refresh-
ingly as by a summer cloud, and certainly not
without our special wonder, the case but immedi-
diately now made public through one of our Courts
of Law, and terminated by a most just verdict, pro-

nounced with all due deliberation by a jury of
Englishmen, plainly enough demonstrates. It is
astounding that it should be so—but it is so
nevertheless. The plaintiff in the cause
of HALL ♦. SEMPLE is, it would appear, a respect-
able tradesman, aged about fifty-six, " remarkably

sensible looking," and capable, as his evidence
showed, of undergoing, with extraordinary self-

possession, and with no little shrewdness, under

very painful circumstances, a prolonged examination
by his own counsel, and a severe cross-examination
by the counsel for the defendant. The plaintiff

HALL, it should be observed at once, is a shop,

keeper in Tottenham-court-road. The defendant
SEMPLE is a physician and surgeon and apothe-
cary, residing in Torrington-square. The charge
brought by the former against the latter was
that of having, in conjunction with another

medical man named GUY, signed a certi-
ficate of his (the plaintiff's) lunacy, thereby
subjecting him to what is rightly termed " the most
1 horrible of all false imprisonments!" One of the

counts charged Dr. SEMPLE, in fact, with having
" falsely, maliciously, and without reasonable and
probable cause" signed this most cruel and disgrace-

fel certificate. Th© count, however, into which the

motion resolved itselt in the dispassionate opinion

of the jury, found Dr. SEMPLE guilty of "negligence
in giving a certificate of insanity without taking
due and proper care, and making due and proper

inquiries." How reasonable and judicious this

conclusion undoubtedly was, the trial itself
has quite conclusively demonstrated. The
whole mass of evidence adduced during the
course of it, served to prove beyond the shadow of a
shade of doubt that Dr. SEmPLE was indeed guilty,
in this way, of a most disgraceful negligence. For
the which offence the defendant has not only been
formally condemned by a jury of his fellow country-
men, but, in addition to that, mulcted in damages to
the extent of £l5O sterling. Again, we say em-
phatically, in presence of all the facts sworn to in
evidence by the entire body of witnesses—a most just

decision !
Like the Dog and the Cat in BrEwEß's Allegory,
Mr. and Mrs, HALL, in the back parlour behind the
shop in Tottenham-Court-road, appear to have passed
a life of connubial wrangling, and worse than
wrangling—what may be called as contradistin-
guished from " single blessedness," a not
very unusual sort of double un-blessedness.
Charming couple, as they were, they had several
times been separated. The " incompatibility "
being, in their instance, so exceedingly flagrant,
that again and yet again—alternately—they had
brought one another up before the police magis-
trates. "Madam," indeed, upon sundry occasions of
this kind, being formally bound over to keep the
peace, and, in one instance, even, it would appear,
threatened with imprisonment. As to the sanity
or insanity of Mr. HALL, the respectable and " re-
markably sensible looking" tradesman, who was
the plaintiff—the physician who has attended
his family for eight-and-twenty years (Dr.
GRIFFITHS) pronounces him distinctly and
positively and deliberately to be in his
right mind, to be in no way touched with
the taint of madness. His oldest friends, his next
door neighbours, declare him to be, according to
their thinking, not only perfectly sane, but exceed-
ingly sensible. So, in point of fact, the jury found
him to be, in look, in word, and in deed, through-
out the whole of his examination and cross-exami-
nation. Yet—at the instance of the termagant wife
—Dr. SEMPLE, and with him Dr. GUY, signed the
certificate which consigned the plaintiff within the
walls of a lunatic asylum ! Dr. SEMPLE signing this
certificate on the 29th of last July, and signing it,
moreover, avowedly on these grounds—" Facts in-
dicating insanity observed by myself—he had a
wild and staring look, with restless eyes, and
nervous, agitated manner. He represented to
me that his wife was ruining himself and his
business, and he intimated that she was im-
properly associating with other men. He is
evidently labouring under delusions, and he acts
upon these delusions." It should be especially re-
marked that the " wild and staring look" of HALL
is here particularised—as well as the restlessness of
his eyes and the nervous agitation of his manner !
Recollecting, however, the irritation which the un-
fortunate plaintiff manifestly
had. to undergo—
who, in the name of
that his eyes were restless, hiseamilawnnoeurdeargiattataeldl,
his look wild and staring; The marvel would
rather have been in the reverse case, had it been
baths to say exactly otherwise. "Any other man'
alight have been goaded under such persecution
foul a helpmate like mo, HALL, tuld from phybi..