The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-08 00:00:00

Ewell approved Of. He said it was for a particular occit-
Oon, and should be sent at a W.iculttc. vi".t. I have
seen him pass thedvind,_+w NtiC, out ho did not come in.
I saw Ithn In 'tile Court I think yesterday. I thought ha
looked older.

Cross-examined by Mr. THESIGER—I don't think
Was changed for the worse. From his tram-vets sitoilid
have thoucrht him about Ho iris particularly polite
t• 3
and attenttye tatty and to me. Ladies are generally
in good spirits when they go to a milliner's to choose a
bonnet.—(Creat laughter.) The gentleman had more to
say than the lady. It was her attorney that came With
her two or three days ago 3 I recognised the lady in-
stantly. -She did not speak to toe at all, but seemed to
be in very low spitits. I have no recollection of any
thing that then passed.
Joseph Oughton—l carry on the business of a law
stationer, I know the clefendant, and am acquainted
vk,",111 his hand-writing. I saw him yesterday in the gal-
lery of the Court. Mr. Rosser has always resided in
Red Lion-square as long as I have linown him. He has
-lived in a respectable way ; it is a very good house, and
well furnished.

A large number of letters which had been referred to
by Mr. Platt in his opening speech, amounting to about
sixty, were then put. in. Mr. Platt said there were
about twelve or fifteen others which he wished to have
put in. He had made the best selection from the corre-
spondence he could, because, if the whole was read, it
would keep thein there for the remainder of the week.
Several letters were then put in and read ; in smile or
them he requested her not to vex herself about an infirm
old man, and expressing his fears that his unceasing in-
firmities would not allow him to fulfil his engagement.
In others he offered her the use of houses he possessed in
London, Islington, and Edward-square for the use of her
mothers and sisters, and these were wishes repeatedly
expressed that they would 'come and reside near him.
Ile also suggested that he should withdraw the stock and
allow her an annuity.
The three letters written by Mr. Kitchen to the
plaintiff were then read ; they were dated the 3d, 9th,
and 15th Oct., 1836, regretting that she had broken off
the intercourse between them ; that he knew he was not
liked by her, and saying it was time to put an end to it
altogether. One of the letters inclosed 81, which the
plaintiff returned ; and he requested her, whenever she
wanted money, to call on him, and always to consider
him her friend.
This closed the case for the plaintiff.
Mr. TI ESMER (with whom was Mr. Grey) then ad-
dressed the Jury fur the defendant. There had been a
studied endeavour to parade the case into an undue
degree of importance. It had been ushered into Court
by paragraphs that had gone the rounds of the news-
papers, and by which public curiosity had been excited.
It had been opened by his Learned Friend in
an elaborate speech of nearly four hours, which had been
followed by a mipute and tedious examination, as If his
Learned Friend had been apprehensive that so very im-
portant a case should be too soon decided ; and Mrs.
_Mahon yesterday, in the exultation'of her heart at the
important part which she was performing in the eyes of
the public, declared that there had not been such a case
for 100 years.—(A laugh.) He thought the statement
was rather below the truth, for he'believed that such a
case, with such parties, and under such circumstances,
was without a parallel.. On the one hand they had an
old man, whose term of life had been protracted far
beyond the ordinary apace of human existence ; the
vigour of Whose - mind had evidently been broken
under the weight of years, and who had displayed
that weakest of all weaknesses of the human
family at a time of life when he might have
been employed in higher and better thoughts,
and who believed himself capable of feeling and inspiring
a tender and romantic affection. On the other hand, they
had a young woman not unwilling to take advantage of
that weakness, and counterfeiting a passion which it was
quite out of the ordinary course of nature that she
should feel ; and, with the assistance of her mother,
weaving a web round the doting and infatuated old man
from which it was quite impossible for him to
extricate himself, but by a painful and public exposure.
They might smile at the follies exhibited to them in that
case ; but, after a moment's reflection, it must be tinged
with melancholy. It could not be forgotten, that, during
the whole course of a long life, Mr. Rosser had main-
tained a character of'the highest respectability; laid it was
pitiful indeed to see his declining years stamped
with contempt. It was impossible for them not to feel
for himself and hiS family, who had suffered most deeply
by his conduct, whose days had been embittered by the
conduct of their father, and one of whom he feared
had been hurried by it to any untimely death ;
the bolt had been shot ridicule had done its
worsts There could be no more painful cir-
cumstances induced—nothing more could be dis-
closed to wound the feelings of those who had re-
garded the old man with reverential love ; and he
should therefore feel it his duty to expose as far
as possible the arts to which he had fallen a vic-
tim,. and he thought they would be satisfied when
they heard the disclosures he had to make, that it had
been the endeavour of these parties to fetter him in such
a way, that it was impossible for him to break through,
except by means of the sacrifice of that worldly wealth
which it was the principal object of these parties
to obtain. It had not been an unprofitable speculation
already. It appeared that the family had been for three
or four years subsisting on the bounty of the old gentle-
man. That they had received, besides 0661. stock in-
vested in the mune of the daughter, at least 601. per
annum, besides 401. fur the wages of a servant, for
extricating himself from the trammels thrown around
him. Never was a trout more delicately tickled, Never
had an angler been more expert than Miss, S. Dar-
bon had shown herself, in allowing her prey to run to
the end of the line with the hOok in his jaws, and then gra-
dually drawing it back again until his powers of reeistance
were exhaustaid. lie.could show from hiSsetters that there
could not he the slightest debt that from beginning to
end she was instigated by mercenary motives ; it would be
shown that Miss 1). had kept copies of the letters, and re-
ceived various presents from time to time. One could
understand now why the mother and daughter should be
so unwilling to put an end to the state of vaccillation
and uncertainty in which the old gentleman continued
during the whole period to which their attention had been
directed. One would have supposed that the mother, at
least, would have been desirous to put an end to such a
state of things, and then she would have imperatively
called on Mr. Rosser to ascertain what his ultimate in-
tentions were. But it was too profitable a matter. She
was unwilling to stop the source which , supplied the •
golden eggs from day to day, and therefore she encou-
raged the old man, and favourably entertained him.
His Learned Friend had denied it showing the possi-
bility, at some future day, of the matter becoming a sub-
ject of public inquiry. Such a course, he thought.
unprecedented, when a person tenderly and faith-
fully loved a man and poured forth the emotions
of her heart to him by letter. lie would show
by the plaintiff's own letters that she had told him
she had kept copies of her letters. He would remind
them of the evidence given by the mother, that the let-
ters had never been copied ; but the fact proved
that these• parties were preparing for the evil day
when it might be necessary to make use of these mate-
rials, in order to compel Mr. R. tp comply with their de-
mands. That he thought was an index to the whole of
the case. Mr. R. was 79 years old when he lost his wife,
and Mrs. D. would persuade them that he immediately con-
ceived the idea of consoling himself for her loss, by pro-
fessing the warmest attachment for Miss D., but he did
not think that was quite in the natural course of things,
and that he should have, under such affliction, entertained
thoughts of a person young enough to be. his grand-
child.—(A laugh.) They had no evidence except that of
Mrs. Darbon as to the conversation between her daughter
and the defendant, when he made his proposal to marry
her; and, if she was to be believed, she had recommended
him to abstain from all thoughts of her daughter.
The Jury were to infer that an attachment had sprung
np in his mind, • and that the young woman never.
dreamed of anything of the kind until she had been in-
duced to yield her reluctant consent, when his term of
widowhood had expired, to become his wife. Then the rage
of writing commenced, and he regretted the quantity of
*paper that had been spoiled by it ; but throughout the
year 1837 the old gentleman wrote most amorous and
impassioned letters, interspersed with sentiments of reli-
gion, which he regretted to see introduced in such a matter.
lie would now call their attention to the letter of the
16th of May, 1838, when this silly affair seems to have
been broken oe, and When the plaintiff cunningly en-
deavoured to lead Mtn into a correspondence on
the footing of platonic love. The Learned Counsel
then read letters in which it was stated that
she would never marry any one if stern decree for-
bid their union, and that she would always keep single
for his life, at least—(Great laughter)—that she wouldatill
continue to think herself engaged to him in thought, and
maintain the connection innocently by letter, and
begging of him for her sake to agree to that. Now how
could the foolish fond old man refuse her? Then there was
a letter of the 2d 'June, in which the same sentiments
'were repeated ; and on the sth June she says that he alone
was the world to her ; that his two last letters were
kind; and that she had bedewed them with the copious
showers of tears his others had caused. On the 16th
June she invites him to hear the warbling of the
birds ; that it was a hard, destroying, and
almost insurmountable struggle with her to get over her
disappointment, and that her mind would not be
calmed by moral and religious philosophy. On the
25th of May, 1839, there was another letter.
saying that her love for him partook not of a worldly
nature, because he was possessed of the highest virtues of
the human heart. She did not flatter, and surely Heaven
would and bless their union, of which
she saw some
in his last letter. It Was beau-
yet smile
symptoms onth em
liful to love as they did, prayed him to send his beloved
•profile to kiss, and signed herselflticso very
to see him if she
'could sOne
March 11, 1840, she said she would come
'could only hope todiein
lhisking 0 nicearmss.On andth so w
the 12thsel
l.he
was pleased to sea him ou
asnharrived at
writes
that ttiom
to resist such flatteries?tee f lhime
How was it possible for a in
11 Min how.very lovrn
On the 10th January, 1840,
shetetells
would endeavourg
that she. would nurse him in Ins infirmities and old fere.
of his late partner, and
to imitate the virtues
to
and obedient she would be. That she
that she was studying deserve the position
in which he said he perse-
cutedthe 7th of April, 1840, she 1
he would.
whysplace her. On
? In another
with her, to deprive her •of all happinessbe his wife. Here
her, and asked him would laies,ir'efuse by meeting
she expresses her full confidence to
out to him of hav-
ing cramps, and the temptation held b
his nurse, and
was an old man, with age and infirmi▪ tea, and tortured
ing a young person, professing to
attacks ?
I
. comforter, and his solace in his • and_ he asked,
how could be resist these combined a
He now came to a part of the case which he cod not
must
add
of
approach without feelings of regret, and he m
deep disgust. Mr. Rosser was the father of six
two of them unmarried daughters, residing with him,
and such a step must have been peculiarly unpalatable
and unpleasant to their feelings. his Learned Friend
had suggested that the fair comparison would have been