The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-22 00:00:00

THE LEDBLTRY SCANDAL.

The case of " Jackson v. Martin" came before the Judi-
cial Committee of the Privy Council yesterday. It was
an appeal from a decree pronounced by the official Prin-
cipal of the Court of Arches against the Rev. John Jack-
son, Rector of the parish of Ledbury, for having
offended against the Laws Ecclesiastical, he being
a married man, and living with his wife, by
committing adultery in January, 1868, with Elizabeth
Parry, one of his domestics. Sir John Karslake and Mr.
Charles appeared for the appellant, and the Solicitor-
General, Dr. Tristram, and Dr. Francis Twiss for the re-
spondent. Since the hearing of the cause additional evi-
dence has been discovered on the part of the appellant, to
the effect that Parry unexpectedly went to the house of
Mary Thomas on the 16th October, 1868, with a baby in
her arms, and asked to be allowed to stop a few days, as
her father would not, she believed, allow her to go home.
She said she had no money until she got some from
William Joy, the father of the child. She added that she
had been living at the house of a gentleman at Ledbury,
but neither at that time nor during the week she remained
there did she mention the name of the appellant. The
mother of Parry shortly afterwards came to the
house and said she would take the child herself,
and compel Joy to pay (or it. The learned
Counsel now applied to their lordships that Mary Thomas
and Mary Ann Thomas might be ordered to be in aden-
dance to be examined in support of this statement. Their
lordships, after a brief consultation, declined to grant the
application, on the ground that the question before them
was not the paternity of the child, but the commission of
the offence charged. The learned counsel then proceeded
with his statement of the case. He observed that with
all due respect for the judgment of the Dean of Arches,
the story on which the charge against Mr. Jackson was
founded was, to say the least of it, a most improbable
one. He then proceeded to point out the discrepancies in
the evidence adduced before the judge, and not having
finished at four o'clock their lordships adjourned.

EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF DROWNING.

SERIOUS CHARGE AGAINST TWO
POLICEMEN.

On Saturday Mr. Edwin Hooper, coroner for South
Staffordshire, held an inquest at Tipton on the body
of a pit sinker named Timothy Bellingham, who was
drowned under the following circumstances :—Late on
Tuesday evening the deceased was fighting with another man
near the canal, when a constable named Hunt came up.
The officer seized one of the combatants and gave him into
the custody of a railway official whilst he pursued Belling-
ham, but the latter jumped into the canal to avoid arrest.
A constable named Cricklow ran to the other side of the
canal to seize the runaway, who thereupon refused to
leave the water. The widow of the deceased and a man
named Hayes swore distinctly that the latter officer not
only prevented any one entering the canal to rescue the
drowning man, but swore that he said he cared not how
he was captured—dead 'r alive. Against this the con•
stables brought three tradesmen, who deposed that the offi-
cers did all they could to help Bellingham, but that he was
stupid and refused to come to the side. The canal was 12ft.
deep, but the deceased man managed with his clothes on to
keep afloat more than five minutes. It came out inci-
dentally that the father of the deceased was drowned in
the same canal, and further, that four months ago a sister
of the deceased committed suicide by drowning. The
jury returned a verdict of Found Drowned, because they
were uncertain whether the deceased committed suicide
or was accidentally suffocated, and acquitted the police of
any blame.