The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 18A.

THE SIEGE OF PARIS.

A REMARKABLE SEP kRATION CASE.

The correspondent of the Daily News, in a letter from
the head-quarters of the Crown Prince, on the 9th of
November, says :—I am half afraid that a letter to you
may have lately been lost on its passage, for the
quickest mode of transit is not always the safest. But
you have the comfort, such as it is, of knowing that
no very important event has occurred in this
neighbourhood since the departure of M. Thiers.
The sweeping forestaller of letters, the telegraph,
has made you aware of a lull hereabouts, and of
great activity in the different invading armies of the east,
and west, and south. France is to be marched over from
end to end, whilst Paris is slowly strangled. There is to
be a great line of Prussian bayonets from Switzerland to
the Channel, and Republicanism is to be gradually swept
southward to—to the line of the Garonne shall we say ?
Perhaps further even than this, unless the French
can pick up a little. Why tell you of the dis-
position of the Corps d'Armee which are to work
Count Moltke's iron will? It is no secret, unhappily it
is only too public—again that fatal wire—that the First
and Second Prussian armies will be moved against the
rest of the country, and that the Third Army, with the
" Army of the Meuse," will continue before Paris. They
have the hardest nut to crack, but they are now very
strong for cracking. The Third Army, i.e., the
Crown Prince's Army, has received, in addition
to the Guard Landwehr from Strasburg, a most valuable
reinforcement in the Second Corps--(Pomeranian), the
Prince's old corps when he was a corps commander, which
has come to him from Metz. It will need a desperate
sortie to break out of Paris, and when once outside
General Trochu would find himself attacked on both
flanks if he did occupy more than the siege works. So
the city must be choked to death by the grip that is
round its throat, barring the distant chance of a rescue.
It must be choked to death by hunger, for the siege
works; if all of them were occupied, would yield no
food, and the wild idea of the capture of all the batter-
ing, train would not, were it realised, make meat any
cheaper in Paris. There is news of a French force at
Chateaudun. For the honour of the provinces, we
must give them the credit of striving hard to rescue the
capital—striving, I ought rather to say, to be in a position
to strive—the foxce at Chateaudun is said to be the ad-
vanced guard of forty thousand western provincials—
Nermans and Bretons,—who are, perhaps, willing to brave
the fiery death which will be flashed out on them, but
whose courage must be wasted in vain against the Prussian
lines unless they can muster many more than forty thou-
sand men. You will remember that Chateaudun was
stormed by the 22nd Prussian division a fortnight oi'so
ago, and it would appear that its small garrison has fallen
back before the returning wave of Frenchmen. The place
threatens the Orleans railway if only strongly enough
held—threatens it, I mean, as against Von der
Tann. Our countrymen have been expected to come-
out of Paris in some strength both yesterday and this
morning, as also has a sortie of the garrison been anxiously
looked for. But neither event has yet occurred. Up to
thetime of my posting this I have not heard of the
escaping English, and all has remained quiet in the
front—quiet, but with busy preparation on this side, at
any rate.

Dr. Ball, in his capacity as vicar-general of the diocese
and judge of the Irish Provincial Court, was on Saturday
engaged in hearing a suit for the modified divorce a mensa
et thoro brought by Mrs. Julia, Taylor against her hus-
band, Mr. Deane Conroy Taylor, of the South Down
Militia. The case excites great interest in Ireland, both
parties being very respectably connected. The petitioner
is'the daughter of Mr. William Parsons, Justice of the
Peace of the County Down ; and the respondent
the son of the Rev. E. Montgomery Taylor, rector
of Inhischarg, and one of the rural deans of the diocese of
Down. He is entitled to a reversion of £1,300 a-year.

The parties were married in 1858, and three children have
been the fruit of what appears to have been a most unfor-
tunate,upion. After, the marriage they for some time
resided abroad, and after their return at Myrtle-.
bill and Holywood, county Down ; latterly at
Finglas, near Dublin. The petitioner charges
that her husband became addicted to drink,
habitually treated her with gross insolence and
brutality, absented himself from his home, left her with-
out funds during her last confinement, and once knocked
her down with a blow of his fist. In 1868, having been
insultingly informed by him in writing that he had spent
a night in an improper house, she left him and went to
reside with her grandmother at Newry. He then professed
penitence and induced her to return home, after which she
agreed to give up £6OO, settled on her in her own right,
to pay his debts. He soon relapsed into his former
habits, and until April, 1870, when she finally left him,
he treated her with revolting brutality, several times
threatening her life, personally assaulting her, boasting of
his immoral conduct, and excluding her from the house.
During the last day, they passed together, Easter Monday
last, he tore her dress, threw stones at her, pleted her
with watering pots and iron rakes, and finally dragged
her into his dressing-room, and made an attempt to cut
her throat with a razor. She then left him. The re-
spondent retorts by charging Mrs. Taylor with having
committed adultery with several persons.
Serjeant Armstrong having recapitulated the facts of
the case in an eloquent address,
The petitioner, Mrs. Julia Taylor, deposed—My hus-
band was always inclined to be violent, but he never did
anything to make me afraid of him until the year 1864,
when he hegan occasionally to drink to intoxication. In
the year'lB6s, on his stating that a servant was drunk,
my sister said, "No, I don't think he is," whereupon he
took up a poker, saying he would not allow anyone to
contradict him. On that occasion he called us disgusting
names. During the latter part of the year 1865 his habits
grew worse. He insulted me at the dinner table, and Thad
to leave the room in consequence. He called me very
filthy names, found fault with everything, and said it was
all my fault. On the 15th of June, 1866, Mr. Barnes, my
uncle, waS at my. house. My husband had gone to Bel-
fast, and he wrote a letter to me, under cover to Mr.
Barnes, from Whom I received it. At this time I was in
bed after my confinement, and I did not know what to
think of his conduct. The following is the letter :
" Imperial Hotel, Belfast, June 16, 1870.
_

"Dear Julia,—As one who in a short time must be in
the presence of God, I now take leave of you. See my
will and abide by it. It is in Billing's hands. There is
no use in writing or talking to you, poor silly thing, but
I felt more thati'you thought when I kissed• you for the
last time. Poor papa. Ho will have the property now.
May he have a more happy time than I have had, and as
you hope never to meet me stand to him. lam going to
where there will be no earth work or will work. I regret I
shewed such want of attention to the Barnes. . . . Send
by letter my heaviest curse to your father. On the portals
of damnation we will meet there ;so now, good bye. The
poor pet would like to see you. I will now get drunk and
go down to the river. My poor children.—D.C.T."
The witness then went on to detail the return of the
respondent between two and three o'clock in the morning,
and his subsequent acts of violence, such as threatening
to shoot her with a revolver, striking her with his
clenched fist, and catching her by the hair and dragging
her about, and otherwise ill-treating her. He burnt her
work, broke the photographs of her children, threw
tea and eggs on the fire, smashed articles of ornamental
glassware, spat upon witness, and called her by
opprobrious names in the presence of her sister and her
servants. She denied that she gave any cause for this
course of conduct, and negatived the allegations in the
respondent's answer, in which he set forth certain acts on
her part as being the occasion of it. The wit-
ness went on further to state that some months after she
had finally taken up her residence at Whitehall she re-
fused to live with him as his wife, in consequence of the
course of conduct he pursued, and also by reason of an
intimation from•him that it would not be proper for her
to do so. At Whitehall he also spoke in disparaging
terms of his mother. The police were sent for before
quiet was restored. On another occasion he was absent
from home for some days, and on his return he handed
her a card, on which was inscribed the name and address
of a female, saying, "If you have any curiosity to know
where I was, I tell you I was with that woman, and I
shall go into town now and bring her out here." On the
23rd July, 1869, he wrote an undertaking to give up his
evil life, and forsAke drink of all kinds, on condition of her
forgiving him, but he did not keep his word.
The petitioner's examination had not concluded when
the court rose. This is Probably the last case of the kind
that will be tried in Ireland before an ecclesiastical tri-
bunal, as on thedist of January, under the Disestablish-
ment Act, the provincial courts willcease to exist.