The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-27 00:00:00

THE DAILY PAPERS ON THE CASE.

The Times considers that the conclusion of that aston-
ishing phenomenon of litigation which has been so long
engrossing the Court of Queen's Bench is just and
reasonable. An investigation of a matter alien from the
whole spirit of English national feeling conducted
so patiently and dispassionately is honourable to our
legal machinery. In the public mind the question has
hardly been one between Miss Saurin and Mrs. Starr.
Miss Saurin has been regarded more in thelight of a public
prosecutor. She and her family appear to have been
unequal to the perception that for anun to speak of rights
Is all but self-contradictory ; but this in nowise detracts
from the justice of the verdict. The defendants may pos-
sibly have believed that the plaintiff had ceased at a cer-
tain date to have in her the making of a good nun ; but the
jury has concluded very justly that, however honestly
they may have adopted this belief, they, at all events,
were thenceforward utterly reckless as to the legality of
the means by which they were to act upon it.

The Daily News declares that the verdict in the Saurin
case is in accordance with the expectation of the public.
We may at least give one of the most curious scandals
and most remarkable trials of modern times a parting
notice. It has illustrated the impartiality of British
justice, and the wide tolerance of modern opinion and
feeling. From first to last no attempt has been
made to import into the trial any theological prejudice.
A quarrel between Roman Catholics—it has been settled
by Protestants with no other aim than to do justice
between the parties. Unlike the ancient Roman
tribunals, our Courts have not dismissed it as merely
involving "questions of their law," though it is on such
questions that the whole case has turned. Although
everybody has felt the strangeness and unreality of the
dim, narrow underworld in which plaintiff and defendants
have alike been dwelling, an earnest effort has been made
to enter into their feelings and realise their position.

The Post thinks that the picture of conventual life
which the Saurin case has revealed must ast3nish alike
those who regard a convent as a paradise as those who
believe it to be a hotbed of wickedness. The story that
has been told, and substantially confirmed both by the
plaintiff, the defendants, and the witnesses, has impressed
an idea of conventual life which will not speedily be
effaced from the memories of those who have heard it,
whether they be the friends or foes of such institutions.

The Standard says that so far at least as the opinion
of the jury can go, Miss Sarnia leaves the court with her
character completely rehabilitated. The moral effect of
the decision remains unaffected alike by the pecuniary
sacrifices which have been necessary to secure it, and by
the possibility that the plaintiff may yet lose, through the
operation of legal doctrines, the substantial fruits of the
impression which the story of her wrongs has made upon
those in whose hearing it was told. The moral victory,
however, will remain with her, no matter to which side
the law's glorious uncertainty may ultimately incline.
The Telegraph declares that the verdict will be regarded
as thoroughly just in itself, and consistent with the facts of
the case ; and the public will receive the issue with none
the less satisfaction, that in all probability they will hear
no more of Miss Saurin's torn stockings, cold dinners,
petty faults, and minute crimes. Mrs. Starr, too, will
presumably return to her convent to reign over the rest of
her nuns—attended with, we hope, somewhat bettersuccess
than followed her governance of this Irish girl, who has
aroused almost the only authenticated nunnery scandal on
English soil since the days of the Reformation.