The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-28 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

The hired transport Sultana, having on board
700 tons of stores for Hong Kong, and being de_
tained at Woolwich about 14 days, in consequence
of the counter-order relative to the departure of a
troop of the Military Train under orders for China,
has filled in with provisions and hospital stores from
Deptford, and has sailed from Woolwich for her I
destination. The men having volunteered for the
service from various troops belonging to the Ist
Battalion are ordered to be again dispersed through
the battalion for home duty.
The attention of the French Government having
been called to the existence and merits of the Me-
chanics' Institute and Library in Woolwich Arse
nal by the recent publication in Paris of M.
Esquino's historical book, containing some descrip-
tive and circumstantial remarks on that institution,
dotted down during his inspection of the depart-
ments of the arsenal last year, Col. Tulloh, superin-
tendent of the carriage department, has received a
parcel, through the medium of the Secretary of
State for War in Pall-mall, by order of hialkir-4-.04.,
the Emperor Napoleon, enclosing a couple of
volumes for presentation to the above-nanr
blishment, entitled " Journal d'Olivier .

d'Ormeson," published by M. Cherenil, ani
Documents inedits artr l'Histnirs de Prance
lished by M. Charriere. Mr. Fnllom, chie
in the Royal Carriage Department, yester
knowledged his Imperial Majesty's appreciv

the institute on behalf of the committee in t

which was forwarded through the same sou
the -volumes are ordered to be bound an

placed on the shelves of the library for per

instruction.

LAW INTELLIGENCE—Nn. !

COURT FOR DIVORCE AND MAI
NIAL CAUSES.
(Before the Judge Ordinary, Mr. Justice
man, and Mr. Justice Williams.)
THE SHEDDEN CASE—JUDGMENT.
Mr. Collier, Q.C., having concluded hi
the Court, after a few minutes' adjournm,
ceeded at once to pronounce sentence u
questions which had been submitted to it.
The Judge Ordinary said they had now
at the last stage of this very singular inT
inquiry the length and complexity of wh
caused the Court to feel in a very consider
gree the responsibility that rested upo
There were two or three circumstances, b
which somewhat diminished that feeling.
first place the evidence had been given r
slowly, and so much immaterial matter
mixed up with what was material that
had abundant time to consider the weig
should be assigned to the latter. Another
stance that might have embarrassed them N
fact that the female petitioner had been lel
considerable time to conduct the cause with(
assistance of counsel ; but the intimate kno,
which she had displayed with every fact, m
or immaterial, connected with the history
family, and the singular tact and dexterity
she had shown in the management of her ca
tirely relieved the Court from any appreb
on that score. Besides, a portion of the el
had been given, and the whole had bees
ably commented upon by an experienced
sel. Lastly, the Court felt that the me
not a question depending upon nicely be
evidence, but it was one upon which tht
all been enabled to come to a most clef
unhesitating judgment. The question was t
this :—Had a marriage in fact been solar(
whether with or without religious rites, bt
the father and the mother of the elder pet
before he was born ? During fourteen da
court had had to discharge the functions o
men ; but they could not content themselv€
giving, like jurymen, a simple verdict ef
no—they felt bound to state the reaso
which they drew the conclusions to which
come. The facts on which the case turned -
numerous. The evidence given by the pe
of the alleged marriage was confined to N,
called habit and repute ; but they said tin
distance of time it would not be reasonat
pect them to supply better testimony of
Now the first question that suggested itse
ing with the case was, why should the
have been a secret one? The only reason
now attempted to suggest was that Mr.
the father of the bride, objected to the
cause the difference between her age and
Mr. Shedden was too great ; and then it was saw
that immediately after this secret marriage the
parties cohabited together as man and wife, down
to the death of the petitioner's father ; that in the
meantime everybody knew of it ; and that Mrs.
Shedden visited and was visited by the ladies of
New York. But what a strange reason to give for
keeping a marriage secret ! If Mr. Wilson ob-
jected to his daughter being married to Mr. Shed-
den because he was too old, would he be reconciled
to the idea of her cohabiting with him without
being married so far as he knew at all ! But, again,
was this the reason the petitioner had always
given ? In 1833 he was in treaty with Mr. Patrick
for the purchase of the Roughwood estate, and in a
letter of the 14th June he wrote, " Though I am
unable to establish my right just now, yet what is
known on the subject would not be in your
favour. I conceive it my duty to inform you
that my sister told me that my mother was a
respectable young person, living with her parents
on a small farm on my father's estate, and that
he did not publicly acknowledge her on account
lof her humble birth, but that he nevertheless
treated her as his wife." If that was so, what
became of the reason now alleged for the secresy
of the match' This, by the way, was the letter
of a man who stated that till 1848 or 1849 he had
I never had the slightest intimation that any mar-
riage had taken place until the ceremony which
was performed on his father's deathbed. But this
was not all. He went on to say :—" Moreover my
sister told me in 1829, when she mentioned this cir-
cumstance to me, that a woman was still living who
was present at the private marriage." After these
two opposite reasons assigned for the secret mar-
riage, what confidence could be felt in the evidence
of habit and repute ? Against that evidence there
was the testimony of Mr. Neilson, who declared
that Mr. Shedden always passed for a single man,
and who was of much greater age than those wit-
nesses who had been examined on the other side.
There was likewise the evidence of John Barr,
which, if Barr had not perjured himself, was ex-
ceedingly strong. If the case had stopped here he
(the learned judge) might, perhaps, have felt some
embarrassment, though he believed he should even
then have held that the petitioners had not adduced
sufficient affirmative evidence to warrant his form-
ing a judicial opinion that a marriage had ta ken
place previous to 1798. With regard to thedeath-
bed marriage on the 7th of Nov. in that year, wh at
t te P It
reason could be assigned for taking
could not, on the hypothesis:of the petthitaiosnerp_s, have
been taken in order to make repar i
ation for any
wrong done to Anne Wilson ; neither could t have
been prompted by a religious scruple as to the law-
fulness of matrimonial cohabitation without the
sanction of the Church, because Mr. Shedden well
knew that his cohabitation with the mother of the
petitioner would never again be resumed. What
other cause was there ! It was suggested that the
deceased might have thought that a second mar-
riage might have been easier of proof than the first.
But that could hardly be. All New York, it was
said, knew of the first marriage, and Mrs. Shedden
visited and was visited by the families of Dr. Ros-
well, Mrs. Rankin, Mr. Hamilton, Judge Pendle-
ton, and the other persons of repute of whose
acquaintance the petitioners boasted. Tile
deceased might moreover have made a de-
claration which would have been conclusive.
The only other motive for the marriage was
the idea that it would legitimate the children whom
the parties had had out of wedlock; and that, so
long as it suited his case, was the reason assigned
by the petitioner himself. He had been continu-
ally pressing upon his uncle the fact that his
father had always intended him tohave the Rough-
wood property, and that he (Mr. Patrick) had
basely availed himself of a technical objection to
defeat the intention of the deceased. It had been
suggested, indeed, that Mr. Shedden had by some
means been led to suspect that there would be a
conspiracy to deny his former marriage ; and that
to make sure he had had the marriage re-solemnised
with ecclesiastical forms. If there really had
been
such a design, who could have been partie; tatrc
°
in
the
ik
conspiracy ? Clearly no one but Mr. I
in New York, and M. Wm. or Mr. Bobert Patrick