The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-10 00:00:00

THE YELVERTON CASE.

(Continued from our first edition of yesterday.)

On the reassembling of their lordships,

Mrs. Yelverton again appeared at the bar. She
said this unfortunate case had brought to light
and developed the hideous proportions, the anoints
lons state of the marriage laws of the three king-
doms. A purely civil contract in Scotland, it was
a tyrannical, fanatical, religious one in Ireland,
Had a man professed himself a Protestant by
going to church and sacrilegiously receiving
the 'Holy Sacrament for the first time in
his life, he could then possess himself, with
all the formalities and religious ceremonies
prescribed by law, of the person and property of
any Catholic lady his evil eye might have fallen
upon, and then turn her adrift to ignominy,
poverty, and shame by setting up his Protestantism,
by setting up his religion, forsooth, as the cloak and
shield of the vilest of crimes, the mockery of his
God on His consecrated altar, the defiance of His
laws in His very temple, the worse than murder of
his helpless victim. She quite objected to the at-
tempt made by her learned friends on the op-
posite side to change the defender in this case--
to substitute Mrs. Forbes for Major Yelverton.
They heard no more of his rights, of justice to be
done him, he had ceased even to demand " the so-
latium" for the wound inflicted on his feelings in the
shape of consecutive £5O penalties. This balm of
Gilead was not applied, but their lordships were
now asked to prescribe for Mrs. Forbes equally at
the expense of the applicant. Major Yelverton in
his action demanded much in the style of Dick
Turpin, " Your honour or your purse." "If you
say you are a wife, pay me with the last shilling you
have, pay me or I can cast you into prison ; pay me,
beCause I 'persuaded you that a Scotch marriage iu
a private room was binding in. that. land ; p.iy
me because yielding to your scrupulous nature,. I
took you before a priest of the Most High, to sanc-
tion in the sight of Heaven • our union ; because
with my own hand I took the helm and steered the
frail bark which bore us over the.bright bay of Ros-
trevor to the lonely church of Kilowen. I declare
now. ..I had no intention of marrying you. I in a
Protestant now. I have taken the' Sacrament and.
disclaim you," It required a bold heart to with-
stand this. It required the consciousness of
truth not • to bow before such impend=
ing ruin. But though all the fiends
from heaven that fell had poured the threat in her
ears she had not yielded; her cheek might have
blushed and her woman's tonguemight have quailed,
but the quivering lips would speak the truth until
the solemn hour of death should lay them still.
True that in that little parlour at Mrs. Gamble's
there were none present to note the vow save the
guardian angel who registered them in heaven ;
still she challenged the defender in the presence of
his Maker to deny that he took her for his wife,
and such she humbly submitted was the law of
Scotland. This dire struggle for mere, existence was
spared her by the merciful consideration of their
lordships, a refusing of the solatium, damages, and
penalties, forming a portion of the action. Their
lordships rendered this penalty to silence innocuous,
it became nugatory and futile, for their lordships
must be aware that it would be hopeless to put a
woman to silence except by the ancient practice of
the bridle, or the present singular method of just
starving her to death. Having quoted the cases of
the Townsend peerage and others, she said
this was her argument that evidence now should
be taken when in time, and not to commit
to a future generation the legacy of a
law suit to which they certainly were consenting
parties. It had been argued to their lordships and
cases had been cited to prove that they were striking
at a regulai subsisting marriage ; now Mrs.•
Forbes's marriage had not subsisted any more than
the appellant's; they had alternated on from one to
the other from 1861 to 1865. In 1857 Major Yel-
verton married Theresa Longworth, first according
to the law of Scotland, as declared by the full Scotch
Court, and again in Ireland in facie ecclesix, and
here they had the first subsisting marriage, for
whatever might have been the fluctuations and
vicissitudes since the legal marriage was " Sewer
prxszontur pro matrimonio, until a marriage was de-
clared void it was held to be legal. Then in 1858
they had the marriage of Major Yelverton to Mrs.
Forbes, which, for the sake of argument merely,
she would admit, cast a doubt upon the first,
but it could not, under the circumstances, be re-
garded as a bona fide established marriage. The
appellant went at length through the history of the
marriage, and submitted that if Major Yelverton
did not exchange marriage consent with Theresa .
Yelverton in the parlour, of her respectable
friend, Mrs. Gamble, would it not be the
simplest thing in the world for him to swear he did
not. .If the last great day of judgment were re-
vealed in all its, awful majesty upon appellant at
that moment she would swear he did. If he did,
she was persuaded their lordships would not allow',
him to escape upon a mere technical pretext, a mere
formality of the discretion of a court. They would
uphold the honour and ei:iiiity of their house ; they
would uphold truth and justice as the guiding stars
of the laws of the British empire. It had been urged
upon their lordships several times, and the question
had been raised—What was to become of Mrs. For-
bes in case Major Yelverton deponed affirmatively ?
She believed she could solve that problem. She had
already stated that there was no fear for Major
Yelverton of punishment for bigamy, but if there re-
mained the slightest doubt on his mind as to any danger
from that source, he had it in his own power to
secure himself most effectually against any attempt
to inflict the punishment of bigamy upon him. Ile
had only to reveal his hiding place, and accept the
service of citation into the Divorce Court, or, if he
objected to the jurisdiction of an English
court, being an Irishinan, she would apply
for a citation from their lordships, as represen-
tative peers of England, having jurisdiction over
that kingdom. Then, freed from all marriage with
the appellant, by this the only mode of dissolving
the double marriage in different countries, he could
then marry Mrs. Forbes, and give her the status,
so earnestly pleaded for, without any risk of its
being disputed by posterity. Then he might safely
walk abroad in open day, " his lovely Thais by his
side, for none but the brave deserve the fair." It
might be that this process, to which she clung
as bringing about the long wished for goal,
-the end of this wearying strife, was
but the frail plank which buoyed her up
for a moment, only to sink beneath her, and leave
her a prey to the boisterous waves of life, alone,
unprotected. It might be that, instead of giving
her the relief she sought, it was but the renewal of
strife ; but her heart and soul were vowed to live
or perish in the truth, and until it was recognised
the light of heaven could but shiue for her, or the
lap of earth cradle her in its sweetness, yet would
she not argue against Heaven's decree, nor
bate one jot of heart or hope, but still bear
up and steer right onward. She had now ma le
her last appeal to their lordships, but her prayer
would ever be—" Judica me Deus, et discerno
causam meam de gente non sancta : ab hotnine
iniquo et doloso erue me."
The appellant, apparently ovecwhelmed, then re-.
tired.
The Lord Chancellor said their lordships would
take time to consider their judgment.

COURSE OF EXOSANGE.—Last Eve )ing.

Amsterdam Short. 11 171 11 181
Ditto 3 Months. 11 19} 12 0
Rotterdam
Antwerp — 25 37 25 421
Brussels — 25 37 25 421
Hamburg
'25 25
Paris . Short 25 15
Ditto 3 Months.2s 35 25 40
Marseilles -25 371 25 421
Frankfort on the Maine 120 120}
Vienna — 12 801 12 85
12 80 12 85

Trieste 32 32i
-- 1 Petersburgh
Berlin
Madrid _
49 49i
Cadiz
27 35 27 4
Leghorn
Milan
Genoa — 27 85 27 45
Naples — 27 35 27 45
Palermo
52i
Messina ' 52
Lisbon 52 52k
--
Oporto
___--a.m.••••••••