The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-07 00:00:00

Non-conformist. As Dissenters, he said, we object
to pay tribute to Church Supremacy ; and as being
Dissenters, with good reason, we especially object
to the supremacy of a Church which puts the cure
of souls up to sale at Garraway's ; and which
fosters such unaccountably diverse and strange
doctrines as those of the " Essays and Reviews"
and those of their predecessors, from which, indeed,
the Essays and Reviews are but the reaction—the
" Oxford Tracts for the Timm" This was a fair a
fortiori argument in a Dissenter's mouth, and as it is
found to touch such a tender place, Lord ROBERT
CECIL may be quite sure he will have a great deal
more of the same kind when next Mr. BRIGHT
has to speak for an Abolition Bill.
It is not likely that the Bourbons of church
rates, Lord CECIL and MONTAGU, will listen to our
' counsel. They will doubtless fall back on their
Gaeta in the Lords ; but in the interest of their
Church we should advise them to haul down their
flag, with the understanding that the terrible
BRIGHT'S battery should cease its deadly fire. We
can hardly conceive anything more damaging to
the Church of England than that they should thus
furnish Dissenters with an opportunity and a pre-
text for raking up annually all the delinquencies
of Church officials, and for painting with no feeble
hand all the anomalies, irregularities, and abuses
which each twelvemonth will exemplify. Dissen-
ters provoked by the Lords will not be very
scrupulous or delicate in the arguments they
employ.

Amongst the notices of motion for this evening
the eighth is certainly remarkable. Read it.
It is there upon the papers of the -House, and
runs as follows :—" Major GAMIN—To ask the
Under-Secretary of State for War whether his
attention has been called to the case of THELWALL
V. YELVERTON ; ' and whether the name of Major
YELVERTON is to be retained in her MAJESTY'S
Army List." To such a query as that, there can be
but one answer, if not immediately from the Under-
Secretary of State, eventually from her MAJESTY'S
Government. It is due to our most gracious
Sovereign, it is due to every man in the QUEEN'S
army, to every officer and gentleman sworn to
fight under her colours, whenever occasion may
require, for the maintenance of the honour of the
Crown and of the country—it is due to VICTORIA,
to England, to every soldier of the United King-
dom, that the name of the Hon. WILLIAM
CHARLES YELVERTON, hitherto inscribed upon
the Army List as Captain and Brevet• Major
in the Royal Artillery, shall at once be struck off
that roll of the Royal Forces, as the name of one
now regarded throughout this land with unmiti-
gated scorn and abhorrence. It is not thus simply
by reason of the verdict given in against him in
the Court of Common Pleas at Dublin, on Monday
evening, by a jury of his fellow countrymen. It
is not by reason of the fact that their verdict was
given absolutely in favour of the plaintiff in this
particular case of THELWALL V. YELVERTGN. It is
because the defendant having prefixed to his name
the courtesy title of Honourable, holding the
rank of an officer, wearing the garb of a gentle-
man—has deliberately, elaborately, and systema-
tically, while speaking upon his solemn oath
in the witness box, in a British Court of Justice,
assumed the privilege of proclaiming him-
self to be, in very deed, and in one simple and
expressive word, a scoundrel. It is because
throughout this trial it was literally and actsally
his object to prove himself a scoundrel. It is
because that was really and unmistakeably the
"case," his counsel had to argue and demon-
strate, namely, that this client was a scoundrel.
And so far, certainly, in showing this beyond
the reach of contradiction, they one and all of them
succeeded to their hearts' content—for there the man
stands before his country as he appeared in that
witness-box upon a pedestal of infamy—an object
of universal contempt and opprobrium. It is, i❑
other words, simply because while the plaintiff
obtained the verdict, the defendant nevertheless
proved his case completely, by demonstrating the
henceforth undeniable fact that he is a scoundrel,
that there cannot remain one instant's doubt but
that Major YeLvEaToN's Reale must be struck off
the Army List. It will inevitably, we may be sure,
be struck off that List right summarily. 7 hat we may
leave with perfect confidence (regarding it already
virtually as un fait accompli) in the hands of the
illustrious chief of that army, his Royal Highness
the Commander-in-Chief. Our only regret is that,
in striking the name of Major YELVERTON from
among the Brevet Majors of Artillery, the ceremony
of the erasure cannot be accompanied with some
peculiar and especial mark of ignominy.

The imperative necessity for this now disgraced
and execrated name being obliterated from the
catalogue of military officers and gentlemen holding
commissions as such under the Crown Com
missions authenticated, recollect, by the sign
manual of the SOVEREIGN !—the imperative neces-
sity for this name being now summarily obli-
terated from the " Army List," may be
recognised, if nowhere else, in the masterly
summing up of the case on Monday by the Lord
Chief Justice MONAGHAN. Honour to that good
and upright judge for every word that fell from his
lips in the course of his speech in summing up this
case of THELWALL v. YELVERTON ! The case itself
is epitomised with admirable skill in two tersely
expressed and widely contrasting arguments, placed
by him respectively in the mouths: of the plaintiff
and of the defendant. " You, Major YELVERTON,"
he makes the plaintiff say, " were previously the
lawful wedded husband of MARIA YELVERTON;
being her lawful wedded husband, you had no ,
right, authority, or power to cast her from you,
an outcast upon the world. You having not
that power, I, influenced by feelings of humanity,
took upon myself the responsibility of supply-
ing to that woman the care and protection
which in my conscience I believe was due
from you. I incur the risk in a court of justice of
exposing myself and my property to the heavy
expenses to which I will be liable should I fail in
this action. But still, so strong is the opinion that
I entertain of the truth and justice of the case of
this unfortunate woman, that I am prepared to incur
that risk in order that justice may be done to her
through you." Every syllable in this being an
Indirect but most explicit panegyric upon Mr.
firELwaLL, a gentleman whose honour throughout
,his trial has never for an instant been impeached.
The defendant's case, on the contrary, says Judge
MONAGHAN, may be expressed as follows :—" Great
as my delinquencies have been, dishonourably as I
have acted, though I have acted the part that any
man with a particle of feeling should blush to have
exhibited in a public court of justice, yet that
woman was not my wife, she was my mistress—she
served my purpose, and I am justified, if not in the
Almighty God, in the eyes of the law, in casting
her upon the world, and therefore I am not respon•
sible for the debts that this gentleman chose, with
a full knowledge of the circumstances, to have
allowed her to incur." Having quoted these pas-
sages from the summing up of the case by the Lord
Chief Justice on Monday, we may certainly say,
wah some significance, "Look on this picture—and
on this !" As to the lady standing intermediately in
.the trial, haying the plaintiff, that true friend anci