The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-26 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENC_E—Dec. 24.

COURT OF PROBATE AND DIVORCE.
(Before Sir C. Cresswell.)
SOPWITH V. SOPWITH.
Dr. Phillimore, Q.C., and Dr. Spinks appeared
for the petitioner ; Mr. K. Macaulay, Q.C., and Dr.
Wambey for the respondent.
Mrs. Matilda Sopwith, the petitioner, prayed
for a judicial separation on the ground of adultery.
The respondent, Mr. Henry Lidsell Sopwith, denied
the charge.
The case for the petitioner appeared in The Sun
of Friday.
The case of the respondent was that there was no
foundation for the allegations in the petition, that
the evidence by which they were supported was un-
worthy of credit, and that it had been got up en-
tirely by the professional detectives employed by
the petitioner. Evidence was given by a surgeon
named Parker, who had attended Henrietta Pearce
in her confinement, and by other witnesses, which
clearly established that she was not the same per-
son as Mary Ann Prickett, and the learned coun-
sel for the petitioner gave up that part of the case.
Mrs. Prickett and her daughter Mary Ann were
then called, and positively denied the statements
of the witnesses for the petitioner as to improper
familiarities having passed between Mary Ann and
Mr. Sopwith. They stated that she had been in
Mr. Sopwith's service for many years during the
life of his first wife ; that he always attended
her parents and her brothers and sisters, of
whom she had a number ; that she left his ser-
vice in May, 1857, and came to London to assist
her in carrying on a millinery business at
Islington ; that she remained in London about eight
months, and went back to her family in conse-
quence of her father's illness ; that on the 11th of
January, 1858, her father, who had been the bailiff
to a gentleman of property near Tunbridge, died,
and the family became reduced in circumstances ;
that the mother and the eldest daughters thence•
forth supported the rest of the family by needle-
work, and that Mr. Sopwith, being an old friend of
the family, befriended them and procured them
employment. Among other things that he em-
ployed Mary Ann to do was the copying of entries
of vaccination from a book kept by himself into a
large register, and this obliged her to make fre-
quent visits to his office. She asserted that no act
of familiarity of any kind had ever passed between
her and her master, but she admitted that she went
rather late to his house on the night of the meeting
of the Odd Fellows' club, in 1858, to fetch some
medicine for her grandmother, who was ill, but she
only stayed while the medicine was being prepared.
Since the separation she had returned to Mr. Sop-
with's service, and is still in it. Several questions
were put to her in cross-examination with regard
to communications she had made to a Miss Bott,
with whom she was intimate when she was in Lon-
don, with regard to Mr. Sopwith, but she denied
them all, and said she never saw Mr. Sopwith
in
London. and never had a letter from him except
once, when she had written to ask after her father's
health. As to the closing of the keyhole of Mr.
Sopwith's room, it was snggested by the learned
counsel that it was a natural precaution for a medi-
cal man to take who had patients frequently call-
ing to consult him.
At the close of the respondent's case,
Miss Bott was called in reply by Dr. Phillimore
and said she was a milliner at Islington ; that she
had worked for Mary Ann Prickett when she was
in London in 1857, and that Mary Ann Prickett
had shown her photographs of Mr. Sopwith ; that
she frequently received letters from him. and some-
times went out in order, as she represented, to meet
him, and that she wore a gold watch and chain
and a cameo brooch which she said Mr. Sopwith
had given her.
Mr. K. Macaulay summed up, and Dr. Philli-
more replied.
Sir C. Cresswell said he had last night examined
the evidence given in support of the petition care-
fully, and he hoped dispassionately; and, having
now heard the evidence on the other side, and had
the advantage of the very able speeches of counsel,
- he had formed a very decided opinion upon the
• case, and he felt bound to express it at once. The
case was a very unhappy one. Shortly after the
marriage the husband and the parents of the wife
became estranged, and if there had been a little
more consideration and conciliation on the part of
Mr. and Mrs. Deane, the discussion about a separa-1
tion would probably never have taken place. But
they appeared to have arrayed themselves hostilely
against Mr. Sopwith, and after the separation they
began to cast about to find some explanation of his
apparent coldness towards his wife. Naturally,
enough, they hit on the "apposition that he pre-
ferred some other woman. They accordingly ap-
plied to Shaw, a professed discoverer of malprac-
tices of that sort, and employed him to find out, if
he could, some delinquency of Mr. Sopwith. There
was no suggestion from the beginning to the end
of the case that up to that period there was the
slightest foundation for any suspicion against him.
Shaw was employed as early as August, 1858, and
from that time down to May or June, 1859, he was
at work without producing any result. I feel
bound, his lordship continued, to make some ob-
servations upon the subject of the employment of
men of the class to which Shaw belongs. They
may sometimes be instrumental in discovering mal-
practices which would otherwise remain concealed,
but—l say it advisedly—it is my opinion that they
are very dangerous agents. Police detectives are
most useful ; they are employed by a Government
establishment, they are responsible to superior
officers, they have no pecuniary interest in the
result of their investigations, and they may be and
are constantly employed safely and with benefit to
the public ; but when a man sets up as a hired dis-
coverer of supposed delinquencies, when the amount
of his pay is dependent on the extent of his employ-
ment, and the extent of his employment depends on
what he is able to discover, that man becomes a most
dangerous agent. It appears that Shaw, not being
sufficiently clever or sufficiently vigilant, another
person was set to work. That man, Topp, has been
intrusted by the attorney for the petitioner to do
that duty which properly belonged to the attorney.
' He has had the seeking out of all the witnesses, he
has communicated with them again and again; and
it is not until the last moment, after the briefs had
been prepared, that they were examined by the at-
torney's clerk. I trust the time is far distant when
professional men, regularly educated and entered
on the rolls of the courts to which they are respon-
sible for their conduct, will abandon their proper
branch of the profession, and put it into the hands
of such persons as those who appear to have been
engaged in the conduct of this case. His lordship
then proceeded to examine minutely the evidence of
the witnesses on both sides. Who was it suggested
that Pearce, who was delivered of a child in Feb-
ruary, 1858, was the same person as Prickett ?
What foundation- was there for the surmise, and
what inquiries were made as to its truth ? When
Wilson hesitated in her identificatioA of Pearce with
Prickett, why was not her mother called either to
confirm or contradict her? There was no proof of
familiarities between Mr. Sopwith and Prickett ex-
cept in the evidence of Buss, a man of prurient ima-
gination, apt to look through keyholes, and desir-
ous of seeing indecency whenever he had an oppor-
tunity. Prickett herself gave her evidence as mo-
destly, as plainly, and as firmly as any witness
he had ever seen examined. Her appearance and
her demeanour were singularly in her favour, and
- she and her mother denied the whole story. A
witness, Miss Bott, had been called to contradict
some parts of her testimony; but Miss Bott's evi-
dence was, in some particulars, incredible or ab-
surd. Whether she had made a mistake or wil-
fully sworn what was not true he could not tell.
• As to Bott's story about the shadows on the blind,
he did not belieue it ; the dose was too strong for
him to swallow. The discrepancies and improbabi-
lities in the statements of the neighbours of
Prickett, and of the witnesses who had spoken to
acts of adultery in the furze bushes and in the lodge,
were too great for him to act upon them. The whole
story was preposterous, and the character of a de-
cent man would be in much peril if on such testi-
mony, contraay to all probability, he could be found
guilty. On these grounds he should dismiss Mr.
Sopwith from the suit, and he must be indemnified
against the costs.
It was stated that a sum had been deposited in
the registry as a security for the wife's costs, and
His Lordship 4aid-1 find I cannot order costs to
• the respondent. It is very hard on Mr. Sopwith,
but he must suffer.
Petition dismissed,