The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-20 00:00:00

THE QUEEN v. MARIA CLARKE.

(From the Times.)

Had the case of "The Queen v. Maria Clarke
(in re Alicia Race)," which was tried on Saturday
at the Queen's Bench, been what is called a jury
case, we should have abstained from all comment
upon it until the delivery of judgment. This,
however, is not so. The facts of the case are told
in half-a-dozen brief sentences, but the decision
upon the legal argument which was raised upon
them rests with Lord Campbell and Justices
Wightman and Crompton. Now we presume that
even the advocates of the Roman party will
scarcely venture to assert that any statement or
comment which we offer upon the case will warp
the minds of the learned personages whom we have
just named, or influence their judgment. We do
not take up the legal balances and affect to deter-
mine nice distinctions between the rights of the
"testamentary guardian" and the "guardian of
nurture," and other such recondite matters. It is
the business of the Judges to decide such points,
and no doubt they will do so in accordance with
the doctrines of English law. Our only object is to
spare the patience of our readers, not many of
whom will have been at the pains of watling, through
four portentous columns of legal report in order to
ascertain the subject of Saturday's argument in the
Queen's Bench. Here is the story :—There was a
certain sergeant of Marines, named Lauman Race,
who seems to have been a very fine fellow, who
was killed under fire at Petropaulovski, in Sep-
tember, 1854. He belonged to the Pique. Now,
this sergeant was married, and he had by his wife
two children, a boy and a girl. The boy, John, is
now about 12 years old ; the girl, Alicia, is about
10. The mother's name is Alicia Race, and she
still survives, a widow. Sergeant Race, on the
24th of August, 1854, made a will, which concluded
with these words :

"I do hereby nominate, constitute, and appoint my
wife, Alicia Race, executrix of this my will and testa-
ment, feeling confident that she will do justice to my
dear children as a wife and a mother."
The mother is a Roman Catholic, the father was a
Protestant. " The father (said Mr. O'Malley)
"Always brought up his children as Protestants, and
sent them to Protestant schools. He himself always at-
tended the services of the Church of England . . It
was found, also, that for eight months after their father's
death the children attended a Pr'testant school and
Protestant worship, and the mother went with them."
We quote the very words of the counsel em-
ployed lest we be charged with inaccuracy of any
kind. The elder child, the boy John Race, after his
father's death was sent to the Sailors' Orphan Boys'
School and Home at Chardstock, in Dorsetshire,
which is supported from the Patriotic Fund. In
July, 1855, the little girl Alicia was also sent to
the Sailors' Orphan Girls' School and Home at
Hampstead, which is maintained in the same man-
ner. Things appear to have gone on reasonably
well for a time, but at length the Romanists got
hold of the mother and persuaded her to remove
her son from Chardstock. This done, they informed
her that they could do nothing for the boy until
the girl too was taken away from the Protestant
school at Hampstead. Hereupon Mrs. Race en-
deavoured to regain possession of the child, but the
girl strongly resisted all endeavours to remove her,
and expressed her determination to remain at
Hampstead and her wish to be brought up in the
tenets of Protestantism. Upon this due applica-
tion was made, and there was issued a writ of
habeas corpus, directed to the matron of the Sai-
lors' Orphan Girls' School and Home at Hampstead
and requiring her to produce Alicia Race in the
Queen's Bench on Saturday last, which was ac-
cordingly done. The effort on one side, of course,
was to reinstate the mother in possession of the
child ; on the other, that the child should be at
liberty to ohoose for herself.
Now, as we before said, it is not our province to
determine nice questions of testamentary guardian-
ship, orguardianship of nurture, but certainly, in
the eye of common sense, nothing would appear
more unreasonable than to compel this child to
adopt against her will that religion which was not
the religion of her father. The way in which the
widow herself interpreted the will of her late hus-
band may very readily be gathered from the facts,
that she herself conducted the children, for eight
months after the intelligence of his death had been
received in England, to a Protestant church, and
that she placed them in Protestant schools. Were
this case reversed, and had Sergeant Race been a
Romanist, and had his Protestant widow endea-
voured to remove her young daughter from a
Roman convent in order to bring her up as a Pro-
testant, we cannot hut think we should hear an
outcry about "proselytism in its most hideous
form," and other amenities of the like kind. The
father was a Protestant, he brought his children up
Protestants, they were taken to Protestant places
of worship during his life and after his death ;
after his death, too, they were placed in Protestant
institutions, and now the mother seeks to take
back this little Protestant girl in order to turn her
into a Romanist. What would Sergeant Race havt
done had he been alive ? That is the point. No
violence is used towards the child ; the doors of
the Orphan School at Hampstead are open to her if
she chooses to rejoin her mother, hut she anxiously
desires to stay where she is. Under these circum-
stances, will the Court of Queen's Bench do vio-
lence to the child, and actually tear her from the
asylum in which she desires to stay, in open de-
fiance of all that we can conceive to have been the
wishes of her dead father ? We cannot pretend to
argue the question of law, but we trust that in
this case the conclusions et law and of common
sense may be found to coincide with each other.

( From the Daily News )
The report published in our yesterday's impres-
sion of the proceedings insti'uted in the Court
of Queen's Bench by a Roman Catholic mother,
in order to remove her child from a Protes-
tant school, will doubtless have been perused with
considerable interest by the great majority of our
readers. The juthlment of the Court has not yet
been delivered, and we need not say that we make
no attempt to anticipate on which side that judg-
ment will be pronounced : as little, we trust, can
it he necessary to disclaim any intention to discuss
the matter as a question between Romanist and
Protestant. Our sole object will be to lay before
those who are repelled and confused by a long ; n d
intricate discussion of affidavits and counter-
affidavits a plain narrative of the undisputed facts
of the case, and a few observations on the more
obvious legal principles that seem to be involved
in it.

The facts were these :—Lantaan Race, a sergeant
of Marines, hail by his wife, Alicia Race, two
children—a boy, now aged about twelve, and a
daughter, whose name was also Alicia, now about
ten and a half. Sergeant Race was a Protestant,
his wife a Catholic. Both children were baptised
by a Protestant clergyman, and both, during the
whole period of their father's lifetime, were in the
habit, as soon as their years permitted, of attend-
ing a Protestant school and a Church of England
place of worship. The father, however, did not
interfere with the mother's natural function of
teaching the children to pray, and accordingly,
with his sanction, she appears to have taught them
some of the prayers of the Romish Church. On
the 25th of August, 1854, Sergeant Race—who
seems to have been as noble-hearted and fine a
fellow as ever marched under British colours—one
of those heroes of humble life of whom the nation

has so much right to he proud—being then in sight
, of Petropaulovski, and just about to enter into
action, wrote a letter to his wife, which was not
to he sent to her excopt in the event of his falling
in the conflict. Ho also at the same time male
his will. The letter, which was in every way
worthy of the man—the letter, as Lord Campbell
truly
characterised it "of a Christian and a
aoldier"—containe? this expression with regard
to the children •
" iarwd.i,,sh you to bring them up
in the fear of the L
By his will ho appointed wife guardian,
were his words—" "feeling confident"—these
my dear children as
i that
she
willdojustice
to
awife and a mother." Apart
from these expressions, neither in the will nor in
the letter was there anya' intimation as to the parti-
cular form of faith in which he wished the children
to be brought up. The
epo
widowo left destitute with
poor man was killed before
The
Petropaulovski, and
the two orphan children. Royal Commis.
sinners of the Patriotic Fund wer P)wpo,lirepdlace to,
and
they, with the full assent of the weida
B
boy in the Sailors' Orphan School
fgirl in thYBthe
Chardstock, in Dorsetshire—the
spending school for girls at Hampstead. Boathe°thrrease.
schools are exclusively Protestant. The mother
was perfectly aware of this ; and, as Captain Con-
nolly distinctly swears, remarked, in reference to
this circumstance, " that her great desire was that
they should be brought up as Protestants, accord.
ng to the wish of her deceased husband."
After the children had been some months at
these schools the mother, acting—as the evidence
leaves no room to doubt—under the influence of
the Roman Catholic clergyman of whose congrega-
tion she was a member, removed the boy from the
Protestant school at Chardstock to place him in a
Roman Catholic school. Finding, however, as she
states, " that her clergyman would not provide a
school for the one child without the other," she
proceeded to insist upon the removal of the girl
also, though, as she allowed on one occasion, "it
went to her heart to do so ; and though," as she
also admitted, "she had no fault to find with the
school at which her daughter was placed, Mrs.
Clarke(the mistress of the sch ool) being very kind to
her." The mother app l have made several an-
plications for the purpo,o of removing thegirl w ithout
• UCCelifi. The girl herself, who is described—and as it