The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-08 00:00:00

A JAPANESE EXECUTION.

Our readers will be interested in reading the
following authentic account of an execution in
Japan. It may be in the recollection of the public
that some time since a French soldier was wounded
for insisting on crossing the retinue of the Prince
Bizen, contrary to the laws of the Japanese empire.
The French having insisted on reparation, the Ja-
panese colonel in command was executed as is stated

below :
" We received a detailed account of the execution
of Prince Bizen's officer at Biogo ; the scene appears
to have been most impressive. It took place in a
temple at 9.30 p.m., the enceinte being magnificently
illuminated. The officer was a noble, and held the
rank of a colonel in Bizen's army. According to
Japanese etiquette, officers of his own rank alone
were allowed to be present, this rule being appli-
cable to foreigners, who were represented by a
member of each Embassy. 'The poor fellow made
a long speech as he knelt before a small round table
upon which lay the family sword. He proclaimed
his innocence, and protested that he had acted in
strict accordance with Japanese law and custom in
firing upon a man who persisted on crossing the
cortege under his command. He then turned
round towards the temple and prayed fervently,
the surrounding Japanese kneeling with their
faces to the earth, the foreigners alone standing ;
and then uttering an exclamation he seized the
sword and plunged it into his body, at the same
time stretching out his neck to meet death as it
were. Instantaneously his friend, who stood be-
hind him, severed his head from his body with one
blow and it fell rolling in front of him. The officials
present placed it in a lacquer salver and handed it
round for inspection to the foreigners present, ask-
ing them ' if they were satisfied.' Public feeling was
much against this execution ; no life had been taken,
and there were many extenuating circumstances
in the man's favour. He had had no inter-
course with foreigners, knew little of their laws
and customs ; all he saw and resented, unjustifi-
ably it is true, was a deliberate insult offered him
as he passed through the public street, and there
can be no doubt that had the insult been offered by
a Japanese he would most certainly have been
killed On the spot. Great ill-feeling is likely to
arise out of this bloodthirsty policy of a life for a
limb, or even less, and it certainly seems unjustifi-
able, and decidedly impolitic. The ends of justice
would have been met, and a proper moral effect
produced, had the man been disgraced in rank, or
reprieved at the last moment."—The Owl.

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HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 7.
- The noble and learned lords present this morning

were the Lord Chancellor, Lord Cranworth, Lord
Chelmsford, Lord Westbury, and Lord Colonsay.

SHAW ET AL. V. GOULD ET AL.

This was an appeal from the Court of Chancery.
The case was beard some time since, when their
lordships deferred judgment.
Lord Cranworth this morning, in giving judg-
ment, said that the question to be decided in this
case was one of a class which not unfrequently gave
rise to great difficulty—the question, namely, bow
far the status of legitimacyor illegitimacy undoubt-
edly existing according to the laws of this country
might or ought to be modified by the laws of an-
other country. There was no dispute as to the

facts of the case, which were these :—On the 18th
of June, 1828, a marriage was solemnized at Man-
chester between Elizabeth Hickson, a girl under 17

years of age, and a man named Buxton. The mar-

riage was brought about by Buxton by means of a
fraudulentconspiracy, for which he was afterwards
prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to three years'

imprisonment. The parents and friends of the
young lady succeeded_ in getting possession of her
person before the marriage had been consumma-
ted, and she and her husband never lived together

even for a day. Attempts were made to get rid of
the marriage by an Act of Parliament, but without
success, and in the month of December, 1838, Bux-
ton and his wife joined in a deed of separation,
under which certain pecuniary benefits were secured
to Buxton, in consideration of which he covenanted

that his wife, who was described by her maiden
name of Elizabeth Hickson, should be at liberty to
live separate and apart from him, as if she were sole
and unmarried. The parties continued to live
separate from each other, and Buxton, from the
time of the separation, if not before it, lived in

adultery with a woman named Sarah Lant. In or
about the year 1845 a gentleman living at Derby,
named John Shaw, then studying for the English

bar, formed an attachment for Mrs. Buxton, who
was always designated by her maiden name, and be

proposed to marry her. In order to accomplish this
object he seemed to haiie altered his intention of
becoming a member of the English Bar, and he re-

solved Co take the necessary steps towards being
called to the Scotch Bar. In March, 1815, both
Mr. Shaw and Elizabeth llickson went to Edin-

burgh, and for ever afterwards they were resident
in Scotland. In the month of September following
Buxton also went to Scotland, and when he had
been there above 40 days an action of divorce was

raised against him by his wife before the Court of
Session by a summons dated the 15th of November,
1815, and duly served upon him, which was founded
upon the undisputed fact that he was living in
adultery with Sarah Lant. The action was duly
prosecuted, and the decree of divorce thereon was
pronounced by the Court of Session on the 20th of
March, 1846. In the following month of June a
marriage valid by the laws of Scotland was duly
celebrated in Edinburgh between Mr. Shaw and
Elizabeth Hickson, and there were issue of that mar-
riage three children. Buxton died in January,
1852, and Mr. Shaw in the following September,
Elizabeth Hickson, or Shaw, dying in 1863. The
question to be decided was whether those three
children were entitled to certain money bequeathed
by John Wilson, the great uncle of Elizabeth
Hickson, whose will was dated in 1832, and who
died in 1835. By that he will he left, inter alia,
the sum of £2,000 to trustees, upon certain trusts'
for the benefit of his great niece, Elizabeth Hick-

son, for her life and after her death, subject to a
power of appointment, which was never exercised,
in trust for all and every children of his said great
niece, who, being the son or sons, should attain the
age of 21, or being a daughter or daughters should
attain that age or marry, to be equally divided
among them as tenants in common. The trustees,
after the death of Elizabeth Hickson, paid the
money into the Court of Chancery, under the Trus-
tees' Relief Act ; and the question to be decided
was whether the children of Elizabeth Hickson

by John Shaw were entitled to the fund as
children of the testator's great niece. Vice-Chan-
cellor Kiudersley decided that they were not so en-
titled, and they had appealed against that decision
to their lordships' house. If the law of Scotland
on the subject of marriage and divorce were the
same as that of England, the case would not have
admitted of any doubt whatever. According to the
law of this country the three children must either
be those of Buxton or bastards. The former con-
clusion is that which, in bye-gone days, would pos-
sibly have been arrived at, so reluctant were the
Courts to receive any evidence of non-access by the
husband while he was intra quatar maria. Adopting,
hawever, the more reasonable views on this subject
by which the Courts of this country are now guided,
the house might safely act upon the hypothesis,
adopted by all the parties in the argument of the
case, that the children of Elizabeth Hickson were
either- her lawful issue by Mr. Shaw or were
illegitimate. The house had therefore to con-
sider whether, in order to assist them in decid-
ing this question, they were warranted in looking
at a nayo
mightthe b
r lawe
than that of England, and whether
they guided to any extent by the law
of Scotland. Had the parties been Scotch instead
of English, and had it occurred in Scotland and not
in England, no question upon the point at issue
could have arisen. The children in that case would
certainly have been legitimate. The whole ques-
tion turned upon the validity of the Scotch divorce
between Buxton and his wife. The law of Scotland
seemed clear that a residence in Scotland for 40
days made that country the donaiciliuni fori of any
person so residing in that country in which for the
purposes of litigation he was to be treated as being
domiciled. The question for their Lardships was,
was that principle of the Scotch law one which the
law of this country was bound to recognize? He
thought not. The important differences which existed
on the subject of the law of marriage and divorce in
the different parts of the United Kingdom Often gave
rise to perplexing difficulties, and exhibited a state
of our law which was little creditable to us.
These difficulties, however, made it more than
usually incumbent upon those who had the adminis-
tration of the law to take care that whenever ct
clear line had been drawn by judicial decisions, the
course so marked out should be rigidly followed.
Now, whatever the difficulties in such cases as the
present might be, the doctrine that no divorce in
Scotland, merely on a fin um donacilii had, at all
events, before the passing of the English Divorce
Act of 1857, any effect in England on the validity
of an English marriage, had been established by
the highest authority. It was impossible to have
a stronger authority upon that point than that
furnished by Solley's case, in which it was decided
by the twelve judges that by the second marriage
he was guilty of bigamy, although on general prin-
ciples every leaning would be made in favour of the
accused. Again in " Conway v. Beazley," 3 hag.
Ecc. Rep., 639, the second marriage was had in
Scotland, not as in Solley's case in England, and it
was attempted on that ground to distinguish between
the two cases, but Dr. Lushington held that the prin-
ciple was the same wherever the second marriage was
solemnized, for there, as neither of the parties to the
first marriage were at any time bona fide domiciled
in Scotland, the principle of Solley's case must pre-
t'llrehecasceono-f
aQsureaei:,eds63in.
vail. The same questio3n:vw,
" Dolphin v. Robins,"
elusion at which their lordships arrived in that case
was that the Scotch Courts had no power to dis-
I solve an English marriage where the parties were
not really domiciled in Scotland. 'Those cases
clearly decided that now before the House, for if
the first marriage here was not dissolved, there could
not have been a second %all(' marriage. The view
he took of this case absolved him from the necessity
of considering whether the resort to Scotland for the
purposes of the divorce and the arrangements made
among the parties for bringing it about were or
were not of such a character as to taint the whole
of the proceedings with fraud. He did not wish
to express any opinion as to what might have been
the effect of the divorce so obtained, considered
merely as a Scotch question. In the anomalous
state of our laws relating to marriage and divorce
it might be that such a proceeding might be valid
north of the Tweed, while it was invalid on the

south of that river. He was painfully sensible
the inconvenience which might result from such a
state of the law, but it was for the Legislature to
set it right. The authorities appeared to him to
show clearly that whatever might be the decision of
the Scotch courts upon this subject of divorce ac-
cording to the Scotch law, the English courts could
not admit any right in them to interfere with the
inviolability of au English marriage nor with any
of its incidents. To do so would be to attain a

prejud!ce to English law, to be created by the deci-
sion of what for this purpose must be called a fo-
reign law, and would be going beyond what Huber
said any country was called upon to do. Upon
these grounds he was of opinion that there was no
ground for this appeal, and he, therefore, moved
to their lordships that the appeal should be dismissed
with costs.

Lord Westbury, Lord Chelmsford, and Lord
Colonsay having concurred, the appeal was dis-
missed with costs accordingly.

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

THE HUMBOLDT SILVER MINING COMPANY
(NEr ADA, U.S. OF AMERICA) LIMITED.
The prospectus has appeared of the Humboldt
Mining Company, and the terms on which the pro-
perty is offered to the public, show, at least, that
there is no " wild-cat" element in the bargain. The
vendors receive no portion of the purchase money, the
funds supplied by the public being wholly expended
in developing the mine. Half the property will
belong to the purchasers, the other half to the sellers,
with this proviso, that the vendors get nothing for
their half till the entire amount paid by the pur-
chasers be refunded to the purchasers. The point
for the public who desire to invest in the mines of
the Pacific States is mainly the price paid for the
property. They may take it as an axiom that any
undeveloped property in Nevada, or in any of the
other Pacific States, is not worth much, and if
much is asked for it, they may rest assured that the
" wild-cat" element enters into the transaction. What
they have to consider is the way in which the money
is to be appropriated. If wholly on tunnelling,
mills, and other machinery, roads and other im-
provements, and they are satisfied that the mine is
worth the expenditure, and the money will be
honestly thus expended, then they may be certain
that in the purchase they are securing a good
thing. But, alas ! how can these essentials be
guaranteed? The Tullulah range we Imes°
to be good ; the lodes of the Humboldt
to be excellent ; the situation admirable ; aud,
the proposal on which the property is offered
in the highest degree liberal, therefore it ought t°
succeed if one other qualification be added, and that
is a trustworthy and energetic manager. We be-
lieve that the company has its hand on the man
i
most interested, to whom success is fortune, and
failure ruin, who knows Nevada well, and has
made mining his profession. At the same time that
we have great confidence in this company, we re-
gret to notice that one lately brought out in the
London market has been spoken of contemptuously
in one or two of the newspapers of the Paelfie.,
States. We believe that the public can, if the;
please, without setting aside as not to be touched
such profitable investments, guard themselves frool
imposition. What is it that gives value to a I°4
in Nevada ? It is not like a mine in Cornwall 0r
Devonshire, where the right to work it is the greyw
element of value, for we doubt not there are wall
undiscovered lodes in the State equal to the Celli:
stock. In the Pacific States, supposing that the loue
be rich, and what is almost of greater consequence'
" come-atable," still so extensive is the wealth °
ore that the mere right to the claim cannot be '3,
.;
any great value, and unless the property le
offered on some such terms as that cf tht
Humboldt mine, the public should regard
with suspicion. There is, however, another
class of Nevada property which, we regret to
has not yet been offered in the London roarke;
for a reason we can easily explain. The propertle,.,
paying a large dividend are those of course l"
working order, with their tunnelling completea
their mills in operation, their roads formed. Su,,o
mines will command prices in proportion to t'.
profit realized, as they cease to be in the Data'
of speculations, only requiring conscientious re t
nagement. These are the mines that have a rir,
to command high prices, but when people collie to
London and propose to sell claims to undeveloPe',
lodes at the rate asked for properties in workleb
order, and to delude the purchasers by discussl.
their claims as developed properties, then we Dirtif,l3
taro that the " wild-cat" element is there. il
reason why the mines in working order have..Poot
been offered for sale in the London market is,
did,
the owners have accomplished their objects
their own means, and have no need of foreign
But the capital of a new country like Californe,),
however rapidly increasing, is still comparatt:l4o
Pl'
limited, and those who can command money
tbeJ
such fine opportunities for investment that •
It 15
part with it only on the most onerous terms- or
natural, under such circumstances, that the elvtdd
of a good lode, if he thought he co io
succeed in getting the necessary capita do
London to work it, should endeavour
er
so. But here he is met with the distrust in,
cited by " wild-cat" schemes—swindlesovbiebraw
jure the mining States even more than the eetnweil
nity cheated. The Humboldt, we believe, to bed to
worth the consideration of those who can afferry
risk a small sum in hopes of a very large re tiny
the risk being small, and the probable re‘ge.
immense. The mining authority latest fron?"to
vada, and the best in London, remarked tuwo
that the only mistake about the prospectus
that it offered the property on terms so ridiettle°oo
cheap to the public that they would not b
in it.

(From the Wall-street Journal.) SAT
LATEST PRICES OF SILVER MINING STs°;ooo,
SAN FRANCISCO.—By telegram from San Fraooo,
dated April 15, 1868, we have the following 6111
tions :
Gould and Curry s77o pot foot
Savage
Chollar-Potosi 272
OFhir 2OO

Hale and Norcross ll
Crown Point 2,200 /7
Yellow Jacket 1,500 97
Belcher
Alpha 75 77
450 "

110 "
Bullion
Overman
Empire Mill
237 per ';h
Imperial
Confidence
Amador..
81 "
Exchequer
Quartz Ilill
60 "
Lady Byron