The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLICUOURNBI.B.

In commenting on the death of Lora:Brougham, the
Post reminds us of the great work the veteran statesman
aid in the matter of law reform, as advocate at the bar, as
Lord Chancellor of England, and subsequently as private
law lord. But Lord Brougham was even more distin-
guished as a statesman than as an advocate, a judge, and
a law reformer. The large share he took in the work of
the Reform Bill of 1832, and in the contest which attended
its passing into an Act, are too well known to need com-
ment. Indeed, the unwearied debater and resolute party
leader, who in the Commons had no rival but Canning,
and who when raised to the Lords found no rival at all, is
perhaps the most prominent figure which meets the eye
in the historical group to which he belongs. While Esil
Grey and Lord John Russell enjoyed all the prestige
which rank and birth and party connections could give
them, plain Henry Brougham owed his influence solely to ,
his great intellect, his indomitable will, and above all to
his indefatigable industry and labour. But the fierce
party leader, whose invectives seemed formed on the model
of the philippics of Demosthenes, was at the same a great
practical philanthropist, and no less earnest and untiring
in his labours for the abolition of slavery and the slave
tra:de than for carrying the Reform Bill. And while
labouring to emancipate the victims of " involuntary ser-
vitude " abroad, he was no less zealously working to do
away with another kind of slavery at home, namely, that
of ignorance, which debases and fetters the mind, as the
other does the body ; and his efforts in the cause of cheer
and efficient education for the people, and the diffusion of
useful knowledge among old and young alike, were un- ,
ceasing.
.eat

•
Crks that the shadow of a

The Daily News roma, - gr-
name has vanished. Henry Brougham is no more. A
stormy career has had a placid enfling. On Thursday
night Lord Brougham passed away in his sleep, at his
favourite retreat in the South of France. Politically he
bad been dead long before the term of his natural life. It
was difficult for observers who saw the feeble and tottering
figure, with its head of snow, creeping into the House of
Lords, and rising there, amid forbearing silence, to mutter
a few rambling observations which the most painful efforts
could scarcely make articulate, or haunting the provincial
Congresses of the Social Science Association, or fluttering
restlessly about the rooms of the Law Amendment
Society, to believe that in it they looked upon all that was
.eft of Lord Brougham. Long before his death he had
come to live a more real life in the page of history and in
the memory of younger contemporaries than in his own
person. " This is he that was Brougham," seemed to be the
involuntary and silent confession of his long decadence.
There was in it an appeal to the considerate judgment of
the age into which his protracted existence bad extended
itself. The pathetic bequest of another Lord Chancellor
of England—a greater lawyer, orator, statesmen, and
philosopher than the eminent mg% who has just died, a
politician as wavering, and a judge with hands less clean—
.. My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and
to my own countrymen after some time be passed over,"
Lord Brougham did not need to make. Long before his
death the time had passed over which was necessary to
enable men fairly and dispassionately to judge of li3 life
and character. His political career ended more than a
generation ago. The passions of partisanship, the bitter.
ness of disappointment, the generous warmth of friend.
ship, no longer trouble and obscure the calmness and clear-
ness of men's minds. The man who died last week and
long before passed into the region of historic impartiality
into which his great predecessors, contemDeraries, and
rivals had entered before him. %'e can think and speak
of him as we speak of Fox and Pitt and Canning, o!
Marlow, Eldon, and Lyndhurst.

The Standard declares that Lord Brougham will be
remembered not for the speeches he has made or the books
he has written, but because of the inseparable manner in
which his name is interwoven in the history of his country
for twenty eventful years. That history will record little
of him before 1815 and little after 1835, but between those
ypochs he played a part second to none in prominence and
Importance. Whilst the abolition of the slave trade, the
trial of Queen Caroline, and the Reform Act of 1832 are
remembered, Brougham's name will live in the recollec-
tion of his countrymen, and it will be held, when his whole
career is impartially considered, in honour and respect.

That nobody here in England should have known of the
death of Lord Brougham until two days had passed, shews,
in the opinion of the Telegraph, bow this grand old north-
country nobleman had survived himself. Politically and
civilly, he was dead long ago : he has been his own monu-
ment for a score of years ; and even now, when we say to
each other, " Lord Brougham is no more," the words im-
part no shock such as usually accompanies the announce-
ment of great men's deaths ; they seem the formal intima-
tion of an incident accomplished long ago. Practically, he
went away out of the world to die many lustra since, but
the fibre of his body, like that of the mind, was so
prodigiously tough that be bas been living hale and sound
some score of years beyond the span of man's life ; like
some giant oak of the woodland which, season after
season, shoots from its wrinkled bark and decayed
branches leaves as fresh and green as when it was a
sapling. Decayed ? we do the indomitable deceased
wrong ; be shot out fresh timber as well as leaves almost
up to the end.

The Times draws attention to the debate on fortifica-
tions which arose on the Navy Estimates. It suggests
the question, Is it a fact that fortifications—elaborate for-
tifications—are useless, or likely to be useless, in
modern war? Is it a fact that we can afford pro-
bably to neglect Portsmouth or Plymouth, and either
maintain a great arsenal at Chatham or distribute
our resources over various parts of the country ? Is
Lord Palmerston's policy, in short, condemned by the fact
that guns are bigger than they used to be, and iron more
in esteem than stone? It is remarkable that the hpeakers
who were loudest in their disparagement of Portsmouth
Lines were still anxious for the scheme of floating bat-
teries. Yet that scheme was carefully weighed against
the other in 1860, and only accepted as accessory to land
forifications. There does not seem to be great force in the
argument which appeared to produce the greatest effect and
to command the widest concurrence. Sir John Pakington,
Sir John Hay, and Mr. Childers all agreed in represent-
ing our outstanding contracts as the principal obstacle in
the way of the proposed inquiries. If we are to retrace
our steps, we must first come to halt by suspending opera-
tions ; and if we suspend operations, we must be prepared
to pay heavy sums to contractors with whom our engage-.
ments would thus be broken. No doubt this might be a
dead loss, as well as a somewhat humiliating confession.
But if it be really true that the scheme in hand is a mis-
take, we had better bear the loss already incurred than
proceed with an expenditure which would only be equi-
valent to further losses. The case is exactly like that just
placed on a smaller scale and before a smaller constituency
by Lord Salisbury. The shareholders of the railway corn-
pany
over which he presides have spent half a million on
certain works, and are bound by contracts to spend three
millions more. They may escape this obligation by con-
senting to lose their £500,000 and paying £700,000 forfeit,
It is a very unpleasant alternative, but ii the question is
anyhow one of loss it is clearly better to lose a million
and a quarter than three millions and a half. The Tinte
does not venture so to prejudge the question before Par-
liament, or to assume as proved that the money which we
are spending upon Portsmouth Lines might as well be
poured into the sea at Spithead. We only say that, if
there is really reason for thinking we are on a wrong
course, it would be better to stop and pay the penalty
than to go on throwing good money after bad. On
the other hand, if artificial defences are still of value, it is
merely an accidental misfortune that fortifications should
cost more than formerly. Details or mistakeS of construc-
tion cannot affect the principle of the scheme ; nor can
Portsmouth Lines be proved to be a blunder by any pos-
sible defects in the Gibraltar Shield. In point of fact, we
do not observe, even in these discursive controversies, any
essential objection to the general designs of 1860, except
that which proceeds from the advocates of floating in pre-
ference to fixed defences. The rest is matter of detail,
perhaps of compromise. The position of a fort is deter-
mined, in the first place, not by the nature of the soil,
but by the immediate conditions of the problem—the com-
mand and range of the guns. The combinations of iron
and granite, again, may be questionable, and yet it may
be necessary to build strong walls of some kind. Alto-
gether, the conclusion of the debate was fair and
reasonable. Everybody seemed to think that a case
had been made out for hesitation, but Sir John
Pakington was evidently justified. in objecting to a
precipitate repeal of the resolutions adopted deliberately
in 1860, and prosecuted at a vast expense ever
since. Nothing in the terms of the motion or the
circumstances of the occasion could have prepared
the Secretary of War for a decisive conclusion on a ques-
tion of such vast importance. He pleaded, with great
reason, that he should wish to take the opinions of his
colleagues, and that the House should only proceed to its
decision after fuller notice and longer thought. In this
position the matter may be supposed to stand, for, though
Mr. O'Beirne, after declining to withdraw his motion, was
defeated on a division, it is clear enough that the question
will be reconsidered on an early day.

AN UNFORTUNATE PETITION. —The Oswestry
Advertiser says a petition was got up at Llanfyllin by the
Tory party, at the beginning of last week, against Mr. Glad-
stone's resolutions. It was sent off by train on Tuesday
morning, to be presented to the House by Mr. C. Wynn
that evening ; but, unfortunately, in transferring the
parcel from one train to another at Buttington station, it fell
under the wheel, and was returned to Llanfyllin in a very
WlNCintAble condition.

THE ATTEMPTED MURDER IN NORTON
FOLGATE.

On Sunday evening Mrs. Grossmith was pronounced by
the surgeons who are in attendance upon her to be some-
what improved, but to be still in great danger. She has
so far recovered consciousness that she has been able to
give her husband an account of the manner in which she
was attacked by Arthur Mackay. From circumstances
which are within the knowledge of Mr. Grossmith and of
his young sons there is now no doubt whatever that the
attack was premeditated, and that for some days previous
to Friday last Mackay had conceived a violent antipathy
for his mistress and her children. Mr. Grossmith's state-
ment is as follows:

Mackay was the son of an old friend, and owing to that
circumstance he was taken into the service of the Gros-
smiths, although he had been for three years in the refor-
matoryat Feltham for larceny. He professed himself highly
satisfied with his place, and tried to ingratiate himself
with his employers, and he was so far successful that he
was able to borrow money from time to time of Mrs. Gros-
smith. Last week he asked his master to give him beer with
his luncheon instead of for his dinner: Mr. Grossmith
said, " Ycu can have it for both luncheon and dinner if
you like." Mackay hypocritically said, " No, thank you ;
I will only take beer once a day." Thrown off his guard
by this proof of temperate habits, Grossmith left the keys
of the beer cellar in the door. On Thursday morning, one
the little boys got up at five o'clock to learn his lessons,
'aid detected Mackay in the act of helping himself to beer
rut of the barrel. He asked the boy not to tell, and the
►oy replied, "Not if it is the first time." Mackay protested
;bat it was the first time, and the boy promised to hold
pis tongue. The same evening Mackay told the
boy that he had dreamt twice that he had killed him,
and after some conversation he appears to have got at
the fact that Mrs. Grossmith had been told of the affair of
the beer barrel.

On Friday morning, at half-past six o'clock, Mackay
was seen by Walter Grossmith striking the chopper into
a large piece of meat in an extraordinary way, and he
asked him what he was doing it for. Mackay said, "I am
practising to see bow to serve those that don't do as I
like." This appears to have made an undefined im-
pression of danger on the boy's mind, which was in-
creased when Mackay soon afterwards lost his temper
with bim and his brother for not ,cleaning some forks to
save him trouble. He was so violent that Mr. Grossmith
called, him up and reprimanded him for his ill temper.
At half-past nine o'clock, after Mr. Grossmith left to go to
market, Walter, who should have gone to school, lin-
gered at the front door, distrustful of the intentions of
Mackay. The latter, who was cleaning the shop window,
kept looking in at Mrs. Grossmith, who was in the kitchen
behind the shop. Seeing that the little boy would not go
away, he called out to Mrs. Grossmith, " See here, ma'am,
here is Walter not gone to school yet." Mrs. Grossmith
sent Walter to school, and she thus deprived herself of her
only protection. She was engaged making a pudding,
and she asked Mackay for a cloth. Mackay gave her one,
which he bad used for wrapping round grease ; she got
ts-tgry, and told him he should wash it, and it would
tppear she scolded him. He came into the kitchen and
shut the door. She did not know what he intended to do,
but was almost instantly struck down by a terrific blow
nn the head from the rolling-pin, and was sent under the
sink. She got up and laid hold of his waistcoat, which
was torn in two, but he knocked her down again and
again, striking her with something which she could not
see. A large iron saucepan was found afterwards with
a piece broken out of the side of it, and it is
believed that it was with a blow from that
that he fractured her skull and knocked part
of the hone away. She became nearly insensible.
She could feel, she said, that "he gave it to her, and
mocked her down a hundred times," and from injuries
to her body it is believed that he jumped upon her. A
Irs. Sandford, whose attention bad been attracted by the
noise, entered the sh9k Mackay looked out through the
glass panels of the iii Men door, and she observed that
his face was covered with blood. She went forward, and
Mackay opened the door to go out to meet her. She
then saw Mrs. Grossmith on the floor in a pool of blood,
mad beaten out of all shape. She said to Mackay,
"You have done this." He, with great coolness, said,
"No, I did not. The master is just gone out round the
lorner. I will go for him," and he talked out. Thus he
!fleeted his escape. Mrs. Sandford fainted, and was- tor
►ome hours in the hands of the doctor before she could
male any statement to the police. Mrs. Grossmith states
that she heard Mrs. Sandford come in, and that if she had
not arrived another blow would have been fatal at once.

The police believe they have got a clue to Mackay's
wheretibouts. A hawker states that he met him in the
neighbourhood of Woolwich, and spoke to him there.
Several officers were at once despatched to the locality in
question, and if'he be really there his arrest is certain. In
any case, he cannot long evade justice, for it is believed
that he has no funds, and he has not gone near his rein.
;ivies.

LAW AND POLICE.

----

CURIOUS QT ES'2ION OF LAW.—In the Court of Queen's
Bench the case of Carpenter v. Stanley was heard. The
case raised the curious question as to whether a labourer
earning 14s. a week could be convicted as an " idle and
disorderly person." The appellant had refused to maintain
his wife, in consequence of which she had been obliged to
go to the union of Tunbridge-wells. It was proved that
the respondent,who was the relieving-officer, had gone with
the appellant's wife and required him to maintain her, but
he refused to do so. It was also proved that the appellant
was earning 14s. a week. Upon this evidence the justices
convicted the appellant. It was contended in support of
the conviction that, within the Act the word " idle " did
not mean " idleness " in the general acceptation of the
term ; but that the refusal to maintain was the gist of the
offence. For the appellant the contrary was urged. The
court affirmed the conviction.
ELECTION LAW.—In the same court the cause of Somer-
hill v. Coley came before their lordships. This was a
special case, stated by way of appeal from a decision of
magistrates declining to convict the defendant for rniscon•
ducting an election under the Public Health Act, by in-
cluding voters not entitled to vote, and thus causing
;he complainant the loss of his election. The magistrates
leclined to convict, as the act was bead fide, and not
wilfully erroneous. The defendant was chairman of the
Board of Health of a district in Staffordshire, and
he had admitted votes of marksmen, whose marks had
been attested by witnesses, but whose names had not been
written as the Act required. He had taken legal advice
upon the point, and acted in accordance with it, that
advice apparently being based upon the omission in the
voting papers to be delivered unaer the Act of any direc-
tion requiring the names of marksmen to be written by the
witnesses. The court from the first were clear that the
penal provision in the Act only applied to neglect or dis-
regard of clear and undoubted directions, not mere mis-
takes upon doubtful points. It could not be supposed,
they said, that the Legislature meant to impose heavy
pecuniary penalties (the penalty here was £5O) for mere
mistakes upon doubtful points. They therefore affirmed
the decision of the magistrates.
DAMAGES FOR FALSE NPRISONMENT.—At the Second
Court of Common Pleas a case in which damages were
claimed forjalse imprisonment came on for hearing. A
lir. Collings gave the plaintiff, Mr. Beresford, in custody
for stealing a horse. It seemed that the defendant gave
him into custody at Ham, in Essex. He was remanded,
and eventually committed for trial at Chelmsford ; the
grand jury found a true bill, but no evidence was offered
and the plaintiff was discharged. There had been some
negotiations between the plaintiff and the defendant for
the sale of the horse, and it had been placed at pasture
on a marsh near Ham, and had been taken away by the
plaintiff, whose it was. The question was, in fact, one
of damages only, and the jury found for the plaintiff ;
damages, £25.
ACTION FOR BREACH OF PROMISE.—In the same court
an action was brought by a cook, named Penniells, to
recover damages for a breach of promise to marry against
a butcher named Morris. The defendant had also
borrowed £55 from his quondam lover. The debt was
proved by the plaintiff, and the breach of promise by
passages from letters written by the defendant which left
no doubt as to his liability. The documentary evidence was
corroborated by the fact that the defendant had put up
the banns and made arrangements for his marriage. The
jury found a verdict for the plaintiff for the amount of the
loan, and £lO damages for the breach of promise. Imme-
diate judgment, and execution in four days.

Mrs. Rickahy, the "well-dressed, handsome
lady " (as she is described in the police reports) charged
with having married four husbands, was brought up again
on Saturday, at the Southwark court. Some additional
evidence was taken, and Mr. Ribton, who appeared for at:
accused, applied for a further remand to see the result of
an action she had commenced against Dr. Dlackmore, the
alleged fourth husband, for alimony. On the other side it
was stated that the prosecutor had petitioned for a dissolu-
tion of his marriage with the prisoner. The magistrate
committed her for trial, accepting bail for her appearance.
THE DOVER MURDER. —On Friday, at the meeting
of the magistrates in Dover, it was determined to invite
the authorities and inhabitants to join them in a sub-
scription to be presented to Mrs. Waishe, the widow of
the late station-master at the Dover Priory Station,
whose recent melancholy death has excited so much sym-
pathy, as a testimonial of the high appreciation of the
unvarying kindness, efficiency, and courtesy evinced by
him in the performance of his duVes. Immediate arrange-
ments will be made for carrying this determination into
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