The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-08-03 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE,

The Recordership of Hull, vacant by the resignation of
Matthew Talbot Baines, Esq., M.P.. has been conferred
by the Crown upon Thomas C. Granger, Esq., M.P. for

CommissioN or LUNACY.—Thursday a commission de
lunatico inquirendo was opened before Mr. Commissioner
Barlow and 17 special Jurors, at the Grey's Inn Coffee-
house, to inquire as to the state of mind of Thomas Brad-
shaw Isherwood, Esq., of Marble-hall, near Stockport,
Cheshire. The commission was taken out by Mrs. Ish-
erwood (the wise). In its support appeared Mr. Calvert,
of the Chancery bar. The unfortunate gentleman, the
subject of this inquiry, is only 27 years of age, possessed
of a fortune of nearly £l,OOO per annum, and has forsome
time held the post of Deputy-Lieutenant of Cheshire.
In the early part of 1844 he became alternately violent
and sullen, labouring under delusions that he was the son
of Napoleon, grandson of the Emperor of Austria, and
also the son of Maria Theresa, and imagined that Louis
Philippe had come to. the County Court of Chester, bring-
ing ajury-box under his arm. In connection with these
delusions, he had written letters to the Queen, Prince
Albert, Louis Philippe, and, in fact, to nearly all the
crowned heads of Europe, claiming his rights. The Jury
returned a verdict, dating the unsoundness of mind from
the 23d of February, 1844.

THE WOOD WILL-CAUSE SETTLED AT LAST !—ln the
House of Lords on Wednesday last, Lord Lyndhurst
gave judgment in the appeal of the corporation of Glou-
cester against a decision of Vice-Chancellor Wigram, who
held that a claim made on their part to two sums of
£140,000 and £60,000, under a codicil to the will of the
late James Wood, Esq., of that city, was untenable.
Lord Lyndhurst, who sat for the Lord Chancellor, con-
firmed the judgment of the court below, in which deci-
sion Lords Brougham and Campbell fully concurred.
The appeal was therefore dismissed without costs.—At a
meeting of the corporation on the following day, the
question of the expenses was discussed, and it appeared
that, exclusive of prior proceedings in the Prerogative
Court, these would amount to about £8,700. Of this
sum, the Town-clerk had received from the borough
funds, in part payment, £6,605 ; and he had also received
£lO5 from the late Mr. Counsel, one of the legatees
under the codicil, as a contribution towards the expenses
which the corporation had been put to in prosecuting the
suit. Altogether about £2,000 more would be required.
—The corporation, it transpired, had an offer of £25,000
in settlement of their claims of £200,000 ; but this was at
the time rejected.

DURHAM, JULY 26.—WIGHTWICK V. SADDLER.—..
BREACH OF PROMISE OF MARRIAGE.—III this action the
damages were laid at £B,OOO. The plaintiff was a young
lady, a native of the south of England, whose father was
dead, and mother in reduced circumstances. She had been
engaged as housekeeper to the defendant, a man of 60 years
of age, and in independent circumstances, residing at
Whitehill-cottage, near North Shields. Her sister and
brother-in-law were several times invited to dinner with
the defendant, and they and the plaintiff sat at the same
table with the defendant, with whom they met on terms of
perfect equality. Ultimately the plaintiff proved enciente
to the defendant, and in July, 1846, was delivered of a
daughter. Both before and after this event several pro-
mises of marriages were spoken to by the witnesses, though
no actual preparations appeared, from the evidence, to have
been made for that consummation. Shortly after her ac-
couchement, the plaintiff, signed a paper, the purport of
which was to release the defendant from his engagement.
This was alleged by the plaintiff to have been procured by
fraudulent representations. Mr. Watson, for the defen-
dant, contended that the £3O was a full equivalent for any
injury the plaintiff had sustained for any breach of pro-
mise; dwelt on the absence of all correspondence of an
impassioned nature between the parties, and on a declara-
tion of the plaintiff, that Mr. Saddler was so ill-natured
that she could not live with him, and that he was insane ;
and contended that there was no promise after the release.
—Verdict for the defendant.
YORK, JULY 23.—MURDER BY A MADMAN.—SamueI

Linley was charged with having, on the 28th of May last,
at Rawmarsh, wilfully murdered Susanna Jagger. We
gave the facts of the case at the time. It will be recol-
lected that as the deceased was walking on the road
between Rawmarsh and Rotherham, the prisoner walked
up to her, knocked her down, and cut her throat. He
was a great drinker, and was in a state of delirium tre-
mens, crying out as soon as he was secured, " I thought
she was the devil, so I killed her." The prisoner was
acquitted on the ground of insanity, and was ordered to
be detained in custody during her Majesty's pleasure.

OPERATION OF GODLESS COLLEGES IN

FRANCE

We said at the beginning of this article that schools
were amongst the solemn realities of life. It is impossible,
as we think, to overrate their civil, and political, and reli-
gious importance. The fierce outcry against the measure
of the present Government is but a just compliment to the
transcendant importance of the question of popular educa-
tion, for the men of a country are but its grown up school-
boys. Our advocacy of schools of all kinds, however, is
directed more to their moral than their literary structure :
the latter is easily attainable, and is so much a matter of
course that it seems difficult to conceive how a man can
be impudent enough to offer to teach what he himself
does not understand ; the former element, therefore—the
moral machinery is the real cause of the contention, and
is the "one thing needful," whether in the schools of the
poor or the rich. Very few can or need be made good
scholars ; but allcan be and need to be, grounded in the
principles of religion and virtue. The education which
does not primarily aim at this, recognising by its specific
arrangements that it is an integral element in the consti-
tution of the schools we hold it to be radically defective-
The natural means of creating a nation of inlidels are to
fill its schools with infidel or semi-infidel teachers. We
may wonder at the open disregard expressed for religion
by the men and women of France ; but the wonder ceases
the moment we understand the character of its schools
and universities. We deem this topic so full of instruction
to ourselves, as teaching by example, that we shall draw
largely upon Dr. Wordsworth's proofs of the moral condi-
tion of French schools and universities :—" Since the time
of this visit to the college of Louis le Grand, I have made
enquiries in various quarters concerning the moral char-
acter of their Parisian schools, and I regret to say that in
no case has the report been a favourable one. I cannot
but feel some hesitation in making the statement which.
have done with respect to the morality of their great
establishments, the colleges of Paris. lam not only re-
cording the result of private enquiries, but am echoing,,
and that very faintly, the language of the official report of
nine chaplains of their colleges themselves to their eccle-
siastical superiors, 'in the year 1830, the terms of which
are so serious and fearful that it may well be considered, a
matter of surprise that these colleges should now be ()Ver
flowing with vast numbers of students who resort to them,
indeed, that they should be accredited places of education
for the youth of this great cc - " The following
extracts from the report :—"
to express do not refer to one college more than another,
nor are they of mere local or special concern. We
are filled with sentiments of despondency and horror,
which no words can express, when we reflect on the al-
most utter futility of our office, although we have spared
neither pains nor study to render it effective. It is not
indifference or the force of passion which leads them to a

,untry. ....6 art
The opinions we have now

In fact how can we expect they
should believe tiod
when they see such contempt for religion, and when they
listen every day of their lives to lectures of so contradie.
tory a character, and when they find Christianity no where
but at chapel ; and then, too, an empty Christianity; of
bare forms and technical routine ? They arrive at the age
of fifteen without any rule for their thoughts, and without
any rein for their actions, except an exterior discipline
which they abhor, and masters whom they treat as mer-
cenaries ' • and, at length, when the course of their studies
is complete, of those who issue from the colleges, the
average number of the students who have preserved their
religion to the end of their career does not amount to
more than one student from every college in each year,,i.
—Church of England Quarterly Review.