The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-08-16 00:00:00

themselves in its resistless eareer,—upon their hauls
still be the onus—upon their heads the infamy of all
the ruin it may work !
But, we may ask, is it a thing which absolves alto-
gether the League party from a participation in having
caused the present disturbances, if " the Charter"
becomes now, or has been from the first, the object
sought by the working classes ? Has the Anti-Corn-
Law League kept itself of late widely apart from the
Chartist agitation ? Have we witnessed of late no
coquettings on the part of the League-men with the
Chartist party ? Is Mr. John Brooks not a Chartist ?
Are not the entire party in Manchester self-pledged to
a sympathy with the objects sought by the O'Connors,
the Vincents, and other gaol-birds of the same kidney ?
Really, gentlemen of the League, you presume a little
too much upon the short memory of the world, and its
inattention to your raving absurdities !

Our Romish contemporary of Saturday offers but a
halting reply to our late notices of the Jesuitical la-
bours of himself and his party. We were in error
certainly in one of these, in stating St. Francis Xavier,
the new favourite of the Papists of Liverpool, to have
been the founder of the Order of Jesuits. " Odds,
chronology and theology ! " exclaims the Journal ;
" the apostle of the Indies the founder of the Jesuits !"
Be it that St. Francis was not " the founder"—he was,
however, " the chief disciple " of the founder ; was
canonized by the same Pope in the same year ; and
our " chronology," therefore, is net much in fault.
Perhaps the Journal will tell us what " theology " has
to do with the matter.

In addition, however, to this error, we have been
guilty of the serious offence of calling several things
and persons by their proper names. We called the
Right Hon. Daniel O'Connell, M.P., Lord Mayor of
Dublin, A BEGGAR. We could find some seven mil-
lions of people who would vouch for the correctness
of the appellation. We said—presuming that that il-
lustrious individual was to be chaperoned by William
Rathbone into the presence of the merchants of Liver-
pool—that the said William would thus be enacting
the part of " jackal" to the " Irish lion." We have
a little changed our opinion upon this subject. The
illustrious " beggar" does not merit comparison with
the king of beasts; and William Rathbone would
therefore only be enacting the part of pioneer and
lickspittle to some more vulgar animal. 'We termed
the editor of the Journal a " Romish journalist " and
" a Jesuit." If he is not the former, our perception
of men and things is at fault, as is that of the greater
portion of this community ; and if he is not " a Je-
suit," he ought, according to the showing of Daniel
O'Connell himself, to become one as fast as he can,
and, moreover, never to feel shame in confessing him-
self to be one.

Upon the general subject of " calling names," we
would, in conclusion, refer him to the example of that
eminent
.personage ; and thus we leave him for the

present.

The Journal of Saturday indulges in a lengthy echo
of the complaints made by the counsel for the pri-
soners in the recent abduction case, to the effect that
the evidence, as to the proceedings of the parties and
the condition of the plaintiff at Gretna, was not gone
into, and that consequently " public justice" was not
done to the parties condemned. " There were two
indifferent parties," remarks the Journal, " present at
the marriage—Linton, the keeper of the hotel, and his
daughter—and neither of them was examined. The
reason doubtless was that their evidence was adverse
to the prosecution ; and we have heard that they both
spoke in the strongest terms as to the act being a con-
scious and voluntary one on the part of the prosecu-
trix, and to circumstances bearing out that construc-
tion of it."

The imputation here conveyed is a very unjust one,
and is besides quite unwarranted by the facts. The
reason why Linton and his daughter were not called,
although in Liverpool, was not "because their evidence
was adverse to the prosecution," but simply because it
was not required to bring home the charge against the
parties accused. These parties were arraigned for a
felonious abduction, for the purpose of procuring the
marriage of the female, and the subsequent possession
of her property. The abduction and the intent were
all which the statute under which they were indicted
required to be proved. It was, as stated distinctly by
the Lord Chief Justice, no matter whether Miss Crellin
was made drunk or made herself drunk, or whether or
not she was subsequently married, with her own con-
sent or without it. If any one, taking advantage of
her intoxication, however produced, did, with an in-
tent to marry her against her consent, and secure the
possession of her property, " carry her away though
ever so little distance, such party was guilty of the
offence charged." The abduction was the offence,
which the after marriage, except by the consent of the
party injured, could not get rid of.
We may be asked, why were these parties, Linton
and his daughter, here at all, if not required for the
furtherance of justice ? We give the reply in the words
of the Lord Chief Justice, in his charge to the Grand
Jury. " There may probably," remarks his lordship,
" be a question of much importance and difficulty
raised, because, as it appears that the marriage did
take place, the question of the validity of that marriage
may of necessity precede every inquiry into the subject.
If the female in question has become the wife of the
principal party charged, she cannot then appear as a
witness against him." Whether this is good law or
not, we shall not stop to inquire. It is perfectly clear,
however, that, as witnesses to the validity or invalidity
of the marriage, these parties were in attendance. Of
the abduction they could know nothing. They could
testify, however, whether or not Miss Crellin was mar-
ried to one of the prisoners by her own consent—whe-
ther, in fact, she was his wife, and therefore incapaci-
tated from being a witness against him—and their
evidence would no doubt have been secured had the
point, as to the marriage being a bar to her being
heard, been pressed. It was not pressed, however ;
and probably because it was presumed that the expo-
sure of this silly and degraded woman in the witness-
box was more calculated to serve the prisoners than
her total silence.

Whilst upon this subject, although in the particular
case before us we cannot agree with the censures of
the Journal, we must nevertheless enter our decided
protest against the way in which the recent assizes
have been conducted throughout. A more hurried
and slovenly administration of justice we never wit-
nessed ; and we doubt if there was ever one which
excited more the dissatisfaction of the profession gene-
rally and the public. No less than 148 causes were
set down for trial. Several of them were special-jury
cases. One—the case of Sherborne versus Quarme—
was, from the quantity of documentary evidence to be
produced, nearly certain to occupy the attention of the
court for two or three days. The calendar was not a
light one ; and yet twelve days were all which were
allowed for all this mass of litigation to be got through !
And it has not been got through, notwithstanding the
summary striking out of causes in the first day—the
settling (?) of cases, from the certainty of their not
being properly adjudicated upon—the submissions to
reference and the hasty and indecent mode in which,
as in the case of Taylor versus Walmsley, verdicts
have been pressed within the concluding day or two.
The entire assize has been, in fact, a scramble for jus-
tice; and why this should be, when the long vacation
is before us, and only one judge and not a barrister is
required to be in London before the 2d of November,
is a mystery which we cannot solve.