The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-07-09
F0 B E IG N
FURTHER ADVlCES BY THE CITY OF
$780,. WASHINGTON. --4s--
From the London Times Of June 2lst.l
A COUPLE OF ENGLISH SCANDALS

not expend all their discredit upon those immed-
ately concerned in them. No one, we presume
would care to become the historian of the house of
MeuX, and it is fortunately unnecessary to go fur
Their back in point of date than the year 1871 when
the present Sir Henry Meux, having passed through
Eton and Christchurch, and being strong in body,
if not in mind succeeded to the Hertfordshire estate
and to the enormous profits of the brewery.
How he spent this income it is useless now to in
quire. He has three sisters, Lady Maiden, Mrs
Arabin and Lady Smith. Lady Maiden, previous
to her marriage, had kept his house for him, and
to her he had obligations which he seems to have
most generously discharged. In 1855 this rich and
prosperous man married daughter of Lord Ernest
Bruce, and was born to him. lie was, there
fore. at what men call the height of his prosperity
when the shadow of terrible doom stole over him.
Before his born he made Will, leaving
his real property to any eldest son, and 100000
each to any other children he might have. His
wife took life interest in the remainder. but his
sisters were not mentioned. The law, however,
would remedy this omission in the infant son
of Sir Henry should die. Sir Henry's sisters would
then take coheiresses the termination of Lady
Meux's life interest.
In July, 1857, Sir Henry made codcil to this
will, and thereby left his property to his children,
but. if there should be children, then to his wife
absolutely. Between the will and the codcil, there
fore, there is no practical difference if the infant,
Henry Bruce Meux, should grow up to manhood.
But there is chance that this child may die, and
if that should happen the property would, under
the terms of the will, go to the sisters after the
death of Lady Meux, and would go to the widow
absolutely under the terms OF the codicil. Sir
Henry Meux has become an idiot. About that
there is question. No one is interested in ques
toning it. The whole inquiry is fight over the
anticipated or imagined grave of the infant boy.
The object of the sisters is to prove that their
brother was mad on the Sd of July, 1857; lift can
be established that he up to the 4th of
Judy it is sufficient to answer the purposes of the
WIFE 1t is an edifying contest, and the proceed
ings preserve a consistent relation to their object
1t was proved that before the close of 1856 Sir
Henry shot bo1lV in
ershooting shot Gen. Hall in the leg. Lord Charles
Clinton remarked that Sir Henry had an impede
ment in his speech, but was not drunk. The Hon.
Charles Butler found difficulty in understanding
what he said. Sir Henry told Mr.. Bragg that
certain voters would vote for him, who he (Alr.
| Bragg knew would not do so. Mr.. Marjoribanks
remarked that he walked badly. Lord Ranelagh
| recommended him to give up Herfordshire and
stand for Middlesex for the same reason it to be
supposed, as that given for Hamets being sent to
| England. Moreover, when he canvassed he left to
his professional agents the work of persuasion, and
| limited his own form OF sautation to "Will you
| vote for me? | am the senior member. The sisters
| three moreover, in their anxiety for truth, or in
Industrious prosecution of their case, ranged the
| menials of the household in their ranks.
Sir Henry had intimated belief that his butler
was liar, and had scrutnzed the weekly bills Of
| his French cook. The DOCTORS as usual, differed
they differed in cOntraries and in contradctories,
they differed catagorically and alphabetically, they
differed subjectively and effectively, they differed
in diagnosis and in treatment. Weighing their evil
| dence in pair of scales, the overweight seems to
be the opinion of Sir Benjamin Brodie-namely,
that he did not think Sir Henry's Judgment upon
the qualifications of an attorney worth mach. We
| could find fifty attorneys to say much for Sir
| Benjamin Brodie. Far be it from us to say that
| Sir Henry was not quite mad when he shot badly,
ard walked badly, and talked badly, and canvassed
badly, and doubted the veracity of his butler and
| protanely questioned the accounts of his French
cook There certainly some other facts which
would carry the case rather further.
| But, if must admit that each of the imputed
acts of commission and omission is important
item in an indictment against mans sanity, we
must also tremble to think of the mental condition
of many people we have been associating with for
years After nine days wrangle at cost of 5000
or 200 day, over the broken intellect of this poor
lunatc, the jury came to the very sensible verdict
that they could not tell when his insanity assumed
an aspect which rendered him incapable of tesla
mentary disposition. They were right. As ap-
proach and pass the solstice can detect change
of temperature; but who can tell by his
| organ of sense at what moment he is passing the
line? The jury seem to have felt that the inquiry,
SO far as it was test, unnecessary. Their de-
cision as to the validity of the codici would have
been binding on no one. 1t was only an unseemy
scramble for better place in future fight-a fight
only to come off in Of the untimely death of
| the baby.
Throughout this melancholy exhibition the palm
for unblushing GOODNESS must be awarded to Mr..
Montagu Chambers. During contest wherein
every champion bore as his mOtto-'Auri Sacra
fdmes,' this philosophical and ethical ornament of
the Bar and the Legislature read serious lecture
to Lady Meux upon the evils of too great riches,
the disadvantages of wealth to widow sought in
marriage by an ardent lover, and the danger of ex-
citing the loquacity of evil speaking world
which might accrue from the fact of mother hav-
ing pecuniary interest in the death of her off
spring. The delicacy and good taste Of this appeal,
under the peculiar circumstances of the case cannot
be too highly eXtolled.
What shall we say of the other cause celebre of
the week? The plot is so quaint that it RENTS us
tp French N iDonp IF thn
to the earlier historiettes of the Court of good
King Charles III. 1t may be stated in a very few
words. a dowager lady of rank occupies her leis
in writing scandalous anonymous letters of, to,
and about her nephew, and when he eXpostuates,
sends her brother, a fighting Colonel, who has al
ready chad the misfortune" to kill his man, to de-
mand satsfaction which we must suppose means
to shoot the nephew through the body, or at least
to break an arm or leg, This new phase of nepot-
ism submitted to the double lights of the police
| court and the Court of Queens Bench.
The unhappy nephew, to avoid fighting the bro
Their of his uncles wife, was compelled to in
to court and tell his sad tale of persecution. He
| had lived for six years under perpetual shower
of filth. Wherever he turned the postman met him
with letter, and this letter always contained pre-
| cisely the most disagreeable thing that could be
suggested to him at that particular moment. There
is French farce wherein the heroine is prosecuted
nearly to death for repeating little scandal. Hav
ing inadvertently said that genteman's wife had
been unfaithtul to him, the husband makes her
responsible for the name of his rival. By ev-
cry post, in every society, wherever she may
be, she receives letter with the unyaryino inquiry
"Madame, sH rous plait--son "nom." She found the
persecution insutferable. So Mr.. Hughes, when he
about be married found himself assaied by i'm
putatlons that he was insolvent ilegitmate, eaten
up with the kings evil, and subject to hereditary
madness When he does get married he cannot re-
ceive his mother into his own house but the post
man arrives at his r.otherin- laws door with pro-
test Even his house-keeper is not allowed to pur-
| sue her course in peace, and the butler is shot
| through the character by an epistolary revolver
| Now, man may know himself to be verv solvent
and very healthy, and may find the society of his
| mother a soace, and may know his servants to be
honest, but still get impatient of pertinacous cor
respondence such this. He may be innocent of
| band-boxes and of those who carry them, and vet
not like to to be called "Bandbox Hunges"-
But if the offence had terminated here we need
not have had public esclandre. A private expo
sure wouldhave been sufficient; society would have
punished this Gambia, who draws her poisons from
the ink pot. An old wOman's spite and malignity are
| not thought worthy of much notice. unless they
should succeed in effecting mischief and in this case
there was no special damage, as the lawyers call it..
But when these letters are followed up BY the visit
of a fighting Colonel and by public denial upon oath
of the authorship of the letters we seem to see a
shameful act deeping in color to crime. We are
startled to find woman of rank coming into court
of justice, and soemnly, in the face of the world,
committing what the jury found to be perjury; but
| we have right to be surprised that a woman who
| could write the letters produced upon this trial
should try to shield herself from the disgrace of
| detection even by such awful means. The jury
| have declared that the scandalous anonymous let
| tiers which so prosecuted poor Mr.. Hughes were
written by Lady Dinorben, and this after she had
| appeared in the wtness-boX and had on her oath
repudiated them. The Judges summing up and
the evidence in the fully to bear out the
verdict. BY retrbutive piece of poetical Justice
| the wickedest and most unwomanly words which
the letters contained were written in the natural