The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1861-03-24

dent to tell it so early to their friends" This
kind Of policy may do very well for the back
woods, either in hunting beasts of prey or In
surprising Indians, but it will never do for
Wall street. or for the white men Of the Atlantic
States.
The Great Yelverton Case I'm Ireland
Novel Aspects Of Society.
The verdict in the great Yelverton case,
which must take rank among the most extraor-
binary of the causes celebres which have ever
occurred, has been given, and Mrs. Yelverton
(nse Longworth) has been declared the lawful
wife of the Honorable Major William Charles
Yelverton, heir apparent to the Avonmore
peerage, and an officer in the British army. The
unbounded satisfaction with which this decision
has been received by all classes and beth sexes
of the British people shows the absorbing in
terest with which the progress of the trial was
regarded, and the genuine sympathy of the
public for the injured lady. We publish in
another part of this days issue report Of the
evidence adduced, and are free to confess that
a more disgraceful expose of villany and heart
lessness than that furnished by the defendant
himself has never come to our knowledge. No
writer of fiction could have invented more
novel materials for stirring story than this
trial has revealed to us, or imagined worse
scoundrel or more winning heroine than the
two prominent characters that figured in it.
The unblushing manner in which the defendant
avowed his guilty schemes showed q total
disregard of the house of Avonmore,
his own reputation and his position in
her Majestys army, and it is sur
prising that any man could have stood day
after dayin crowded court, where he was
regarded only with scorn, for the purpose of
testifying to his own infamy and uttering SIAN
ders against woman who was the mother of
his child and worthy to be legally declared his
wife. That Major Yelverton is irrevocably
ruined morally and socially, by his own con.
fessions, is saying little His name will be
heard and spoken of only with contempt and
execration, and we doubt not he will be con-
sidered as unfit to enter the society of officers
and gentlemen as he will be totally excluded
from the society of ladies, Notwithstanding
his patrician birth and the name he has dis
graced. What club will admit or retain him
as a member after this, and how can the Duke
Of Cambridge do otherwise than request him to
resign his commission? Such a man is I'M
worthy to wear British red, and the scrupu-
lous Commander-in-C Chief will be the last to SO
far overlook the honor of the service, after the
disclosures "unfit for publication" as to allow
his name to remain on the army list.
OF course, in all his self-accusation- his
avowals of mean, cruel and remorse-
less rufianism-he had an object and
that was to prove that he was not
bigamist. He admitted himself cold,
calculating and fraudulent seducer, and re-
duced himself almost to the lowest depth of
establishment in order to gain this one point;
for be it remembered there is another unfortu-
nate lady whose interest in this trial was little
less than that Of the former Miss Longworth:
we mean the one he married after his desertion
and reputation of the other, and with whom
he was living at the commencement of the late
trial There may be question even now about
the actual legality of NE marriage performed in
Ireland; but there can be none about that pre-
viously performed in Scotland, where they mu-
tually joined in reading the marriage formula;
and he afterwards not only entered her name
with his own in the visiting book of hotel as
"Mr. and Mrs. Yelverton," but introduced her
to friend as his wife. According to Scotch
law this is ample evidence to sustain the mar
rage. The jury by their verdict found both the
Scotch and the Irish marriage legal more
melancholy case than this it would be difficult
to conceive, unless, indeed, we were to reverse
the verdict, and under the name of justice add
wrong to wrong.
The lady herself, it will be observed, was not
the plaintiff, but the principal witness in the
case, and the action was technically brought to
recover the amount of bill for necessaries
supplied to her; 80 that, before deciding upon
the liability Of the defendant, the jury had to
satisfy themselves that she was bis wife. There
is no doubt, however, that the real object of
the action was to elucidate this last important
point.
The case Of the Yelvertons does not un
fortunately stand alone as an instance
of the insincerity pervading modern So
cety, and the folly and wickedness to
which people in honorable positions are will
ling to resort whenever an object has to be
gained. When Major Yelverton and Miss
Longworth we're secretly married bya Catholic
priest at Rostrevor, and he deliberately de-
clared himself to that priest Roman Catho-
lie, although he knew himself to be at the same
time Protestant, he was guilty Of fragrant
piece of insincerity, because he did IL for the
purpose Of afterwards proving such marriage
to be invalid. He did this mainly because the
lady he was then misleading was unable to
pay his debts; and he had promised his brother,
upon whom he was dependent, not to marry
any lady who could not pay his debts. Deser-
ton, open reputation and second marriage
with another lady followed, without compunc.
ton on the part Of the heartless Major; and so