The Portland daily press., 1869-09-09
Gen. Halter vs.. Mrs. Stowe.

/
OF BRUNSWICK.
| Gen. Hniler VS.. HIrs. stowe.
| THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF TIE BYRON
| CONTROVERSY.
Gen. Butler drops into literature ain
friendly way,' just as he would drop into fl
nance, foreign politics or any other theme with
which he is supposed to be especially conver-
SAINT. He has furnished the Boston journal
with paper in which he views Mrs Stoves
article from The criminal lawyers standpoint.
MIR. Butler first applies to the case some of
the rules of judicial investigation, viz: That
evidence proving very improbable propos-
ton must be accurate, credible and conc,u-
sive, in as great degree as is the improbable
ity Of the fact to be established; that courts
do not allow husbands and wives 10 give the
| private conversations between themselves as
| evidence of the facts therein asserted as
| against each other; that chain of circum-
| stances where each link can of itself be fully
| ascertained and understood, may be more
conclusive presumptive evidence of the fact
to which it leads, than the memory or rela-
ton of fact by any single witness however
otherwise credible. A cursory examination
of Mrs. Stoves article shows that 1t contra
venes all of these, as well as every other rule
of evidence. 1t is the story of the wle-ad-
mittedly justly aggreved by thegross mscon-
duct Of the husband in other respects-con-
sisting largely of conversations with the hus-
band, narrated more than fifty years after the
events, and re-tod thirteen years after the
telling of the tale, of most improbable and
and almost incredible fact Of horrible out
rage upon herself and society, affecting deep
ly the rights and feelings of other and inno-
cent persons; unsupported by any other evil
dence; told confessedly for her own self
vindication, while confessing that the wife
had caused the memoirs of her husband,
wherein his side of the story had been told,
to be destroyed more than quarter of
century previously; and herself had waited
until every mouth had been closed in death
which could, as living witnesses, controvert
the statement. We subjoin a few of Gen.
Buffers points,.
The first point made Is the purility-or,
considering the mature age of Lady Byron,
which was sixty-four, the senility-of the al
legged motives tor disclosing this tale of guilt.
How could Lady Byron believe that the in
terest of the masses of the people of Eng
land in the cheap edition of Byron's poems
would be diminished by the publication of the
fact by his wife that he had been guilty of in
cest with his only sister, and that his wife
had consented to that intimacy by living with
him until driven away? Or how was it sup
posed that this disclosure was to go hand
in hand with the cheap edition, unless used
as an advertisement by the publisher? But
this declaration of her motive does not COM
port with the fact stated by Professor Wilson
in BlackwOod, in 1888, that Lady Byron sat
specially for her portrait TO illustrate. a high
priced edition of all Byron's works,
then about to be published by Murray, and
thus to enhance the sale of Manfred, Cain,
Don Juan and all among the aristocracy OF
England Furthermore, this "act of justice"
was not done for thirteen years, despite fur
ther publication of "cheap edtions;' nor,
indeed, by Lady Byrons authority at all, but
in the interest of 'pure womanhood" by Mrs.
Stowe. How far it is IN the interest OF "pure
womanhood" in America to have the young
men and maidens who have been charmed
and interested by the brilliancy of the poet
| ical genius of Byron, and all those who have
been charmed and carried away by the emo
| tional and now historical tales OF Uncle
| Toms Cabin and Dred, to be put to the dis
| cusson of questions of incest, and the events
| bearing on the same, the numbers and char
acter of loveliness or unloveness of the
| many alleged mistresses of Lord Byron, and
in comparing their traits, is question which
Mrs. Stowe might well have considered before
she sat down to lay this topic before the
American youth. But while Mrs. Stowe
writes to prove that an injured wife, who has
received the sympathy of all the world for a
generation, was not "cold-hearted and matb-
ematical." but loving spouse, she at the
| same time characterizes another lady, wife
| and mother, reported as noble and pure to
| be an incestuous beast. The last gift of this
| adulterous sister -paramour to her brother was
| a bible! How little reliance can be placed
upon this narration as statement of facts,
| may be seen when it appears that Mrs. Stowe
| received from Lady Byron memoranda with
dates affixed" and yet states the continuance
of the married connection OF Lord and Lady
| Byron to have been two years. 1t is difficult
| to see how this mistake could have been made
| by Lady Byron, even if there was nothing but
the puDgent epigram OF her husband to fix
| the dates in her mind. If Lady Byron's
| memorandum with the dates afiixed' has
made this mistake, then we know certainly
| that her mind had so lar failed that her state
ments of fact are not to be relied on. IfMrs
Stowe has made this great inaccuracy, put
| ting forward this very length of time as an
element of her story, then she is not faith
| full medium of transmission of the narration
of facts given by Lady Byron. Either horn
| of the dilemma would seem equally impaling.
Falsus in uno, falsus in Omnibus-false in
everything-is a maxim of the law of evi-
dence, which is, practically translated, mis-
| taken in one particular doubted in all.
But, examining in detail the narration of
| Mrs. Stowe, if all the facts and circumstances
known TO Byrol's life are made to square
with it and fit exactly, the story will be
strongly corroborated; if the facts heretofore
| publicly known and admitted by Lady Byron
| should be found to contradict the alleged
| facts, the latter cannot have weight. The
| two main statements of Mrs. Stoves narra-
| tion are the story of the wedding scene and
| the story of the separation. If the statement
| of Byron's attack upon young and loving
wife, at the prospect of losing whom he had
tainted some weeks before, is exactly true, it
is entirely inexplicable upon any theory. But
comparing it with cotemporaneous history,
we find Byron's private letters to his friend
Moore, written within week of this occur
renee and continued from time to time dur
ing the honeymoon, filed with expressions of
love, affection and satisfaction with his wife.
These were not written for any defence by
| Byron, or with the expectation ofmeeting the
public eye, but are apparent transcripts of
| his condition of mind to his most intimate
friend at the very time, Byron's account of
the journey, published forty years ago, men
tions that, on entering the carriage, he was
| somewhat out of humor at finding the lady's
| maid placed between him and his bride; but
| he protests against the story, which seems TO
have been then in circulation, that he was so
ungallant as to say that he had married Lady
Byron out of spite. If the Lady's maid were
| in that carriage, the speech attributed to
Lord Byron, in its length and breadth, is i'm
possible. If she were not, how did the ver-
sion of the story get in circulation that he
said to lady Byron that he married her out
| of spite? And why has not that version of
the story been contradicted before? To have
| a lady's maid thrust into a carriage with one,
at the beginning of wedding tour might
easily be imagined to be vexatious, and in
balancing probabilities, which is more likely,
that Byron might in vexation have said to
his wife, in reference to this proceeding of his
mother-n-law, who did it: "You had power
to have saved me from this annoyance. One
would suppose, that madam, thought you had
married devilg'-and that years after, this
was remembered to his disadvantage, and the
version given which Mrs. Stowe rectes or
that to young and loving wife in her maids
| 40 hurst forth in tho hrutal manner