The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1904-08-20
z+7
r -. ;.

From Photo Taken Shortly After Her
Marriage
that the Judge who summed up the case
comported himself IN q manner most I'M
judicial
The unjudicial action Of Justice Ste
phen IN the Maybrick case rendered him
unpleasantly notorious, and remains one
OF the strangest acts ever INDUCED in
by the bench. Two Of the eight days Of
the trial Justice Stephen spent in trying
10 throw guilt on the woman whom the
medical men had declared WroRgfully
accused, accused Of a crime which did
not exist. As Sir Charles Russell the
distinguished lawyer that defended Mrs.
May brick, said OF Justice Stephen: He
2assionately invited the jury to find a
FeIQict Of guilty, taking two days to
sum up-the first day as Judge, and on
he second he ragged like a violent coEn-
sci for the prosecution against her.
People frcEn all classes Of life have
concerned themselves in the effort to
obtain pardon for the imprisoned Wom-
An. the highest, both at home and abroad,
andeaVoring to make their influence
count against the stolidity of the British
goFernmeot There is no space to
e1umerate tae famous appeals made in
RIEs Maybrickas behalf, but mention will
e gisen some few Mr. w T. Stead,
three years after trial, awoke TO belief
in the criminalty of the judgment passed,
and with his accustomed feaFlessness
went to the attack. In 1893 he published
these words: Z cannot resist the con-
clusion that the case is a scandalous il
Iustration of the very worst sides of the
British judicial system and of the Brit
III. character, that, il only to give US
chance of burying the matter in oblivion,
Mrs. Maybrick should be released. / do
not care how predjudiced any one may
BE against Mrs. Maybrick. No English
man can feel otherwise than ashamed Of
having to defend the manner in which
she has been deaIth with by our country
and our government. Ii. as seems by no
means improbable, the case should be-
come a subject of diplomatic representa-
lions, as it has already become the sub
5ec4 for very vehement journalistic dis
putation between the papers in America
and Great Britain, we shall not be able
to escape @ gibbeting that is little short
of q national humiliation. The Amer
leans. who in high places and in low, are
eritieising the way in which We dealt
with Mrs. May brick, have US on the hip
4 sorrier exhibition Of all that is worst
in the hluIdering, Wrong-headed, Illog-
ical side Of John Bull has seldom or never
given occasion for his enemies to exult
and his friends vince
Mr.. Maybrick was B man notorious1y
immoral. but Justice Stephen, in his
TRADE against the unhappy wife, en-
phasfzed not Mr.. Maybrich's unsayory
reputation. but portrayed the woman as
z horrible adu1teress, false to her lord
the husband that she was bound to love
and respect. The slightest excuse for
the Judges strong language lay in the
fact that once Mrs, Rfaybrich maddened
hv the numberless insults heared upon
her by the man whose name she bore,
did imprudently compromise herself BY
association with a man friend in whom
sac had eonfded tho tragedy Of her daily
life. Justice Stephen, having horror
of urlfaithful women. worked himself up
into a frenzy about this one he believed
guilty. and also worked the jury up to
such q pitch it was able III q very few mo-
menIs to pass an unlooked-for verdict.
It appears Sir Fitzjames Stephen felt ii