Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1887-10-08 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

IVLP. for Rochester, has been unable to refute a charge brought against him of having seduced his step-daughter and attempted to secure a large slice of her fortune. All he could do was to attempt to deuy„in an underhand and question-begging manner, some of the allegations. He was, however, unsuccessful, and his shallow sophistry was justly and mercilessly exposed. The only question now in regard to the matter is what should be done with him. He cannot be punished at law, because the law does not regard his act as a crime. He remains as yet a "gentleman," an officer, a member  Parliament, and a member of certain London clubs. The society which recognises such a creature as this, and does not cry shame upon him, even when knowing the rankness of his offence, must be said to have a curious code of honour. Ordinary working men would lynch a thing of his description, but the clubs and the army do not seem to be much disturbed. As for the House of Commons, the Tory party openly confess that heonght not to resign his seat, because Rochester cannot be depended upon to vote Tory next time. In other words, it is of no consequence how much a party man's character may stink in the nostrils .of honest men, he is good enough for them if he will only vote straight. Not charity, but Toryism, covereth the multitude of sins, is their reading of the old text.  THIS exposed profligate in the House of Commons finds a sympathetic Tory coworker in the House of Lords in the form of the turf swindler, the noble Marquis of Ailesbury. The Tory cause reaps as much honour from the support of the "honour. able and gallant member," the seducer, as does the cause of hereditary legislation in the person of the gambling blackleg and common cheat who has been warned off Newmarket Heath and other racecourses. Racing at the best of times has degenerated now into a poor business, so far as honesty is concerned, and matters have to go very far indeed before public notice is taken of the conduct of any one individual. It is thus the special prerogative and privilege of the House of Lords to supply a loafing blackguard more wantonly abandoned and more flagrantly shameful than any other cheat of the year. Such a distinction has made even Tory journals cry out for such reforms of the Lords as will prevent the Upper House becoming a resort for the morally maimed, halt, and blind who have been hissed away from their usual haunts of profligacy, cheating, and vice. Even the Morning Post cannot think that a notorious and exposed blackleg would make a good hereditary legislator. " It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," and the blackguardism and cheating of the Marquis of Ailesbury may, perhaps, yet do good by hastening the abolition of the Second Chamber in its present form. Vice can often succeed where virtue fails. Its arguments are more startling. Certainly, the career of such a reprobate is the reductio ad absarduen of the hereditary system.  THE horror of the week is the most horrible murder of an old Vicar by his curate. The murderer had apparently no motive, as he and his unfortunate victim had been on exceedingly good terms. The Vicar was lying in bed one morning, and the curate came into the room, walked up to the bedside, and while talking to the old man cut his throat so severely that death soon ensued. This all took place in the presence of the Vicar's wife. So far the murderer—for there can be no doubt of his guilt, since the deed was done before a witness—has given no reason whatever for his terrible act. The murder has all the elements of a terrible romance, and volumes might be written on the problem of the man 's motive. Morbid psychologists might make much of the details of such a crime. Indeed, Mr Grant Allan in the Cornhill Magazine some months ago anticipated in a short story a crime having much in common with the present, iii which the "Curate of Churnaide " murdered his Vicar. The motiveof the fiction was gain, that of the real crime is entirely hidden. But its horror and awfulnees lie on the SWIM*