The Sun. — 1845-01-29 (London, England)

PISTOL PRACTICE AT A PICTURE.—A young man, described as a surgeon, named Edward Stanley, was charged with wilfully destroying a picture by firing a loaded pistol at it in the Artichoke public-house, in White Hart-street, Drury-lane, the property of Mr. W. Clark, the landlord.  It appeared from the statement of the complainant's son, that about eight o'clock on Monday evening the defendant came into the parlour and called for gin, and water, with which he was served by the waiter, but he had not been long in the room before the report of a pistol was heard, which caused great alarm, and on witness entering the room he observed the defendant reloading the pistol with a bullet, and upon remonstrating with him, he said he would do as he thought proper, which alarmed the witness to such a degree that he ran out of the place, and directly after he heard the second report. Witness then rushed into the room, and on calling the defendant to account for such conduct, he said it was no harm, but on looking round the room he saw that the picture against the wall had been penetrated by the ball. The defendant said it was all right, at the same time refusing either to pay for the damage or give up the pistol. The picture was worth about a sovereign ; it had been in the house for upwards of forty years, and the only reason given by the defendant for such conduct was that he had been to Smith's shooting-gallery in Holborn, where he was insulted. The first discharge was without a bullet, but the second was near doing serious injury. The defendant had frequented the house for a considerable time, and he never knew him guilty of any disorder before the present occasion. In answer to the charge, the defendant said he had dined with a friend, and took more than he could well bear, and, as he was extremely sorry for the occurrence, he would willingly pay for any damage he might have done. Mr. JARDINE said he could scarcely treat the offence as wilful damage, and, as a loaded pistol had been discharged, the defendant's friends should have come forward with a view to have bail taken for his future good conduct.  In the course of the day the defendant's landlady attended, and in consequence of the good account she gave of the defendant, and his expressing his regret for what had happened, he was mulcted in the sum of 205., which he instantly paid, and was discharged.  " Who saw his nob'e and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh."  The cry of his enemies at this spectacle is something like in words, as it is in sincerity, to the speech of the royal assassin to the ghost of the victim whose death he had compassed rather than executed. " Thou can'st not say that we did it !" is their sullen shout of defiance, when the eye of an accusing man falls upon them. Neither do the public, nor do we, charge them with the crime, directly. But that they have been the remote cause of so terrible a result is as clear as it is incontestable. And not so remote either. We need not go so far back as the age of Clement and Ravaillac to show that the Jesuits teach, encourage, and reward public and private assassination. We need not refer to the accusing " Provinciales" of Pascal ; nor to the theory of the duty Of manslaughter inculcated by Mariana ; nor to any, even modern revelations, of the past deeds of a society so " damned to everlasting fame." The sensitive mind of M. Villemain would probably have been but slightly affected by these things, but that he was aware that the class books of the Jesuits, published ,for the instruction of the young of our own day, inculcate principles subversive of all good, and show how murder may be not only expedient, but moral. For our own parts we desire to have nothing further to do with the question, than to show that that order of men, for whose lawful'and public appearance• in the field of Irish agitation Mr. O'Connell is so anxious, and even " his Grace, my Reverend Lord" Dr. Murray is scarcely less so, are at thi4 hour teach. ing that the commission of crime may be a virtue, and that things condemned of God may be legalised in the immoral code of man.