The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1867-07-13 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

MRS. YELI7ERTON IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.  Mrs. Yelverton's case was concluded on Tuesday, and their lordships took time to consider their decision. The announcement that the appellant would addrei,s the House in person brought down an immense number of ladies who, however, were for the moot part unable to gain admittance, the area below the bar being very limited.  On the case being called on, the Appellant expressed a fear that she should be unequal to the task of finishing her reply in one day, as she felt greatly exhausted in consequence of having been up nearly the whole night in endeavouring to master the points of the reply drawn up by her counsel, whose writing she found it extremely difficult to decipher. The Lord Chancellor said the appellant was scarcely keeping faith with the House. Their Lordships had done everything to accommodate her, and she must recollect that these postponements were very inconvenient to the other side. Her case had been fully opened at the commencement, and therefore the House would require her to proceed at once with her Anderson said that as it was a peculiar case he should not object to the learned counsel for the appellant (Mr. Campbell Smith) proceeding with the ftThe Lord Chancellor said that would be breaking through a rule which should in no case be departed from.  The appellant said she would do the best she could under the circumstances. After some consultation with the other noble and learned Lords, the Lord Chancellor said that if the appellant thought she was unable to undergo the fatigue -of going through the case herself, their Lordships were of opinion that under the circumstances the case might be treated as an exceptional one. On account of the illness of the appellant they would hear her counsel, but if she began she must finish her reply herself. They could not permit her to break off in the middle and then hear her counseL Her counsel might, however, sit by her side and make suggestions to her as she proceeded. The appellant then proceeded to read her reply as prepared by counsel. The whole address was of a dry legal character, and it was rendered still less interesting by the fact that she was unable to read it fluently in consequence of the difficulty she experienced in deciphering the writing. After she had proceeded for upwards of three hours, she came to a passage which she altogether failed to make out. Mr. Anderson, to whom she handed the paper, said that the passage was perfectly illegible. The Lord Chancellor said under these circumstances their Lordships would permit Mr. Campbell Smith to read the remainder of the reply, on the condition that he confined himself to what appeared within the four corners of the written reply. Mr. Campbell Smith then finished the legal argument.  -7171-1-eir Lordships having adjourned for half an hour, in order to give the appellant thus to rest and refreshment,  The Appellant proceeded to say that this -unfortunate case had brought to light the anomalous state of the marriage laws of the three Kingdoms—a purely civil contract in Scotland, the marriage law in Ireland was a tyrannical, fanatical, religious one In the latter country, if a nit.a professed hiMsell a Prat stant by going to church and sacrilegiously receiving the Holy Sacrament for the first time in his life, he could then possess himself, with all the formalities and religions ceremonies prescribed by law, of the person and property of any Catholic lady his evil eye might have fallen upon, and then turn her adrift to ignominy, poverty, and shame by setting up his Protestantisni—by setting up his religion as the cloak and shield of the vilest crimes -the mockery of his God on His consecrated altar, the defiance of His laws in ilisivery temple,jand the worse than murder of his helpless victim. Such was the existing law in Irehind— a law, framed_iu the, dark hour of religious  persecution, I hied,