Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1886-05-01 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

TALK WITH "NUMBER ONE."  The famous Bartlett-Dyson case terminated in the decision of the jury that there was no proof that the fair Adelaide, or rather the dark Adelaide, hail given her husband the fatal dose of chloroform. This is perhaps as near as a jury with the . evidence before them could get. The verdict leaves the Pimlico mystery a mystery still, arid the most mysterious part about it is the tremendous enthusiasm which the lady's acquittal evoked. According to her own showing, she had sent her Methodist masher to buy chloroform, and this chloroform she openly avows she intended to use for the purpose of making her husband insensible. This very chloroform purchased by Dyson got in some mysterious way a little further than Mr Bestlett's nose, and he was found dead with it in his inside, and that was the cause of his death. To say the least of it, a lady who looks upoa herself as sacred to another man during her husband's lifetime is hardly a heroine to be applauded to the skies.  . I have no wish to say anything against Mrs Bartlett beyond this, that if it is a proof of affection in a wife to get chloroform to administer to her husband in the interests of a gentlemen who is not her husband, most married men will be anxious for their wives to dissemble their love as much as possible. Mrs Bartlett has beautiful eyes, and is an interesting young 'woman. I think this, and the disgusting, cowardly conduct of the man Dyson, went a long way towards making Mr Clarke task a comparatively light one.  The medical testimony showed that it was very bard to administer chloroform in the way that the theory for the prosecution suggested. It Se*Mal to me that it is almost as difficult to understand how Mr. Bartlett administered it to himielf and got on to the bed again and died of it, and all without attracting his wife's attention imfficiently to make her ring the bell and call for assistance. If Mr Bartlett wasn't chloroformed by somebody else he chloroformed himself, and how he did it is now "the Pimlico Mystery."  Mrs Bartlett is proved innocent. No word must ever be said against her again. She dieappears from the case, and when we argue it out in the future we must coufine ourselves to finding out how and why Mr Bartlett elected to swallow the chloroform obtained with so much conning and duplicity by the dreadful Dyson. It was at least unfortunate that the means of suicide for the unhappy man should have been provided by this new Tartuffe.  • Wo have & perfect right to look at this famous case from a philosophic point of view, and get all the moral out of it that we can; and the moral seems to me to be that injured innocence stands a much better chance of being vindicated when it is young, pretty, and of the female sax. For the sake of argument, I will just turn the case upside down and see then if the cheering would have been as enthusiastic over the verdict of "Not guilty."..  Suppose—(these little exercises of the imagination are always good for the brain)—that Mrs Bartlett had arranged that at her decease her husband should marry a young and pretty governess who was in the habit of spending the day with him when Mrs B. was out—who called him by his Christian name, wrote him erotic poetry, and confessed that she was madly in love with him. Suppose it was proved that the governess went out, and by telling a lot of lies procured chloroform at three different shops, and brought it home to Mr B. Suppose one night Mrs 8.., having ordered a haddock for her breakfast the next morning, was found dead, being at the time alone in her room with Mr B. Suppose in Mrs B.'s inside was found some of the chlorofora which the girl Mr Bartlett was going to marry on his wife's decease had purchased. If you can suppose all this you have turned the Pimlico mystery upside down, and all you have to ask yourselves is, "Would Mr Bartlett have been enthusiastically °cheered when the jury said that he wasn't guilty ?"  I make these remarks not to dispute the van diet for a moment. I -think it is a just one under all the circumstances, and Mrs Bartlett is innocent, and has a right to be so considered by all the world. My only object ,in rearguing the case is to show that injured innocence has a better chance when it is a pretty young women than when it is a plain, middle-aged man, and that sentiment has s great deal to do with public opinion. And in that I fancy everybody will cordially agree with me.  • • • What a lovely day Good Friday Wihe I Tempted by the beauty of the weather, I went to the Zoological Gardens for five minutes in the morning to see "Sally," the Chimpanzee. " Sally " had a bad cold, the effect of the horrid east wind. As I have been re-reading Darwin's "Descent of Man" this week, I sojourned a little longer than I usually do in the monkeyhouse, in order that I might make a few scientific observations. Wishing to engage in conversation an ape who closely resembled a friend of mine, I went out to one of the refreshment stadia, and asked for two-pennyworth of nuts. "Are you a traveller ?" said the young lady behind the counter. "A what ?" said L "A traveller," said she; "we are bound to ask the question." I remembered it was Good Friday; but I didn't see even then where the licensing law came in, so I replied, "Madam, I fancy I am sufficiently a bona-fide traveller for two. pennyworth of nuts." • • •  I know that the licensing laws are fearfully and wonderfully male, but I was not until now aWare that a man must be a traveller in order to obtain food for a monkey. • •  The other night was attracted by a crowd at tbe corner of Orford-street surrounding a young rtwho was singing in a voice which must have e distinctly audible at one and the same at the Marble Arch and Halborn Bars. I heard such a voice in - life—you mild the drums of the 'ear, h- Eorl  Bi-c;Tis, I  time, never hear i l'kE7