QUID PRO QUO.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1435, 21 January 1885, Page 2

QUID PRO QUO.

Some months ago we published the re- I marks made by the Lord Chief Justice of j England while sentencing the proprietor I of the World newspaper to a term of im- I prisonment for criminal libel. The facta I revealed in , the now notorious case, I “ Adams v. Coleridge,” have given the j World an opportunity to retaliate, which I it does very effectually in the following I piquant article : I The manner in which the first stage of j the case of Adams t. Coleridge has closed I associates the name of Mr Justice Maniaty —notwithstanding his statement in Court on Monday—immediately and indirectly of the Lord Chief Juatice of England, with an event which Is calculated to diminish the confidence felt in the administration of justice, and to confirm the mischievous popular superstition that there is one law for the favored and another for the unfavoured classes. Law has been repeatedly defined as the embodiment of common sense. Yet the action of the presiding judge in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, legal as it certainly was, is in contradiction to the plainest dictates of common sense, and admirably adapted to bring any legal tribunal into contempt. Mr Jostice Manisty has indeed made it perfectly clear that he had a reason technically sufficient for acting as he did, and he has only avoided the tedious and costly necessity of a new trial. That is surely net a satisfactory condition of things in which law expenses can only be kept within rational limits by reducing law itself to an absurdity. The first consideration which will occur to every one is that supposing, as Sir Henry James contended, and as tbe judge ultimately decided, ihere was no evidence entitling the plaintiff to a verdict, the case should have been stopped. This the Attorney-General insisted upon, and Mr Justice Manisty would have done wall to have been guided by him. Gan anything be more ridiculous than the spectacle of a judge who, after eulogising the institution of trial by jury, and expressing his sat sfaction at leaving a case in the hinds of the twelve intelligent gentlemen before him, within five minutes turns round and practically informs them that they are incapable of rightly appreciating facts, and that their finding and their verdict cannot stand ? After the jury bad pronounced for the plaintiff, Mr Justice Manisty inquired what da uages they Be thea informed the jury that he entirely dissented from their view, and that he should sign judgment for the defendant. Now, all this maybe, as the Gravedigger in Bamlet says, the law ; but if so, it is a law which should be changed, and suoh mock trials and burlesque procedure as that of Saturday last should be reserved for the stage which is adorned ty the fantastic genius of a Gilbert and a Sullivan. What, however, will more deeply impress, disgust, and shock the public is the revelations which the trial elicited, and the chapter it opens in the family life of an English nobleman, who occupies nearly the highest judicial position in the land. There appeared /in the Morning Post, May d. ISS4. the following advertise imnit : DAI I V GOVERNESS.—The Hon. Mildred Coleridge, S 3 Abingdon ro.ul, Kensington, gives instruction in music (theory and practice), German, Italian, and French, and rudimentary (b eek and I atin. Literature class on Wednesday afternoons. This appeal to English parents for their patronage by the only daughter of the Lord Chief Justice of - ngland excited the astonishment, not unmixed with indignation, of the public. The record of the action for libel brought by Mr Adams against the Lord Chief Justice’s aon supplies the explanation and constitutes the requisite commentary upon the eccentric text. Miss Coleridge was driven to become a daily governess, living in a small house or lodging in a cheap suburb, because her home, the home from which her mother had six years ago been removed by death, and which was controlled by the father, who was, therefore, morally charged with the responsibilities of both parents, had ceased to be for her a habitable place. This deplorable and humiliating condition of things may have been directly brought about by her illstarred engagement. But to admit this,

is only to compel us to go back one stage farther. Is it conceivable that any young woman of ordinary self-respect, brought up with the notions of delicacy and breeding which one is bound to believe that, at least during the lifetime of her mother, Miss Coleridge had an opportunity of acquiring, would have accepted an offer of marriage as cold, conventional, and one might almost say as compulsory, as, according to Mr Adams, was that which he was constrained to make ? The inference which all sensible, all humane parents, all daughters who have any tnowledge of decent homes, will draw is chat Miss Coleridge deliberately preferred a frigid and joyless marriaae to the domestic misery which she had endured for years.; And this young woman was nurtured in an atmosphere where from her infancy she must have listened to the pious precepts and devotional platitudes of a smug religionism. The mind of the Lord Chief Justice, if an idea can be formed of it from the glimpses which in his official capacity ha allows us, is a treasure house of copy-book headings, all of them hinting at the union and identity in the person of Lord Coleridge of legal infallibility and moral excellence. Lord Coleridge is more than a mere judge. He is far above the weaknesses of any of bis predecessors, and poses in all respects as the ethical superior of the late Sir Alexander Oockburn. Yet so beneficiect was the influence which he exercised in his own household, so eminently adapted was ho to be taken as a model for the father of a family, (hat while he was sitting in judgment, p-sii.g as the visible embodiment of civil and divine authority, his daughter was being driven out of doors and-oompelled to ply the trade of a dai y goyemess. 'l hat is, at the best, a precarious and pitiable calling. But it is clear that it can have offered Miss Coleridge few fresh hardships She at least had nothing to anticipate in her struggles to gain her

own bread which could defer her from quitting her father’s to >f. It is an edifying glance into the private life of the Lord Chief Justice of England which the testimony of Mr Adams affords. Seldom even on the threadbare levels of shabbygenteel existence, never certainly in such a social position as that of Lord Coleridge, has the curtain been lifted in a court of justice upon a domestic interior so graceless and so squalid. Mr Adams appears to have acted with wisdom in cot allowing himself to partake of the greatly grudged hospitality of the Coleridge family. He appears also to have very correctly undera toed the entire family position. When, therefore, the small sole and the bread-and-butter made their appearance, the affianced husband of the lady declined to partake of the proffered refreshment, exI cept so far as to consume a fragment of bread-and-butter, and this only in order not to wound the feelings of his hostess. Even thus he would not apparently have been prevailed upon, without hearing that Miss Coleridge, like the servants in the establishment, was on board wai?es. What a picture ! The only and motherless daughter of that upright and eloquent judge, to whose lips the finest and holiest of sentiments are always springing from a guileless and chivalrous heart, treated in her father’s house upon exactly the same footing as a scullery wench I Bat there is no need to dwell upon all the details of this distressing tale of parismony, meanness, and cruelty in the .household of a judge. The Lord Chief Justice owes it entirely to himself and the wrong-beaded and discourteous obstinacy of his son, who entirely ignored Mr Adams’s offer to disprove the chacges brought against.him to Mr Bernard Coleridge’s satisfaction in private, that the public is now acquainted with the shocking and sickening story. One word more. Months ago, on the 9th of April, when Lord Coleridge denounced this journal for prying into the private doings of others, chronicling their lives and generally pandering to an unhealthy appetite, all | the facts on which this action was based, and which have been now dragged into the light of day, were known to us. We were fully and particularly informed as to the quality and the' amount of the dirty linen which has now been washed in public. Had wo stooped to the cheap sensa-tion-mongering with which we were then charged, we could not have wished more attractive material. But not the slightest mention of, or allusion to, the matter was made in these columns. The silence which we maintained then would not have been broken now unless one of the most despicable scandals ever enacted in an English household had become public property. The Coleridge family are alone responsible for having published to the world those details of their private relations which, in deference to their feelings, we suppressed.