THE STEAD AFFAIR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1240, 4 December 1885, Page 3

THE STEAD AFFAIR.

( ‘ Melbourne Age ’)

By a curious hut not unhappy coincidence the Mail brings U3 tie text of Mr Stead’s defence of his conduct on the very same day that the Telegraph wire tells us that he has been sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for complicity in the abduction of the girl Eliza Armstrong. His defence is exactly what mijht have been anticipated. He denies nothing, conceals no'hing. and palliates nothing. He admits that he employed the wo-"an Jarrett to purchase Annstrong from her mother for the sum of L 5, that he took her to a notorious midwife to be examined, and that he suhsequ otly caused her to be sent to a situation in France, out of her mother’s reach, and with" out her knowle 'ge. But he did all this, he said, in the cause of virtue, not of vice, and not to ruin one girl, but to save many from the net that the procuress was everywhere spreading to “catch them, 'lf it was a cruel thing,’ ho reasoned to himself, ‘ to play the part of procurer of modest maidens for an imaginary violation, was it not far more cruel to allow them to he sold in re d earnest for want of courage to expose the system ? I bought Eliza Armstrong to rescue Eliza Armstrong, and a thousand like her in her dangerous position.’ That he had no evil motive in bis action is shown by his anxiety to enlist the services of honest men with him. He consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Manning, and he did not resort to Mrs 7ar ret an I his own private devices till the Home Secretary had refused to co-operate with him, and the Chief Commissioner of Police denied Idm the ai l of a single one of his myrmilons. This was nob the conduct of a man who went into the business with any sinister or se fish design. His sole object. he reiterated, was to compel the Legislature to proceed with the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which pro’eeted children of tender ye irs from violation, and which the evidence taken before the House of Lords showed to be absolutely indisponsible if the practices of procuresses like the notorious Mrs Jefferies were to be put down. The trial of that infamous woman proved that the traffic in children was one of the commercial enterprises of the day, like the traffic in any other luxury, that Princes, Dukes, and Ministers of the Crown were | among her bast customers, and (hat the

King of Belgians paid her LBOO annually to obtain a regular supply of victims to feed his beastly passion with. All this came nut in open court,--and was not disproved, neither does Mr Stead retraot his that he had an interview w.ith thfVCb’aplaioota Refugaat where there war -60 children under !the age of 12. all of whom had been violated, and that he ha T himself received from three mothers offers to sell him their daughters fo- unmoral pur-i poses, one woman being especially anxious to make a bargain for L 4 for a child of 12 Tne narrative of the facts removed all suspicion from his mouve, but it was an admission of the offence of abduction, and the Bench decided that motives could not be taken into consideration, notwithstandingthat the lawyer, whom he had 'taken; the precaution 'to consult prior to moving in the business at all, had told him that there could oe uo crime where .there yyas no criminal intent. Mr Vaughan, the adjudicating magistrate, only saw the fact that he had been engaged in the taking away of a child from its mother’s. roof, and he argued that, there was no difference between- taking it away for the purpose assigned and taking it for any other ■ purpose. If MrjStead were permitted to abduct it in' order fo protect its virtue, a fanatic might claim the right to carry it off in order to proselytise it, and there coaid he no security under the family roof tree. The jury have apparen ly taken the same view, and w« have since learned that Mr Stead has acknowledged that, the finding of the j iry was a correct one. He will therefore suffer his sentence with the same spirit that he has shown throughout the perilous and trying undertaking,,but it, do; a i\ot follow because he'has been convicted by the law that he will bo discredited in the public eye. lb is a case of Victrix causa dels placuit, sed victa Catoni ■ -.The law is un favourable to him ; but the moral section of the public, and those who are familiar with the terrible character of the monster evil that he attacked almost single handed, and who admire zeal and courage even when it is lacking in worldly knowledge, will be on his aide. He will go to prison with the consciousness of hj iviag forced a powerful and lethargic Legislature to rectify a great wrong that was sapping the vitals ot society and of having roused society itself to a sense of the duty it owes to its own reputation as a Christian and cultured body of mep and women. It is, of Coarse, quite open to his censors to charge him with having started his crusade as a newspaper speculation, and for the object of gaining a little temporary popn lanty for the "Pall Mall Gazitte;” but this theory of his conduct is not confirmed by the result, which shows that the “ Pall Malt" has lost in character in all probability a good deal more than it has gained. At any rate, the experiment was such {a risky one that no one in his senses would have entered upon it in the expectation of unqualified success. It remains to he seen whether we have heard the last of it even yet. Mr Stead’s supporters are the enthusiasm of society, an 1 they will have their enthusiasm heated and not cooled by what they will regard as his sacrifice to a g-eat principle. The disposition to make a martyr of him will, be- irresistible, though he may be anxions to resist it; and so may be the disposition to retaliate upon the instigators of the prosecution, in which latter case we may look out for still more awkward disclosures that may compromise other characters than his own.

(‘Melbourne Argus’.) At last there is an end to the ‘ Pall Mall Gazette” scandal. The atfvir need no longer be mentioned among the leading members of the “ secret commission,” as the c mtederates call themselves, and they may be left to their deserts. The remarks of the judge appear to have been severe, but they were deserved, and they do but echo the general sentiment. Those who expose vice must do it with clean hands. Indiscretion is not to be excused in such cases, and dishonesty is to be sternly reprobated. In this case the fraud was gross. Mr Stead, for his own purposes, purchased a poor little eirl, and utilised her to show that a wicked man e mid commit a terible outra;e in London—as tho igh all crimes were not possible. He intended only to hoax the public, by passing off as a reality what was a sham, and he was hoaxed himself, inasmuch as tho child he paid for had not been purchased from her paronts, but had been obtaine I from them by false pretences. Bub while the man was innocent o* the abduction, he was guilty of prompting a purchase, and of the subsequent ill* treatment of the child in improper houses. To unnecessarily pass a girl of such tendo year thr ugh such horrors was isgraoeful, and the abustof the cmfidenoe of the pub lie was equally had. Who would have paid attention to the ” revelations” if they had been aware that the central horror was a fabrication, and that so far as the child was ill used, she was ill used b> the virtuous author of the narrative, in order to provide him with sensationalism fir his ‘ journalt At the last moment, Mr Stead endeavoured to throw the whole ouns upon the woman Jarrett, who had deceived him wrh her tales, but his resuonsibilitv was too clear to be evaded. The Foolish Press is rightly congratulating the country upon one point in particular. The cry that En>ish mothers were accustomed to sell their daughters was taken up greedily in America and on the Continent, and now the stigma is removed. The land was searched for such a mother, and in vain ; and in the end the confederates, in order to trump up their story, had to steal a child. Of course there is a Stead defence fund. The manner in which people once duped will cling to their medium, or claimant, or prophet, or writer, is astonishing and tou-hing. Let a man but be thoroughly taken up by enthusiasts, and they hasten to obey the injunction of the theologian, and believe “ because it is myoa-ible.’’