A Cause Celebre at New York.

Evening Post, Issue 75, 6 May 1865, Page 3

A Cause Celebre at New York.

—The New York correspondent of the Standard mentions that a great sensation has bien cawed among the scandal- lovers of that city by an action brought by one Mian Marie C. Underbill, a resident of Brooklyn, against her own sister and a nephew, to recover damages for injuries to health and reputation through her incarceratio i in the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum Miss Underhill is a person of considerable literary ability ; she has even aspired to the dignity of a poet. She is is in person what is sometimes called spirituelle ; she can hardly be called fair ; and as to her ane, there is no reasonable doubt, for she • wears that she is 42 This remarkable circumstance should alone give to the case a peculiar distinction. But it has other distinguishing characteristics. The poetical plaintiff is, and has been for several years past, a consistent member of Plymouth Church, the pulpit of which is the political roslftum of that clerical fire-eater, the Key. Hqfiy Ward Beeclier. S.^ne time ago Miss Underhill took occasion to inform tier friends tbat she believed she had been set apart by Providence to become the helpmate of her pastor ; that as soon as his present wife should depart this life, she (Miss Underhill) would be called upon to fill the vacant place ; and she finally indited a letter breathing most ardent affection, which she forwarded unsigned to her spiritual guide. She seems to have repented of this performance, however, and told her friends that she would " fdve fitly million dollars " if she had not sent the letter. An active iniauinut ion prompted her to think that Mr. Boecher knew from w!.om this unsolicited offering of love proceeduil ; and as a consequence she made hors.lt: and •'psociates unhappy by her constant larr*!niß!iong. She was not kindly treated oyler reltttives, and afiera time was taken to the Ulouwingdale Asylum for lunatics.

Emerging thence, she brought the action against her sister and nephew. Many witnesses were summoned to the trial ; among others, the impracticable Beecher himself. He was compelled to state in open court (hut he never held out inducements of marriage to the plaintiff ; that he did not expect to marry her ; that he had not built and f urnH>ed a house in the North River, as alleged, for her special benefit ; that he was not under iin engagement of marriage with her, and he did not go to Europe because of the impossibility of satisfying a longing to make her his wife. This testimony was given, amidst the laughter of hundreds of auditors, by the great apostle of the Sharpe rifle dispensation of the Gospi 1. The Superintendent of the iiloomingdale Asylum, Dr. Brown also testified. He asserted that Alder's German and English dictionary, which is nnw a text-book in our principal colleges, was written in the institution of which he has ohnrge } nnd, although this is not obviously a revelation so extraordinary, that " one of the leading newspapers in New York is principally edited in the Bloomingdule Lunatic Asylum, and that the leading editorial is written three or four times a week by a person of unsound mind confined therein." The trial of this singular case was concluded on Thursday, when the jury brought in a verdict for the plaintiff, assessing the damages at six cents. Wind Cycles. — It is said that fifty-four years constitute a complete cycle for the prevailing wimls and that in each such cycle there are three periods (each four years in duration) of deficiency of east wind, and similarly also, of deficiency and excess of west wind— the periods of mere deficiency of west wind being apparently counted as distinct from those ot excess of west wind. Thus we are told that 1806-1809 inclusive, was a quadrennial period of excess of wesi wind, nnd thar, the 54-year cycle having elapsed, 1860-1863 inclusive, has, in strict accordance with the rule, heen also marked by excess of west wind. If this law be true, we are to emerge, on New Year's Day, 1864, into a period of excess of east wind, when the winters will be cold, dry, and calm, and the spring horrible, with blighting east wiinlc. If thin be true, it would account for the wesi wind enjoying his last month of supremacy with such brutal violence as he displayed on Wednesday and Thursday last. And Christmas Day, it is expected, is to be equally boisterous Nevertheless, if the prophet be true, we shall be regretting the expiration of his reign before April.— Spectator.