AUSTRALIAN CLIPPINGS.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2226, 25 June 1870, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN CLIPPINGS.

The principal subject of conversation in thp Australian Colonies when the last mail, left apnears to have been the ReJbey case—; the sickening details of whidh lire given 1 at length in almost every paper I have been able to lay my hands upon. In Tasmania, where the parties were so well known, it commanded universal’ attention. The plaintiff' was archdeacon ! of Northern Tasmania, the owner of an extensive property 1 , and the occupier of an influential' so.clkl position in Tasmania ; and the- defendant is son-in-law of the late Mr Cox, of Clarendon, and resides at Strathmore,' close to Clarendon. It Was thought that Mr Ireland, C.C., and Mr Aspinall, of Victoria, would hhvd 1 ' led jibe bar, blit as neither’appeared, Mr late 1 Solicitor-General of .New South Wales, apd the Solicitor-Geperal of Tasmania appeared( for the archdeacon. The plaintiff, whib’ls 0$ enbugb to,’be Mrs BhanfieMV father, oil tho most intimate terms With her and Her family, and took advantage of thAt intimacyto endeavor to seduce her. The local .papers • represent Mrs Blbnifield' as having given her evidence in. a very hiod6st. manner, while that of the plaintiff was devoid of all feeliijg, and he was rebuked by the presiding judge, Sjr Francis Smith. His summing up M'as most .cargftil and elaborate.' Expressing at ’the putbet, |hankfu|jle,S3 ajb the termination of so wearisome a cais’o—s6 distressing a one he had met with in, all his experience-!ppe' that he‘regarded' ha a public calamity, for the details, were so offensive that one'scorned to be threading the purlieus of the lowest haunts of vice rather than among those Wife occupied the high social position that'the parties to the cahse did, he pointed out that it was but too apparent that the most deli-, berate and solemn perjury had been commit-: ted on one side or the other. Then hi terms 1 , so-clear, that they couß ha put to tho Jury the result of their finding : f‘ If your verdict Is gjvpn for the archdeacon, what must Mrs Blomfield be ? You will say, as the Attorney-General remarks, that she comes-before you with all the, shamelessness of a harlot, as one having invited adultery, and with whom ? With one whom she had known from childhood as a clergyman, as tho dearest, oldest, and closest friend and adviser of her own father, and one she had been brought up to reverence ! ; You will say that she invited adultery with him, and, having failed in her temptation, had turned round—to use the appropriate though strong expression of the Attomey-Geueral—like a she-devil on the man with whom she sought to commit adultery, and falsely and foully charged him with a vile attempt upon her chastity? And to crown all, she now comes into this Court, aud .seeks to .support that charge .by the most audacious perjury ! Such would be the effect of your verdict on Mrs Blomfield, and with such a stigma resting upon.her it would be impossible that she could ever afterwards, raise her head amongst modest women. Bui if your verdict should be for Mrs Blomfield, what would be its effect upon Archdeacon Eeiby ? It would brand him as a hypocrite win, elevated over his brethren for the purpose, aniongst other parts of his duty, of watching over their manners aud guarding them against irregularities of life, in place of the bishop—for the archdeacon has been defined as the eye of the bishop—himself lives a licentious life—one who makes the sacred garb of a clergyman the cloak to seduction —one who betrayed the confidence of his oldest and dearest friend, and dishonored his memory by seeking to corrupt the chastity of that friend’s daughter, who had grown up from childhood under his own eyes, aud for whom ho should have cherished feelings of paternal regard; apd, having failed in his attempt upon her virtue, resorted to the unhandsome, unmanly trick of throwing all the hlamo upon her, and saying that it was she who attempted undpe familiarity—npt he; that it was she who lusted after Ifim, aud not he after her; and who, game into the box to support that foul charge by deliberate

and solemuperjqry I Such would be the effect of your verdict on the archdeacon, and now .‘you sea fiow momentous the issue is which ion have to try between these parties. The jftyv : Were only absent for about 10 minutes, and returned a verdict for the defondant.' Where the parties were known, the verdict has given general satisfactionin a court crowded with the people of Launceston it was hailed with acclamation, and even the constable on duty in the Court appears to have sided with the vox populi, for when appealed to, with significant indifference, he declined to point out any or the offenders against order. One is forced to agree with a writer in the A ustralasian that “°if Archdeacon Eeibey had studied his own interests, those of the church to which he belongs, and those of public morality in the island in which he has so long occupied ,* high and honorable place In public estimation, he would long'ago have carried out the promise of resignation and retirement which he is stated to have made to the defendant in the recent action. ” It is remarkable that the law courts alone nowadays supply all the tit bits of information. The Victorian Supreme Court { ha? been occupied with two entertaining cases lately, which are referred to by the Australasian in the following terms The ideal mountaineer is a very charming personage,, both on the stage and in history. He cultivates liberty on goat’s milk and wild venisqp, wears a picturesque hat and. gaitprs, anij passes, rhia, time; in, shooting chamois and in assuring the crags peaks that he- is “with them once again.’’!- JBut> the mountaineers of, Wppd's Point,, the hardy dwellers in those alpine heights, where snow is more plentiful than gold, are very unlike tho people we read about in the veracious dramas of- the late Lord Byron anfl Mr ShericUm Knowles, As depicted by. Dr, Nash in Rip evidence which he, gave last week, Supreme Court, in re Nash v. Miller, the Wood’s Point-era must-he' a very peculiar people. Having a. good deal) of spare time upon their bands, they devote a portion of it to scandalising their neighbors, ing seems to he selon Us rtyles, and practical jocularity takes the form of duck steal ng. A fresh doctor is imported every -aix-months/ and orders came, down tp Melbourne for a bale of drapery and a medical practitioner with a frequency which seems tq indicate that fashions are as variable in the riniatter of therapeutic advice as ft. that of, fichus amd paniers. All the doototWwhq'gp to W«Soo?a Ppipt are net druhkartft,, apJ/Hshose who do tipple are aofhetimea sqbter, ; Neither drink so hard iaa > theft ahcuSera do.' nian qukj-rOls with aplether, he ih sheeted ‘Of ap intention, to burn down hra*enemy’s premises, - Sometimes' a bruiser S lrcjpt lor the purpose of saying things and administering hard ;j}lq;Ws to the persoh has exefted the fte of his employer; rind sometimes that person takes : iip, a stone' and threatens to knock tlje bruiser's brains out. Party spirit runs high at Wood’s Point, ,and rival candidates fof. municipal honors go far j beyond hi{rtfng'*'tneir thumbs! at one another * T the fueds always take the character of a Corsican vandetjsa, The secoiul caae is to receive the appropriate heading of, “Much adq nothing” in the law books,; ! ,Aa intrusive little named Clutterbuck invaded; a pew inthe independent fchurch at Kew„ The: rightful occupants protested; a deacon interposed, and lifted the young lady from tho spot upon which she was a trespasser -; the intruder' resisted ; but the muscular , strength , and invincible determination of i the diaconalichruhtriumphed, and, in processof transplantation, the yoiithful'Clntterhuok, it is alleged, sustained an injury in the left lavicle. Meagre materials* Cttbsel fdri-a’ «t6ryi Of any kiud; and yet they constituted the basis of a civil action brought irri thepSupreme <?onrt of Victoria; while the proceedings WMoh grew-out of the refractory Cluttermvck-Obbiui pied the attention of one- judge, five bar. riisters, r -three’ rieporters, twelvequrymea, two •Or riiord attorneys ! and their clerks, .two physicians-, ime surgeon; sevqralWitiiefeseS; and an indefinite number of spectators’ for three days. At the expiration of that period it was fociud that the, jp ( ry ppqld not i o a verdict, ahd’they Were chafgqd- . Whqt ap. august this imposing machidery- set in motion and -kept going fop three days; ih order" to.determine whether a littfq cjpiqk_i|i her neck from the rough hand'pl a diacohal disciplinarian ! Alid yiit pd6jile : 'iix the world who, abuse, Dean' Swift for the savage severity of his satire on humanity ; in his sayings and doings of the inhabitants of Laputa. What would the Laputans think of us terrestials. w6 if they could be madg WKinainted «.;+u ceedings of our law courts? Men ridicule the idea of employing; ,a steam to crack a nut, but what if, affceri .having set the ponderous machine in motion,’ the ridiculous little nut remains uncracked after all. !lJ : "-;"