OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1916, 15 April 1880, Page 2

OUR LONDON LETTER.

] [Specially wbiitbx fob the “Globe." ' LONDON, February 26. I have had in these columns many a ( grumble at the English climate, but I hare L never had so much cause for complaint as in I this present month of February, as the weather here has been simply horrible. We ' have endured a long and exceptionally bitter winter, and when the Queen promised to come , up to town from her Isle of Wight residence i to open Parliament, and start the London i season, we hoped the worst was passed. But it was not, for something far more horrible was in store for us. This was more than a week of choking dense fog, and what we suffered may be judged from the fact that in London in the first week of this month, more persons died than in any week even in the years when we were suffering from cholera! I told you recently what a Christmas Day we had, but this first week and rather more, of February was one continuance of such fogi or rather something worse. The mortality amongst people who had to be out of doorsi but especially amongst omnibus and cabdrivers, was something fearful, yet the event is not without its grotesque side, and many are the humorous stories I have heard from people who either lost their way in the fog or met others who did not know whereabouts they were. Even the scientific people cannot afford us a grain of comfort by telling us the reason of this extraordinary and unnatural visitation. They put it down to our burning so much coal, but could we possibly do without roaring fires when wo are ever so many degrees below freezing, according to Fahrenheit ? Not being weak in the chest I can better endure the fog than the cold, and I decline to give up my fire, especially while coals are cheap. Well, the Queen opened Parliament on the one fine day we have had this month, and since then Her Majesty has undertaken a second journey from Osborne to London and back on purpose to hold a drawing room at Buckingham P.dacs ; but her well intentioned efforts to give the London season a fair start have been in vain, for tempestuous winds and floods of rain have not tempted people to indulge in gaiety. Time deals lightly with Queen Victoria, who still appears on all State occasions in her favorite costume ef black velvet, satin, and silk, with a white tulle veil and a coronet of diamonds. A French orator, whose sarcasm mty he forgiven for tho wit it scarce conceals, told his audenco a few days ago, while making some remarks on tho constant emigration of the English people, that wherever cur sons went they would always make themselves at heme w’ith roast beef, tea, and a portrait of the Queen. Well, those of my fellow countrymen in Christchurch who happen to possess a portrait, especially a photograph of Her Mej -sty, taken at any time within these ten years, may be assured that it is not an unfaithful representation of her at the present time. The Princess of Wales, too, dresses in very sober colors, and when she went to the Court last Thursday, wore a dress of prune-colored velvet, embroidertd with pearls. The younger princess, however, looked more showy, and while the Princess Beatrice is somewhat matronly even in pale blue silk and Pompadour satin, the Duchess of Connaught still looked a bri.ie in white satin and bunches of white roses. The ladies, however, who had to go through the park, and wait to be presented, had a very bad time of it in the cold and wet, and must have been very glad to get homo again.

Wo have not even had tho law courts open for the amusement of the many idle people in.

London, who like to spend their days in Westminster Hall. We have been trying a new experiment in judicature, and it has not quite answered. Mr Cross, the best Home Secretary this country has had for many years, took it into his head that prisoners committed for trial to the assizes ought not to He in gaol from August to March, as they used to do. Forthwith he arranged a new scheme of winter assizes, under which, it has very unfortunately happened this month, many of the Judges were removed from London—where there was a great deal for them to do—to the country, where they found very little. At one county town the Judge discovered a little boy awaiting trial on a charge of having set fire to rick of hay an offence which can only bo tried in this country befo: e one of her Mujeefcj’s Judges duly armed with a commission of oyer and terminer. The prisoner in this case was twelve years ’old, and about two months before no came up for trial was found near a burning rick, and accordingly taken into custody. Twelve men of his county were sworn to try him, and a brief was given to a _ counsel to prosecute him. The very little evidence that there was in the case —I cannot say against the prisoner, for there was nothing to show that he had done any wrong —was given by a policeman. The laboring man and his wife who were the parents of this prisoner had not been able to procure him legal assistance, for solicitor and counsel would have swallowed up their earnings for some months. So when the time came for the cross-examination of the witness the eminent. Judge looked down from the Bench and said to the boy in the customary language of the Beach, “ Prisoner, have you any questions to ask this witness ?” Whereupon the boy turned round to the policeman and asked him, “How is my mother ?” He had not seen her during the two months ho had been in the county prison, but he was sent home to her that night alter a verdict of not guilty had been duly given and recorded. In Westminster Hall the only amumment which could be found was in the Divorce division, where, it must bo confessed, Sir James Hannen has been having a very busy time, whether he has had to adjust the relations of husbands and wives, or to deal with those will oases which must often puzzle him and the able advocates who pract ise in his Court. As regards divorce suits, I hardly ever recollect a month when there have been so many military cases. Of course not every lady who Has a jealous husband is condemned by the Court, which has now generally to deal with circumstantial evidence, and in some cases the respondent gets the benefit of the doubt, and is left to settle with her irate husband about the matter, which the jury have thought was only a flirtation in which she ought not to have indulged. But when the lady is so imprudent as Mrs Bradbury was, the case is very different. She was the wife of a medical _ man in good practice at Salford, near Man®®fcch«jkter, and went to Southport, a favourite watering place on the Lancashire coast, for the benebi. of her health. Just as she was about to return homo she took the opportunity of writing two letters, but as truth, they say, is stranger than fiction, she put her notes into the wrong envelopes, and so, while Captain Brownrigg was astonished to receive a note from Mrs Bradbury, telling him the train by which she intended to return to Manchester, poor Mr Bradbury was amazed to open a note addressed to “ My dear boy,” and referring to Mrs B.’s proceedings in terms which were too plain to be misunderstood by the dullest comprehension. Investigation followed, and then it was found that, while the husband was visiting his patients, Mrs Bradbury was driving in cabs to Salford barracks, wh»re Captain Brownrigg’s regin# t was sta i) el, and going in by the back dour, which, as one of the witnesses quite innocently explained to the great amusement of the Court, was the entrance by which ladies were generally admitted. Of course the inculpated parties strenuously declared that there was nothing improper in their relations, but the jury did not get over the fatal epistle, and so, while Mr Bradbury is leleased from his wife, Captain Brownrigg has to pay the lawyer’s bill. Sir James Hannen, however, is not the only Judge who has to deal with the affairs of husband and wives, as witness a case which has just been tried before Mr Justice Bowen and a special jury. The defendant was the Bev. Charles Gordon Gumming Dunbar, a clergyman who nominally belongs to the i Church of England, but whoso recent conduct , has brought down upon him publicly the severest censure from tin- Bishop of London. Mr Dunbar was at one time the Archdeacon of Grenada, and he still advertises himself as “the venerable,” though he is quite a young man. When he returned from the West Indies he purchased a proprietary chapel in London, and conducted Sunday services which soon became remarkable for the high class of music which hia exc.-llent choir performed. His advertisements in the daily newspapers attracted large congregations, but speedily many letters of complaint were written and published, stating that a seat could not he obtained in his chapel by the most casual attendant without the prelimi- ary payment of at least half a crown. The Archdeacon somewhat impudently retorted that his chapel was a commercial speculation, and defended himself in such terms that the Bishop felt himself compelled at once to withdraw Mr Dunbar’s license. This however has not abashed the

xev. gentleman, who still advertises his services, and with the additional attraction of vestments. But a few days ago a new scandal came to light. It appears that about eight years ago Mr Dunbar married a lady who had an independent income of abcut two thousand pounds per annum. This however did not suffice for Mr Dunbar’s speculations and ■“imprudences,” as he mildly terms them, and on one occasion he borrowed a couple of hundred pounds from Mrs Reove, his wife’s sister, who had an equal fortune. Tho question now was who should repay this loan, ■which Mr Dunbar declares was borrowed on the strength of his wife’s income. He does not appear to have behaved well to his wife, who was separated from him, and is now engaged in a suit against him to have tho custody of their only child. Tho jury gave a verdict against him, a result which it is expected will force him into the Bankruptcy Court. But ihe cause celehre of the month has been the trial of Mr Lewis James Paine, to whose adventures I made some reference in a recent letter. For each of the eight days which were occupied by this trial it drew crowds to the Old Bailey, for it is not always that you can have the advantage of seeing the Crown so well represented at that Court as it was in this case by the Attorney-General and Mr Poland, while the greatest treat of all was to hear tho cross-examination of the various witnesses by the prisoner’s leading counsel, Mr Serjeant Ballantine, one of tho few remaining wearers of the coif who, in spite ot having attained to nearly threescore and ten years, has yet all the skill and fire which had made him celebrated as a crossexaminer a quarter of a century ago. Mr Paine is a man of fifty years of age, and ha seemed to have been very fond indeed of tho other sex. His history up to a twelvemonth ago is not much in question, but about last March he became acquainted with Mias Annie Jane Fanny Macleau, who was thirty three years of age and the daughter of a deceased colonel in the Indian army. She was entitled to some property, but had physical deformities which had hitherto prevented proposals of marriage. She and her mother took a place called the Shrubbery in the village of Broadway, near Worcester, and there the mother died in a few weeks. Mr Paine appears on tho scene about this time. Ho was a married man, but I am not sure whether the lady who was then his “ better hale ” was the second or third who had been his legitimate partner, “not counting,” as the old poet puts it, “ other company in youth.” Ho represented himself to bo a traveller on commission, and to have some connection with an insurance company. He forced his society upon Miss Maclean, paid her constant visits, and was so assiduous in his attentions that he soon became master of the Shrubbery, and the lady assumed the name of Mrs Paine. She had by this time, in consequence of the death of her mother and the consequent rearrangement of the family property, become possessed of a large sum of ready money, which sbo and Paine tried their very utmost to spend in drinking and fast living. Ho took her übcut from place to place, but the story was the same at each ; she had acquired the habit of drinking to excess, and the v rions witnesses called on this trial showed that not only did she take a good deal more than was good for her, but that Paine forced her to drink large quantities of neat spirits, This had the unavoidable consequence—cnlmgement of tho liver and an early death. Now it is charged against him that ho forced her to drink herself to death in order that he might become possessed of her property, but of course this was the most difficult part of tho case to prove. I must tell you that while they lived at Broadway they engaged as their domestic servant a young woman named Fanny

Matthews, the daughter of some laboring people living in that village. Bho appears to have fallen under the wiles of Mr Paine, with whom she travelled as his wife on various excursions he had to make from Broadway, when Miss Maclean was not able to be moved. When Miss Maclean died, a coroner’s inquest was held, and there were several discred.table 11 scenes ’’ in the Court. Fanny Matthews gave evidence which was meant to screen Mr Paine, but the inquest ended in her being committed for trial with him, on the charge of murder. However, when the trial came on, the Attorney-General felt compelled to abandon the charge against her, and he called her as a witness. I think he would have done bettor without her, for it was shown that lying was not the least of her many faults. In the end, after a trial lasting eight days, the jury found Mr Paine guilty of manslaughter, and so spared his life. Mr Justice Hawkins, however, sentenced him to be kept in penal servitude for the rest of his days, and ordered the costs cf the prosecution to be paid out of the money found in his possession. The police have just laid their hands on a most notorious criminal, who, having been arrested between four and five years ago, absconded then from hie bail, and seems to have been living ever since in one of the most populous parts of London, and in a wellknown street, quite as secure from arrest as if he had chosen to secrete himself in one of the least frequented parts cf New Zealand. This man is William Henry Walters, who is not yet thirty years of age. Ho seems in hie youth to have had some not very creditable occupation in ferreting out the secrets of the stables of one of the great trainers of racehorses, which may account for his subsequently entering upon a great fraud which was announced as a society for assuring against losses by betting on racing events. He and another man were arrested and taken before an alderman of the city, who committed them for trial, but on the faith of a medical certificate a Judge in Chambers was induced to grant bail to Walters, who speedily disappeared, leaving other men, who were afterwards arrested of complicity in the same fraud, to be sent to ’penal servitude. Since then he has turned his attention to forgery, and on a very large scale, for while the Bank of England is prosecuting him for turning a cheque for nineteen pounds into one for nine hundred and getting the money, the Post Office authorities have a long string of charges against him in reference to altering Post Office orders. The case against him is pretty clear, for he was found in possession of apparatus by which the exports who were consulted by the Bank found he could readily alter any writing on any paper without leaving the smallest trace of the original having been tampered with.

[COEEESPONDENT OP THE “ PEES3.”I

LONDON, February 26.

This mail will convey to you full particulars, though perhaps rather disjointed ones, of the attempt which was made last weak to blow up the Winter Palace of the Emperor of Russia at St. Petersburg. Even in this land, where the frequency of outrages in Continental countries has made us almost unnaturally calm in the presence of such events, this latest attempt on the Emperor’s life was received with alarm and astonishment, for it far exceeded in daring anything that has preceded it. The first accounts, however, were greatly exaggerated, and since then each day has brought us some further particulars, which tend to soften down the original official statement, and to incline us to the opinion that if the plan was not conceived in the grossest ignorance of the destructive power of explosive agents the aSair was intended rather to frighten the Czar than to do him any personal injury. There can nevertheless be no mistake that the Nihilists are thoroughly implacable. They have over and over again told the Emperor Alexander that he should not live to celebrate the twentyfifth anniversary of his accession to the throne, which will occur on the 3rd of next month, and as the time approaches they are doing all they can to frighten him, if not into abdication, at least into making the great social and political concessions which they demand. The Palace authorities have hitherto disregarded these threats, but now that a part of their magnificent abode has been reduced to ruins they may think it time to take notice of the frequent warnings. We hear, of course, of a good many inuendoes that such events as the conveyance of large quantities of dynamite into the basement of the Winter Palace could not have been effected without the connivance of persons high in authority, but we were told the same thing after the Moscow attempt. The insinuation appears to me to be baseless, though, of course, Nihilism is not confined to the lower stratum of Russian society. The assertion that these affairs are really got up by those who are'opposed to the grant of constitutional liberties in order to afford the Czar an excuse for putting the masses of his subjects under greater restraint than heretofore, would be much more worthy of consideration if it did not happen that the persons who are said to be the authors of these crimes and outrages were those who would be the least affected by any concessions that the Imperial Court or Cabinet could make. The conclusion that I draw from all the circumstances, greatly modified as they have been by the rapidly succeeding fragments of intelligence that have come to hand, is that a small band of determined men have resolved to take the Emperor’s life in revenge for the punishment inflicted on their comrades in villainy, but they have never yet had cleverness to circumvent the extraordinary precautions which his Majesty displays in every movement he makes even in his own private apartments.

This occurrence, however, does not stand alone, but must be read by the light of wha*. is taking place in other portions of the Empire. Tho consternation into which tho northern countries of Europe were thrown by tho sudden announcement of a great increase in the strength of the German army has been succeeded by grave suspicions as to the meaning of the new scheme which has been planned for the fortification ot that long line of country which is tho boundary between Russia and Germany. The latter Power evidently fears that the predatory instinct of the Russians will not be expended alone in Central Asia, hut will desire to find some field of action closer at home. Germany, too, is greatly alarmed, though I think unnecessarily, at tho idea of what France may do if Russia should make a hostile move. But though it is impossible to foretell what sudden resolution might be taken by such an impulsive people as the French, they seem now to he quiet enough, and to be bent rather upon a peaceful solution of the many com mercial problems that are being considered by their rulers than to he brooding upon that guerre de revanche n hich it was at onetime thought their improving condition would soon lead them to enter upon. The struggle of the future, if struggle there is to be, will rather be between Russia and Germany, and if war should break out there can bo little doubt that tho latter Power would prove the stronger. The political outlook in this spring of 1880 is by no means cloudless, and the lust, two wars in Europe justify Germany in being prepared against tho nations which suddenly provoked them. The newspaper war which lias raged between Berlin and Bt. Petersburg!) this week has provoked tho greatest excite mont throughout Germany. As regards Russia, tho telegraph wires are too strictly controlled by the State for us to know the real state of public feeling even in the capital. A.t homo affairs look brighter. Trade shows distinct symptoms of a continuance of that improvement for which we have been waiting so long. Parliament has had an existence of three weeks, and if it has not done anything positive, it has at least had negative results that will be to our advantage in the immediate future. And not the least of these is that tho House of Commons has suddenly, though not unexpectedly, been brought face to face with tho question of hove long it means to endure the obstructive powers of tho Homo Rulers, who have unconsciously imitated their Whig predecessors in either being out of tho way, or mischievously in it, whenever any measure for the good of their country had to be considered. They dis played this characteristic lest week in a very remarkable way, which will bring down upon them tho repressive powers of the House in an unmisUikcable manner. Tho Government Bill for the relief of tho gr-at distress that prevails in Ireland —I may note, in pss-'rg that the way in which the colonics, and Now Zealand not the least, have responded to the call from homo for help, has given the

greatest satisfaction hero—was to have been passed, and would have been readily accepted, but a question of broach of privilege in reference to the conduct of Mr Plimsoll had to be considered. They endeavored to prolong the debate on this topic quite beyond its natural length, and all because the Government will taka the money for the aid of their fellow-countrymen out of the Irish Church surplus, and not squander it, as these Communists wish, on a hopeless scheme for the establishment of an Irish peasant

proprietary. On another night, when that staunch Conservative and Protestant, Mr Newdegate, intended to call attention to the conduct of public business and tho waste of public time, they completely defeated him by making speeches of inordinate length, and so prolonging the debate on the previous question until half-past twelve at night, after which time no opposed business can be entered upon. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer has out-manceuvred them, and properly taking up the matter as one which iho Government themselves ought to deal with, has given notice of a aeries of new Standing Orders, the debate on which is just c jmmem-itig at the time I post this letter. It is not easy to say what will bo the result of this engagement between the House and the Obstructives, for the latter are too numerous, too ingenious and too persistent to bo easily overcome. Public opinion has of course long condemned their folly, but then they are not amenable to it, being returned by small constituencies, which, had they existed in England and not in Ireland, would long ago have beau disfranchised. In tho lobby of the House, on Monday night, it was stated, apparently on authority, and generally believed, that if the Opposition generally should indirectly support tho Obstructives by r< fusing to concede the Government demand for additional powers, the proceedings of this session and of this Parliament will speedily be brought to a close, and that appeal to the constituencies, which must be made some time this year, would then be brought about somewhere between Easter and Whitsuntide. I mentioned above ihe name of Mr PlimsoT, the hon. member for Derby, who for the second time in his parliamentary existence has been the hero of a remarkable scene in the House of Commons, but this time he has achieved a decided victory. He had presented a Bill to prevent merchant vessels being laden with grain in bulk. To this measure notice of opposition was given in the names of two hon. members—without their authority it is now said. One of these was Sir Charles Russell, one of the Conservative members for Westminster, who speedily found the walls of his borough covered with placards strongly inveighing against his conduct. Sir Cnarles did not like this in the face of havirg to meet his constituents at no distant date, when he will have to encounter great opposition, the Liberals being provided wish two candidates of no mean powers, so he brought the matter before the House on a question of privilege, in which Mr Plimsoll had to succumb. But Mr Plimsoll has proved victorious after all, for though his Bill was defeated last week, not by tho vote, but by the formal rules of the House of Commons, he has forced the Government into taking up the matter, and this week Lord Saudon has moved for and obtained a Select Committee on tho subject. For some months past shipping disasters on and around our coasts have been so numerous, and the loss of life so great, that some further legislation is felt to bo imperatively necessary in the interests of both the public and the sailors. I mentioned in my last letter the probabi'ity that wo should soon hear that some means had been found for the reception of the English Ritualists into the Church of Borne. It seems, however, that the idea was launched too soon, and it is noteworthy that while no contradiction of tho statement has coma from Rome, both sides in London have been eager to give denial to it. Under these circumstances I refrain from offering any ob.-orvationa except that I believe the announcement to have been a little premature, and by no means devoid of foundation. You will be glad to hear that in addition to the demand occasioned by the payment of the instalment of 25 per cent, duo a few days ago on thaNew Zealand loans, some largo holders of tho stock elected to anticipate their future instalments by paying up in full, subject to the rebate of 3 p-r con)-..