POLICE COURT.—Friday.

New Zealander, Volume XXII, Issue 2393, 1 April 1865, Page 3

POLICE COURT.— Frida y.

(Before James O'Neill, Esq., J.P., Chairman, and Dr. Horne, J.P. Breach of Harbor Regula r ions. Richard Powdal 1 , charged with ,ihe. above offence, by placing rubbish in Mechanic’s Bay below high water mark. Prisoner , pleaded guilty and was fined 40s. and costs. Threatening Language. —Jeremiah Ryan appeared, charged by one Walter Lee, doctor, of Hobson street, with having used threatening language to him bj saying that he would split his head open. The prisoner stated that he very much regretted what he had said.. Dr. Lee was the best friend he hart in Auckland, and he would be the last person in the place who would knowingly either abuse or shreiteu him Dr. Lee being satisfied with the explanation, the case wa; dismissed. Disobedience op Orders. —Ten seamen belonging to the ship * Caduoens ’ wore brought up On remand, charged with the above offence, by refusing duty. The men. through Mr. Beveridge, who appeared for them, all expressed their sorrow for having committed the offeice, the captain agreed to take th i men back, and they were then ordered to be placed on b mrd.

Violent Assault. —Robert Williams was again brought up on remand charged with violently assaulting his wife. The complainant s ill being unable to appear the casvj was further remanded for on 1 ? week. Disobedience of Orders.— r lenry Murray appeared charged by Captain Hurley, of the brigantini ‘ Maripos V with wilful disobedience of orders on board that vessel. Prisoner pleaded not guilty. The captain deposed that the prisoner was the second mue of t ie vessel, and had gone ashore contrary to his express commands. The chief mate testified to the offence having been committel. Prisoner was sentenced to one week’s i nprisoimi nt with hard labor.

Larceny.— John Hall wis brought up on remand charged with stealing various articles ot masonry tools from various workmen in Aucklmd. There were in all eight charges against the prisoner. After the hearing of the fist, case the prisoner pleaded guilty, and was severally sentenced to a term of imprisonmm’ with hard labor for each offen'e. The to at amount of imprisonment being filteea months.

AN IBISH LIBEL CASE.

(PROM THE “EUROPEAN TIME-") The Court of Common Pleas in Dublin was engaged during five days of last week in trying a libel case, which the reporters have modestly entitled “extraordinary.” Ten yesrs since, it appears, the plaintiff, Miss Mary Josephine Travers, then aged nineteen, consulted Sir William Wilde, the eminent aurist, in Dublin, who prescribed for her but declined a fee. Miss Travers became an acquaintance of -he Wilde family and a freque it visitor at their house, used to go to the theatre with the children, and accepted from Sir William a season ticket for the Exhibition in 1851. Frequently little notes passed between the young lady and Sir William—notes which signified as much or as little as coquetry or malice might be disposed to make of them, bat which, perhaps, may be fairly more leniently sum nari-e l as a combination ot the confidential doctor, the safe married friend, the patriarchal flirt, and the harmless adorer and she not only accepted in good part from ■dr William his* critical remarks upon her bonnets and her dresses, but also som-* small sums of money “as loans.” In 1861, abou seven years after her fir t consultation, she began to suspect Sir Willi.in’s “intentions’’ because one day as he was accompmying her home from Dublin Castle be told her his wife was following in hot carriage, and was “watching ” them. This hint so terrified Miss Travers that she wrote to Sir William to say that unless he could explain his words their acquaintance must be given up. He did explain them as a joke and she was satisfied; and went to >ir William’s to meet at dinner Lady tVilde and her family. In February, 1862, however, she alleges that dr William entered upon a course of familiarities whan she visited him in his study, beginning by insisting on her calling him “Wiliam.” and after another shoit interval of unopened letters, and indignant absence!, ending in a successful criminal assault. Accor Ung to her statement in coart, Sir William Wild had made her insensible by pressing her throaf. on the pretext of examining a burn ; according to her “ story,” which she afterwards wrote and published under a feigned name, he had redneed her to insensibility by chloroform. 1 At all events, whether chloroformed or choked, -his young laly did not discontinue her visits to Sir William. She went to his study repeatedly, and got money from him, although there was “ roughness and rudeness on his part two or three tim es,” she got money to go to Austrada, but changed her mind, and once, when Sir William complained of her needing money, “harried ont, bought two ounces of laudanum, returned and drank it off in his study,” and had to be taken to Dr. Walsh’s to

' ' r —^ he “ recovered.’’ From the day of the alleged outrage. Miss Travers, by her own account, determined -not to cease her visits to tbs matt who had injured her—not to cease taking “small loans” from him, but—to commence a series of •* annoyances.” She “ sick med ” hit study with garlic, put garlic and water in the soau-tray in his patient's room; reviewed a literary per ormance of Lady Wilde’s, and pub* liahed a pamphlet under Lady Wilde’s own no a diplume, describing, in.the form of a story, the chloroform'—not the choking—version ot the s outrage she had suff red in Sir Wii dam’s study. And then she proceeded to the system of handbills, and playcards, and b-11-riuginc, and other means of “annoying,” not Sir Wi!* Ham only, but his wife, end had offended her oa one occasi <n by expressing her surprise at her walking up uninvited into Lady Wilde's bedroom. If Miss Travers had not been the plaintiff in an action for libel, in which the damages ware laid at £i,Oi)U, and if .'ho hai not obtained a verdict in her favor, w t‘\ one farthing damages, it might occu. to more read, rs of this trial, that a more fearful system of persecution in the shape of •* sm ill annoyances” was never organised by ihe mo t vindictive woman against, we do*nut say tin destroyer o' hir virtue, bat against the p.-aoa and happiness of a home in which she hal r ccivjd nothmg but kindness, and of a wife and mother who, it Miss Travers’s story was the truth, was not less deeply injured thau hersdf. Eight years had passed since Miss Travers fist became acquainted with Sir William W ids as his patient; during eight yea s this in quittance had ripened into a very intimate friendship with him and with bis family, b.fore the outrage on her virtue was attempted; niter the outrage the friendship was not broken off, though it assumed the very violent ant disagreeable form of asking for money t • go to Australia, taking a dose of poison, an I publishing her own sham death. And yet Miss Travers’s o'lject in destroying Sir William Wilde’s professional character an I his position in society, his wife’s peace of mind, and the happiness of his home, was not th .• ve igeunee of a woman wronged against her de e ver—lt was simply an act of “pique” against Lady Wilde for having treated her more co emrntously than a “ particular friend ’’ whoa she walked uninvited into Lady Wilde’s b droom. But we must not forget that Laly Wi de was also a defendant, and ex .ept in form, the defendant in this action fo - libel in wnic’i Miss Mary Jos. phine Trave a was the pla nfff. Ou the 6th of last May, Lady Wilde wrote a letter to Ur. Travers, informing hj ra of hi< daughter’s “disreputable conduct” at Br y, whore “she consorts with all the low newspaper boys in the place, employing them i) disseminate offensive placards in wh cb my name is given, and also tracts, in which she makes appear that she has hid an intrigue with Sir William. Laly Wi'do added in very rtrong and pointed language t at “ no threat or additional insult shall extort money for her from our hands," and characterised the m may which Miss Travers had “ tre itsd for and demanded ”as the “wages of disgrace." This letter was, in .fact the substance of the libeland judged apart from the circnmstances of the case it would be hard to define in what a libel should consist, if not in impuing uch motives as this letter impu <d. ?or the defend mt It vtas contended that t ie loner, written by a woman in extreme distress and torture of mind, was written for publics ion (it was taken by the plaintiff out of hj r father’s desk), that it was written in good faith and without inaliefe, and in the hope of stop, i ig the insulting proceedings of which the w iter complained ; and that the wrier bl vod the statements contained in it to be true. It was sought by plaintiff’s counsel to affix meanings to the strong words employed i t e lets’, which the writer distinctly and • xpressly repudiated. The jury were able to <on; ire the plaintiffs own statements with the letter. But Irish juries are proverb; .l!y inpressionable, and they appear to hj ve been more favorably impressed by Miss Travers than by Lady Wilde, whose too luera y tempera, xnnlt may have perhaps betrayed her into writing energetic prose, when she mig .t with m »re prudence and propriety hav* ■‘•hstained from leiter-wrlt'mg on a subject tu which - . .ler-feelings were so painfully agoiils d, and have rather remonstrated with Dr. Trave 8 .in person on on his daughter’s proceedings. By Sir William Wild’s indiscretion, as disclosed in his little notes to Miss Travers, the jury ! were perhaps more shocked than by that young lady's mode of rose iting them. And' her counsel did'not fail to lay careful stress upon the conduct of Sir William Wilde as the principal defendant, in “ calling upon the jury ,to convict the plaintiff of perjury, without . * venturing to come into the box or contradict her statement.” This was clearly a very weak : point of ths defence ; so weak, oa the face of \ the libel itself, it is perhaps not surprising that the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff -Damages one farthing day be c msidered to .represent their estimate of her wrongs.