THE ARMSTRONG ABDUCTION CASE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1408, 22 October 1885, Page 3

THE ARMSTRONG ABDUCTION CASE.

The details of the so-called abduction case wherein Mr Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, General Bi>oth, of iha Salvation Acmy, Mrs Jarratt, Mrs Coombep, Mrs Manry, and Mrs Jarques are defendants, and the girl Eliza Armstrong, complainant, have monopolised the public interest to the neglect of politics, both in London and elsewhere. The Bow-street Police Court was densely crowded within unci without. It was besieged by bowling mobs, who required the strongest efforts of the police to control them. The excited mob threatened to lynch Mrs Jarrett, and were with difficulty restrained from breaking through the truard and attacking the occupants of several cabs as they arrived at the entrance of the Court. Mr Stead was interviewed by the New YorK Herald's London correspondent on September Slst. The Gazette editor iaid to him : " Those who know nothing about me are naturally misrepresenting my action. This is no crnze with me : i have been waiting and thinking of this matter for quite fourteen years. It has been one of the dearest desires of my life to write another ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' about this white slavery, and I have long been urging action upon public men of my acquaintance. I »m most anxious you should understand the absolute and crying need which impelled me in this agitation. Nothing was being done; the law was inadequate, legislation inert, the Police silent, the Magistracy corrupt, and when I convinced myself that noth'ug could be hoped for from any of them, one course only lay before me, and I was determined to go straight to the masses and prove that the iniquities I denounced did Indeed exist by doing myself all I had asserted it was possible to do." Mr Stead's attitude was mysterious. " I have little to say," said he " except as to my own feelings with regard to the case. Those people—Mr Pollard and Use re3tfanoy they hava crushed mo but, they

have not. I have succeeded in my purpose beyond all I could expect to hope for. I consider myself at thia moment the most enviable man in England." On the 14th, during the examination of Mrs Brougton, who, it is alleged, conducted the sale of the girl " Alice," the magistrate frequently told Mr Stead his questions were irrelevant. Mr Stead smiled complacently, whenever he thought he had scored a point. Mrs Broughton's evidence was not materially shaken. She denied that the girl was sold, and declared that she accepted £4 from Mrs Jarrett in consideration for past kindnesses. The testimony of the abducted child herself was to the effect that she was despatched to France to prevent the police from getting possession of her for her mother. She wrote several letters home, but the members of the Salvation Army, who had possession of her, suppressed them. She identified Mrs Jarrett as the woman who had secured her from her mother on the plea of needing her assistance to do house work. The Pall Mall Gazette of the IGth protests ''against the hooting of the ragtag and bobtail mob outside Bow street Police Court being accepted as tho voice of public opinion on its revelations. It asserts that the best women in the land support its course, and declares it will go hard with any Government that endeavors to stifle the cry for justice by gagging those who make it audible. The expenses in this case have gone up to an enormous figure. Mr Stead conducts his own case with the exception of occasional suggestions from his regular solicitors. The officers of the Salvation Army, however, have employed an eminent array of pleaders to defend Mrs Jarrett, and Mr Bramwell Booth. The leading counsel for the defence is Mr Chas. Russell, Q.C., and member of Parliament for Dundalk, who receives £2OO for every appearance that he makes in the Police Court. An opinion i 3 gaining ground that Stead is becoming fanatical is his zeal. At Antwerp, at a conference on the Government regulation of vice, on Sept, 20th, he said—" Let me be accused in all time and eternity, but let my accusers do the work I tried to do by better means than I used. Even if you believe my work to be not inspired by God, even if you set it down to the devil, rejoice in the good that is coming from it."