THE ARMSTRONG ABDUCTION CASE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2124, 20 October 1885, Page 2

THE ARMSTRONG ABDUCTION CASE.

The following additional details regarding this remarkable case have come to hand by the San Francisco mail Details of the so-called abduction casewherein Mr Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, General Booth, of the Salvation Army, Mrs Jarrett, Mrs Coombes, Mr IVJaiiry, and Mr Jacques are defendants, and the girl, Eliza Armstrong, plaintiff—monopolised public interest to the negleot of politics both in London and elsewhere, The Bow-strect Police Court was densely crowded. Within and without it was besieged by howling mobs, and it required the utmost efforts of the police to control the excited mob, who threatened to lynch General Booth and Mrs Jarrett, and were with difficulty restrained from breaking through the guard and attacking occupants of several cabs as they arrived at the entranco of the Court.

Mr Stead was interviewed by the Nuw York Herald's London correspondent on September 13, and the Pall Mall Gazette editor said to him, in substance'" Those who know nothing about me are naturally misrepresenting my action, This is no craze with me. I have been writing 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 lung been urging action upon tho public men of my acquaintance, lam 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 Press silent, the magistracy corrupt; and when I convinced myself that nothing 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." The correspondent said that Mr Stead's attitude was mysterious. ' " 1 havo little to say, said he. " except as to my own feelings with regard to tho case. Those people—Poland and the rest—fancy they have ciushed me, but they have not, 1 have succeeded in my purpose beyond all I could expect to hope for. I consider myself at this moment tho most enviable man in England. On the 14th September, during the examination of Mrs Broughton, who it is alleged conducted the sale of the girl Alice, the magistrate frequently told Mr Stead that his questions were irrelevant, Mr Stead smiled complacently whenever Its thought lie 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 kindness. 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 lOfcli September, protests against the hooting of the ragtag and bobtail mob outside the Bow-street Police Court being accepted as the voice of public opinion on its revelations. It asserts that the best men and women in the land support its course, and declares that 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 enormous figures. Mr Stead conducts his case, with the exception of occasional suggestions from his regular solicitor. The officers of the Salvation Army, however, have employed an eminent array of pleaders to defend Mrs Jarrett and Bramwell Booth. The leading counsel for the defence is Mr Charles Russell, Q.C., and M.P, for Dundalk, who receives £2OO for every appearance that ho makes in tho Police Court.

An opinion is gaining ground that Mr Stead is becoming fanatical in his zeal. At Antwerp, on a conference on the Government's regulation of vice, on September 20, 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,"