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    -0 THE LEADER . [ No . 383 , July 25 , 1857

    Untitled Article

    DELUSIVE EVIDENCE . —THE TALBOT CASE . Ik our last munHer , we noticed several cases of final conviction upon evidence which afterwards turned out to have been false . "We made no allusion to some cases which have recently been under discussion , and in which we believe that the recorded decisions are against the historical evidence . By a curious coincidence , our ' Open Council ' supplied one of these omissions . A letter from Mr . Thomas Tebtitts Paget gave a curious explanation of the manner in which

    the most striking of the new . evidence brought before the House of Lords in the Talbot divorce ease had accrued . The Reverend Abeam Sargent , Vicar of JOerrygarth and Prebendary of Cashel , stated on his oath that he had actually witnessed the misconduct of Mrs . Talbot , in broad daylight , in one of the under rooms of the house as he was approaching it . Now there were several doubts suggested by the evidence at the time . In the first place it was known that Mr . Sabgeht was near-sighted , so that it would have been difficult for him to

    identify any person . Moreover , he had permitted Hs family to visit the house after the occurrence which , he described . How' coftld he trust his own eyes ? How could he permit the ladies o £ his household to visit a place in ¦ which such occurrences happened ? Mr . Paget ' s letter explains both these problems . ]\ fr . Sa-rgent has since been handed to his friends as an insane man , for giving himself

    up to a magistrate at Clonmel on the spontaneous , and , we presume , erroneous self-accusation of forgery . If he is not mad , he is a forger ; if he is not a forger , he is insane . The evidence before the previous tribunal had been entirely discredited . It was this evidence that dressed up the case for the Lords , and we now know the character of the witness .

    It so happens that in this Talbotcase , a part of the obstruction to the truth lay in the difficulty of collecting and sifting all the evidence within a given time . "We have witnessed another case of condemnation prematurely , and we suspect that with that case also we have not yet done . " We allude to the charge against EbUKezseb . Davis , preferred before the London Mission Society b y certain underlings in its employment . It will be remembered that Mr . Davis was accused of

    writing an infamous letter to his wife . The charge was vitiated from the first . It was understood that some persons had taken offence at the conduct of Mr . Davis . The accusation against him rested upon , a letter which a servant of the society professed to have picked up from the ground , to have read , copied , and handed to Mrs . Patisso that the charge avowedly originated in a breach of confidence . Even if the letter had

    been written , it ought never to have been brought into court . If a gentleman had picked it up , ho would not have read ib ; or , if by any inconceivable accident , he had actually read it , he would have forgotten its contents . 3 Tet ft grave religious society adopted an act of espionage as the foundation of » charge against one of ita own missionaries , AH the proceedings were published except the passage which formed the gist of the whole

    accusation ; but any on © who has seen that passage must be at once convinced that the whole tftory was a fabrication ; and there are several circumstances which point to the authorship of the forgery . The passage itself was traced to an infamous publication . The fabricated letter proved to bo wholly fend entirely dissimilar to all the lot tors Mr . Davks had addressed to his wife . Yet one accident alone saved that unhappy man from Tbeing cruehed under what would have been

    considered a mass of overwhelming circumstantial evidence . It was a case in which the very infamy of the accusation tended to alarm defenders . Any one who stood up for a proper judgment of the accused appeared to be identifying himself with a Fahblas in a missionary ' s gown . Yet there , found a man who had the moral courage to defend

    the innocent , even when thus cowardly accused . The innocent man has been actually rescued : for the mass of circumstantial evidence , ultimately collected on the other side , the proofs accounting for every hour of the man ' s time at the period of his alleged offences , the evidence as to the origin of the fabricated letter , — have satisfied those on whom Mr . Davis really depended . The

    attempts to crush him by cross actions , cross charges , claims for costs , have been met at a considerable sacrifice ; thousands have been expended in that manner ; but after all the injured man was sustained in his own chapel , and he has not become an outcast . Yet if it had not been for one generous and chivalrous member of the society which- lent itself to these mean proceedings , poor Ebeitezer Davis would have been consigned to beggary , and his name would have become ah epithet of reproach .

    Untitled Article

    THE MYSTERY OE THE PARIS PLOT . The tone taken by a considerable port ion . of the English press with reference to the Italian insurrection and its ramifications , has been anything but dignified . In the first place , there has been an almost general admission of the truth of the most desperate reports , such as are always circulated by the agents of frightened and vindictive Governments which have just passed through a crisis that threatened their existence . All idea of

    waiting for evidence seems to be scouted . An accusation has only to be enormous to ensure belief ; and if a statement be incredible it is received without examination . Correspondents of the lowest class , who reflect the opinions of the editor they serve , not the facts that take place around them- —who now abuse Xiotiis Napoleon , now discover that he is a great man , according to suggestions from London- —are busy in indoctrinating the public mind with the most culpable prejudices , in order to prepare it to receive ,

    without indignation , the basest concessions . "W " e will mention one specimen of the assertions indulged in . " The attempt at insurrection in G-enoa was approved of only by the mob , which gains its living by riot and disorder . " The gullible reader lifts up his hands in horror , and is led almost at once , by a singular process of reasoning , to aoquiesce in the propriety of handing over M . Ledbu Rolijn to the tender mercies of the French Government . Bub is there a mob at Genoa which finds riot and disorder a lucrative

    trade ? And , if so , what a singular government the Piedmontese Government must be . Side by side with these absurdities we have copies of placards and circulars said to have been -seized , containing murderous threats against individuals , whose names and addresses are wisely left in blank ; and rabid declamations copied from the conversations of industrious police-officers and official leadarticlesJout not is related

    ng . lung , worthy of the slightest notice beyond the simple facts that , in various places in Italy , insurrectionary attempts wero made ; that those attempts failed ; that many of the insurgents were killed ; and that others were taken , prisoners . The object , however , of the larger portion of the press to which \ ve allude seems not to , be to elucidate truth or to describe actual ocouvronces , but to find excuse * for humiliating acquiescence to virulent demands about to be made on us by certain groat

    foreign powers . The time for this demand is certainly well chosen . By unparalleled incompetence and rashness we have had the greater portion of our empire put in peril ; and it is conceived that we shall submit to any degradation in Europe whilst we are fighting for our existence in Asia . As to the alleged Paris conspiracy , we confess to feeling considerable doubts as to its existence . It has all the appearance , if we can judge from the statements in the

    Moniteur , of being a conspiracy after the fact . Three unknown Italians allow themselves to be arrested ; and in the depth of the policecourts ' confess their crimes , ' admit they intended to assassinate the Emperor , and accuse just the very people the French Government dislikes of being their accomplices ! From conspirators who can have harboured such terrible intentions , we are accustomed to expect more resolution than this . Pianoei was made of sterner stuff . Who are these

    three pliant and communicative gentlemen ? "We should like to have a Little information on the subject , but we decline to receive it from France . With every desire to be credulous , how can we believe any statements in the Mbniteur ? Every one knows that , except with reference to some portentous potato or monstrous cabbage , all discussion is forbidden in the French press . What security have we that any event , not witnessed accidentally by an Englishman , is correctly , reof

    ported ? Was there any intention taking up the rails on the railroad to Plombieres ? Who will be bold enough to say that he believes this on the statement of the Moniteur ? Is the word of Louis Napoleon sufficiently sacred to cover all his subordinates ? Will that potentate , indeed , venture to complain personally of any attempt to assassinate him , as long as he admits the legitimacy of such political means by continuing the pension of the wretch Cantillon for attempting the life of the Duke of Wellington ?

    But there is to be a trial . A trial ! A mockery ! We all know how political offenders are dealt with in France . The proceedings are carried on for months in secrecy ; but meanwhile the most horrible rumours are supplied , not only to the French press but to English correspondents , who never scruple to publish the most painful calumnies against Liberals who have not been successful . Then

    the appointed day comes on . The court la packed by people admitted only with tickets ; the indictment is read ; the well-trained witnesses appear ; evidence is given with beautiful uniformity ; if the prisoner attempts to cross-examine ho is badgered and insulted by the judge , who , sometimes , as in the recent case of VEitGiR , calls him an assassin , insults and squabbles with him ; no witnesses aro allowed for the defence : the verdict is

    hurried on ; the sentence is pronounced ; the report of the proceedings in the papers is mangled ; correspondents are furnished with lies ; the scaffold is raised with disgraceful precipitation ; the condemned is told at eight o ' clock in the morning that he is to die in a quarter of an hour ; he is dragged under the knife ; his remonstrances are stifled ; and , as the French reporters phrase it , ' human justice is satisfied . '

    We shall probably not see immediately a repetion of those disgraceful scenes . Messrs . Toaj / di , Bauxoaoxxi , and GitiiiLi , arc probably too valuable nuxiliarios ; and it would , at any rate , be impossible to put them to death without some cry of disappointed cupidity reaching the public . We assume—thoug h we have only the word of the Monilourthat the persons we have named havo playod tho infamous part of infonnors . Even M . Djhu / ANGM might objoot to eentenoo a prisoner with a gag in hie mouth . But tihe real

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 25, 1857, page 710, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2202/page/14/