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ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE... ¦ ¦ • ' . ¦ ' V ¦ ? ¦¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ' ' " '
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-. ?—¦ — . ( To the Editor of The Leader . ) Sib , —AHow me to correct an error which , on the perusal of the letter from your Paris correspondent on ¦" theCountde Godineau and cuneiform writing" ( published in your paper of the 22 nd instant ) , I find has been inade by your reporter . In this letter the name of my brother , Dr . Julius Oppert , has been mentioned as that of a countryman of III , do Godineau , and particular attention is drawn to the fact of his having , aa such , corroborated the translation of some passages by English linguists . Permit me to state that Dr . Oppert is not a Frenchman , but a German by birth , although he holds an appointment under the JFrench Government at Paris . I am , Sir , your obedient servant , E . Oppert . Jan . 25 , 1852 .
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A BJ 3 AL ROMANCEFOKTT years ago there lived in London a lady whose station was equivocal , and whose name was more equivocal still . Her mother was styled Mrs , Taylor , whereas the lady ' s own designation was supposed really to be Wall , but was practically Jones . She was living in the year 1819 with a nobleman as his mistress , a"hd her personal beauty was so remarkable that witnesses who could not identify her by any other distinction spoke unhesitatingly to that . Mrs . Jones ' s nobleman , then , contemplated matrimony , and proceeded accordingly to " disembarrass Ijimself of a connexion" by the approved and •' very honourable" method of settlement and allowance . As a result of these arrangements , Mrs . Jones found herself with the lease of a house in
Morningtonplaco , where she appears $ o have received lodgers of an ordinary stamp , and also to have admitted occasional yisits of a more intimate choraoter . Before many years had elapsed , however , she took « T » important step in « fe . On the 8 th of March , 1824 , she was married at Marylebone Church to Mr . John Sheppard ; as this man * * wife she lived up to 1848 ; still as his wife , but ueparatod by a formal deed , she lived from , 1843 to 1846 , when Sheppard dJed , ana from that time to the year before last she lived as bin widow . By no persons or in any manner during these five-and-thlrty years does the
reality of her position appear to have been called in question . In the year 1857 , Mrs . Sheppard died also , and so disposed of the considerable property which she had acquired through Mr . Sheppard that her friends got all , and his friends got none . This inequality of distribution created , apparently for the first time , ill blood between the families , and . the animosity found vent through an accident so strange and inconceivable as scarcely to consist with the realities of actual and unromantic life . Mrs . Sheppard ' s executors , though they parted with little else , did send some articles of apparel and so forth to Mr . Sheppard ' s friends , and among these old things there turned up one day a certificate of Mrs .
Sheppard ' s marriage . " Easily accounted for , " the reader will say .. True ; but when this certificate came to be looked at more closely , it was found , indeed , to attest the marriage of Mrs . Sheppard , but hot to Mr . Sheppard , her late reputed husband . The certificate proved that eleven days before that marriage there had been another , and that the Mary Jones who on the 8 th of March was united at Marylebone Church to John Sheppard had on the 26 th of the preceding February , been united at St . Pancras Church to one James Masters ; . The second marriage was therefore , by this argument , invalid ; Mary Jones having never been John Soeppard ' s lawful wife was never his lawful widow ; and , not having been his
lawful widow , had no title to the share of the estate Which , as he died intestate , she had been permitted to obtain . The supporters of this argument formed the plaintiffs in the case before the Court ; the defendants were the executors of Mrs . Sheppard , who had to maintain , and did maintain , the validity of her marriage and widowhood , all this evidence to the contrary notwithstanirig . And the manner in which they succeeded was this i—They allowed the fact of the double marriage and the authenticity of the discovered certificate , but they averred that the two ceremonies made only one match , and the two names meant only one man , for that James Masters was identically the same individual with John Sheppard , and no other . Here was an issue to be tried nearly forty years after date !
However , by dint of search and pains;—for the property at stake was some 3000 ? . —more witnesses were brought up and more personages produced from the scenes of 1824 -than would have been thought possible ! That there , was at that period a real person with an existence and individuality of Ms own , who went by the name of Masters , and who was an intimate acquaintance of Mrs ' . Jones , was clearly established ; but , as he had never been seen or heard of since the month © f March , 1824 , the question was what to make of him ? Plaintiffs said that he was a man of much such a stamp as John Sheppard' hjmself-r—viz . a working artisan j that he had married Mrs . Jones exactly as Mr . Sheppard did
afterwards , and that his . marriage , being first on the list , extinguished the second . The defendants gave a very different version of the story . They said that Masters was a gentleman , successor ia the lady's favours to the nobleman above mentioned ; that he , wishing to get her settled independently , promoted the marriage with Sheppard ; that this marriage was first solemnised by Sheppard under the assumed name of Masters , in order to confirm the lady in the designation which she had most recently borne , and that then , doubts having been thrown on the validity of the act , a second ceremony was performed between the same parties eleven days later , to make everything secure .
The Lord Chancellor and the Lords Justices , after carefully , poising the scales in which these competing probabilities and improbabilities had been heaped through a four days' trial , pronounced the balance in favour of the defendants , a decision in which most people wovld be disposed to concur . If the case appears hard to accept in this form , there is certainly a still greater violence of presumption required in accepting it in the other shape suggested . If Masters was an original and bond Jidts husband , what became of him ? It was put in evidence that he did come to the house once after the date of the second marriage ; and what , therefore , could have induced him to leave his wife in the possession of another ? Moreover , ns it appeared probable , from collateral evidence , that Masters was a gentleman , and not a mechanic , thoro was something to bo learnt from a scrutiny of Ills signature in the parish
registers . This scrutiny was made , and not only was the handwriting that of an uneducated man , but it was pronounced by professional judges to be very similar to that of Sheppard himself , —in fact , to be just such a performance as a mechanic would make in signing for the nonce some other name instead of hie own . By these and other preponderances of argument the court was induced , tipon the whole , to declare that Mrs . Sheppard had boon lawful wife , lawful widow , and lawful testatrix ; but perhaps the reflections of serious readers will add a passing morivl . to the decision . The case convevs an impressive example of the retribution which dogs misdoing even thrpugU a second or third generation , Forty years after date the illicit amours of Mary Jones an 4 her Mends have been exposed to the world , nnd the substance which was raised in the flrat instance upon the wages of sin lias since boon scrambled for and wasted In . intention and conflict . —• Times .
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CORRESPONDENCE
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Tour remark that my paper conveyed no information to the hearers is a very trenchant one . If it mean that I did not enter into the social and moral causes of these phenomena and attempt to explain them , your remark is true . The omission was intentional . My business was to present facts , not precisely in the crude form of observation , but facts methodised and reduced to their general expressions . Speculation on the causes of these facts is quite a different matter , and , spite of the hardihood you impute to me , I know enough of the complexity of the subject to make me cautious in my conclusions , and prefer , in addressing a scientific society , that others should draw their inferences from the material that I had to offer .
If , on the other hand , you mean that I brought forward no general facts from the experience of the Society of Friends , bearing oh the science of population , that were of sufficient interest and value to be read to the Statistical Society , I can only say that I hope , when you have had an opportunity of reading the paper , you will alter your opinion . Begging you will excuse the length of these remarksj . I am yours respectfully , J . J . Fox . Stoke Newington , Jan . 15 th , 1859 :
before them , and it is part of their science to determine what assumptions are justifiable , and what , on the other hand , would so modify the results as to exceed certain , limits of eiror—those limits which pertain to the very observations themselves . The numerical data relative to the Society of Friends are very incomplete . The secessions from the society for various causes have been numerous . Those from marriage alone you have very much understated in your article . Other causes of separation operate to a considerable extent ; but I know of no data sufficiently trustworthy to correct the relative numbers of the population , as you say I should have done . Had I possessed any such I would gladly have employed them . : .
sudden change in the " movements' * of a population . Now I submit that the data I . have used in estimating thembrtalitv of the Society of Friends fulfil these conditions f the period of ten years ia not too long ; the population amounting to between ^ eighteen and nineteen thousand is sufficiently large ; and , moreover , though secessions from marriage and other causes have been very abundant , there have been no new circumstances between 1842 and 1852 to create a stiddtn changei in the rate of decrease , or relative distribution of the different ages . ' .... - . ' ¦ ¦¦" ' ' ' ¦ ¦ ¦ . '¦ . ' . ' ¦ ¦''¦¦' It is very true that if any numerical data you may require were to be had for the asking we should be able to do without these assumptions altogether . But it is not so . Statisticians have to make the best of the data
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¦ . ¦ . ¦'¦ ¦ ¦'¦ " . ¦ . ¦ ¦'¦ ¦¦ ¦ ' ¦ ' ¦ . ¦¦ ¦ ¦ ' ¦ . ¦ ¦ ¦ . -1 E 5 ^ " ¦ ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦ : . ¦ * ¦ 148 v ;\ ' " \ . ^ ; , j ; H' ! B- ; . ;^ - ! B-A ' ; jP E'J t . ' , ; -- [ No . 462 , Jantiary 29 , 1859 .
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ngninst our ally . lCRIWOU , TRAPflUS ANP WAU . Among the industrial population of Franco war grows day by day more unpopular . With the Leg itimists ana the Orloanlsts it is the foe , and not the war , that thoy are adverse to . Tlioy would much profur to see an army mnrohed to the heights of Boulogne and tno
swarming upon the Alps . Admitting the pretext sent forth by the French Government , that the " cougbt throats" of the men-of-war have not boon sent to swell the roar of battle , but to accompany the imperial epitlmlamium , the imprudence of the measure will appoor all the groator . The opinion of well-informed persons is that this display of naval force is intended to keep tip delusions among the Italians , to conciliate thoir sympathies for the Emperor of Franco , and to disarm his foes by making him play the part of champion of Italian independence ; at the same time the marrlago is maUo the cloak and excuse For an offensive demonstration
provinces . Meanwhile , those who protend to bo » n the commence of the Government affirm that war is more remote than over , and the despatch of the French squadron is in tended to escort Prince Napoleon and his young bride back with all honour to the French territory . That this explanation will bo given to foreign courts is more than probablo ; but it is doubtful whether Italians will understand it so . They will tako it as a pledge of physical aid from Franco , and may pcrbapa bo led to rush upon Austria in the belief that her " holy bayonets are
belli , and thus made to appear to be the disturber of the public peace , while France will stand forth as the defender of humanity , the protector of outraged nationalities , and so secure the neutrality of other powers . " It must be confessed that the move is an artful one ; but as it lacks honesty , we may be permitted to doubt its wisdom . At the same time the position of Austria in Italy grows more critical day by day , for at Villafranca is a Russian naval force that longs for an opportunity of doing something . A Busso-Franco-Sardinian , fleet would create serious embarraasinents to Austria , and by operating in the Adriatic , would compel the abandonment of the strongest position , a narowing of the basis of operations , and ultimate rotreat from the . Lombardo-Venetian
matically , Austria will look upon the fact as a defiance , or at least intended to be so in the eyes of Italians and of Europe . To those who know the character of the Genoese , it would be surprising if the sight of the French liners did not provoke a popular explosion , which would be the signal for lighting up universal war . And men say here , " Now mark the craft of Imperial policy . The war ships , it will be asserted , were sent on a peaceful errand . Their presence will rouse the hopes and spirits of the Italians into aggression upon Austria , from the consequences of which they will seek to be protected by Sardinia and France . Austria may thus / be provoked into something which may be construed into a casus
There can be rip doubt that this display of French naval force in the chief port-of the-dominions of Victor Emmanuel is in keeping with the succession of blunders that make the present Government a marvel and a byword unless war be intended , arid even then it is an imprudence . People will see in . it one of a series of manoeuvres carefully combined and predetermined to provoke war , although to do so it should be necessary to have recourse to revolution . The presence of so strong a naval force in the Geonese waters will not be interpreted by the national and popular party in any other light than as an armed demonstration against Austria— the sequence to the posting of Piedmontese troops on the Ticino . Whatever explanation may be given
diplothe war-ships have been sent to do honour to the presence of Prince Napoleon , but they are answered that it is not usual for royalty or imperially , when making friendly visits , to be accompanied by f leets and armies . When the Emperor visited Osborn , and when he went to London , he sent no ships of war into Portsmouth harbour . When he went to Stuttgard he took no troops in the train . Even when your illustrious field-marshal visited the Boulogne camp , he was accompanied by no more than a corporal guard—quite as much , malicious people said , as he was competent to command .
THE WAR QUESTION . , . The Mohiteur of this morning announces , with unmistakable ostentation , that on WednesdayT-that is to say yesterday—the screvir-ships of the line the Napoleon and the Algesiras , and the screw-frigate Vlmpetueiise , had sailed from Toulon for Genoa . In spite of the efforts of certain parties the public look on the despatch of such a naval force to Genoa at this moment as most ominous , and confidence in the preservation of the peace of Europe grows less by degrees and terribly small . If the Government of the Emperor be really desirous of averting the horrors of war , and sincere in the various official statements that have been sent forth as to there being no ground for apprehension , why the despatch of this squadron ? People who are wishful that things should not be disturbed endeavour to convince themselves that
. bJBAJN U . E . ( Front our own Correspondent . ) Paris , Thursday , 6 p . m
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 29, 1859, page 148, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2279/page/20/
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