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.CARDIGANSHIRE QUARTER SESSIONS.

BRECONSIIIRE GENERAL QUARTER…

NORTH WALES CIRCUIT-CHESTER,…

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NORTH WALES CIRCUIT-CHESTER, APRIL 5. CIVIL SIDE.-B,fore Mr. JUSTICE CRESSWELL. CRIM. CON. SAINTER v. FERGUSON.—The declaration in this case stated that the defendant had debauched the wife of the plaintiff. The defendant pleaded Not Guilty. Mr. Evans, Q.C. (with whom was Mr. Welsby), was for the plaintiff; and: Mr. Ch.lton, Q.C. (with whom was Mr. Townsend), for the defendant. Mr. Evans opened the case. He said he appeared before the jury on behalf of the plaintiff, and it would be his painful duty, in the course of the case, to bring under their notice one of the most distressing domestic tragedies that had ever come within his own experience or observation. The plaintiff was a medical gentleman carrying on his business at Macclesfield, where he hadiesided during a period of 15 or 16 years. The plaintiff, in September, 1834, married Miss Dowe. Soon after, Mr. Sainter with his wife came down to Macclesfield, where the plaintiff hadcardd on his profession ever since, first in partnership with a gentleman of the name of Cookson, who subsequently retired, and then oh his own account. During this time no man could have enjoyed greater domestic happiness than Mr. Sainter, who was deeply at- tached to his wife, and both tenderly attached to their only child, a son, now about thirteen or fourteen years of age. Being very successful in his profession, and his practice daily increasing, hav- ing been elected surgeon to a burial society, he could not carry on his practice without additional assistance. In the moifth of March last year the defendant became the assistant of the plaintiff, at a salary of £ 60 a year. After a short time, he agreed with Ferguson to give him his board and lodging for iC-30 a year, and to give him £10 for himself, and unhappily he was taken into the house. It was shortly after this that things did not con- tinue to go on pleasantly between Ferguson and the plaintiff. Ferguson was a person of considerable talent, and a person whose appearance and address were well calculated to interest the affec- tions of a woman. Unfortunately, he commenced the practices upon Mrs. Sainter, and too successfully..Mrs. Sainter, when her husband was engaged, took walks into the cemetery with Fer- guson. The neighbours noticed this conduct, and the immediate friends of the plaintiff did not long remain in ignorance of what was going on. A Mr. Sidebottom, who was in the habit of visiting the house, and on the most intimate terms with the family, had his suspicions excited, and he determined upon watching the par- ties. What he observed would be communicated to them in the witness-box, for he (the learned counsel) should not enter into details, for what they (the jury) would hear thereon would be quite enough without any repetition, and would leave no doubt on their minds of the fact of adultery having been committed. Mr. Sidebottom made this discovery, and communicated it to Mr. Sainter. He told him, in as gentle terms as he could, that he had seen them walking together in the fields, and embracing each other, not giving the whole details of what he had seen at that time. Upon this the plaintiff called up the defendant, aad im- mediately discharged him from his service. The learned counsel then detailed the subsequent conduct of the parties, and read some communications which the defendant had since made.to Mrs. Sainter, and concluded an able speech with a powerful appeal to the jury on behalf of his client. Wm. M. Wilkinson Am an attorney of LincolnVmn-Selds, London have known plaintiff and his wife nearly twenty years. After the marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Sainter lived at Dtacclesfielci I have often seen them there, and also in London; they lived to.. gether on most affectionate terms in August last he received a letter from Mr. Sainter, and came down to Macclesfield immedi- ately on the 26th of August; found Mr. and Mrs. Sainter there in the most dreadful state of agony; on Sunday I went to see Mr. Ferguson. I told him I called at the request of Mrs. Sainter; that she had confessed, and could not be allowed to remain in. her husband's house. He. said, "Confessed what? I don't know what you mean." I said, "She has confessed all, and you can't conceive a woman would admit herself to be guilty if she were not guilty." He said, What has -all this to do with me P I said, 0 yes—you know very well." He said, "I don't admit any- thing. What do you want me to do ? I said," To leave the town. It is not proper that you and she should be in the same town to- gether." He said, "lhave just been appointed surgeon to the club. How can you expect me to leave that ? I again entreated- him to leave the town that the matter might not be exposed before the public, and told him Mrs. Sainter had asked me to request him to leave, that she might be shielded from the disgrace of public rumour or report and that she had said to me that for her sake perhaps he might be willing to go. He said, I would do a great deal to serve her, but as you say she has confessed all, the mischief is done, for how can they ever live together again." I said, It is indeed a dreadful business, but for the sake of Mr. S.'s child, and a wife with whom he has lived for 14 years, it is pos- sible after some absence they may live together again in another town distant from here." He said, But if I stay in the town do you think Sainter will get a divorce, because if he will, I'll stay at once, I'll never leave." I said, I have not come to bargain about that, but to ask you to leave the town." I said I had known ,her when she was a little girl in her father's house, and would rather have followed her to her grave, as I did her brother, a short time ago. was here greatly affected.) Mr. Dowe and I married sisters. He said, It's hard lines for you to'bear, but I am not so much to blame as you think I am, for I assure you I resisted her as long as I could." I begged him to consider of it, and to go and he appointed the next day at 5 o'clock for me to receive his answer. He said that Sainter had behaved in a very ungentlemanlv way and he addeu, "I am unfortunately of so resentful a. disposition, that if any one injures me I never forgive it; and therefore, although I may be ruined by law, proceed- r n ruin him to,), acd injure him in every way I can." John Gaskill, Et; I live at Ingersiey am a county magi3- trate; I have known Mr. and Mrs. Sainter some time and vi.sited them they seemed to live very happily together; in society or at home they always appeared so. W. Thorneycroft Arderne: Am a surgeon at Macclesfield, in habits ofinti.maey with Mr. and Mrs. Sauiter. My wife (who-is i now dead) and I have often visited with them. They seemed to live very happily. In August last Mr. Sainter came to my liouse, at three o'clock in the ihorning, and asked me to go to his home. He was in a state of great excitement. Mrs. Sainter was up and dressed, and appeared to have been crying. John Sidebottom Am an artist; came to Macclesfield in 1S47, and was intimate with the Sainters. Ferguson came in March, 1818. He lived with the plaintiff. I was in the habit of going to Gawthorpe's shop. In three or four weeks after defendant came he paid what 1 thought improper attentions to Mrs. Spter. On a SUdday in April I dined at Sainter's, and saw Mrs. Sainter in the surgery yard dressed as far church. She asked Ferguson if he was ready. He did not speak but turned round aila,atteuilted, to embrace her. I did not afterwards go so frequently as before. In May and June I have seen Mrs. Sainter and defendant. In June last I saw Mrs. Sainter at the dressing-room window paying some sort of attention to the surgery. I saw the defendant afterwards pass my lodgings. I once followed them, it was in June. She went in the direction of the town fields, and into Boughey-lane. I was in a foot path in the field adjoining. When she got near a plantation she slackened her pace, and went through a gap into the plantation. I then saw Mr. Ferguson ap- proach her from behind the hedge. He said something t) her, left her, looked up the lane and down, then rejoined her. (Here the evidence was unfit for publication but it established the fact of a criminal intercourse.) I saw defendant leave Mrs. Sainter, and saw her return home. I spoke to her on the way. She seemed strange and put about. It was not- till August 23rd I mentioned the matter to Mr. Sainter, telling him his wife had been in Fer- guson's arms, embracing each other as lovers. Before Ferguson came they lived comfortably together. Sainter was everything that was kind. Mr. Chilton here addressing the court said that his first duty he owed to his client, but he also owed a duty to his country; he must admit that after such evidence it was impossible to deny the adulterous intercourse. Mr. Chilton addressed the jury in a long and powerful speech in behalf of the defendant. It was, he observed, his painful duty to address them on the part of the defendant, and he would assure them he never rose to address a jury under feelings of greater embarrassment than those under tfhich he then laboured. He was free to confess to them that the case he had to meet was one totally different from that which he expected, but over and above that his inefficiency to do justice to his client might be accounted for by this circumstance, that, though he had had a pretty long experience in the profession, he never before was engaged in an action of that nature, and he most heartily hoped he never should be again. That was a matter of very little importance to the jury, but he thought it was only justice to the principality to state, in the whole of that portion of the circuit he had attended during the last twenty-five years, such an action bad never occurred, and he trusted never would, for they had had a disclosure disgusting in the extreme. Now, he fearlessly asked them, what was the value to a hnsband of a" passable woman ?" the mother of a child fourteen years of age, who sees a youth not ten years older than her son, in the month of March-who, on a Sunday in the month of April, when she ought to have been at church, and when she was about to go to church, ran into an open yard to get a kiss from that unhappy youth—who in the very next month com- mitted an act of adultery in an open field-doing that which one would suppose even a beast would have shrunk from in open day. He might make some observations upon the gentleman who had acted as spy, but should refrain. He first saw her beckoning to the defendant. What did the other witnesses prove ? That she was constantly going to the surgery, and beckoning the young man out What was the value of the loss of a woman who was acting in this manner—who was the mother of a child almost arrived at the age of ptibery-after the hey-day of passion had goöe-and when judgment should wait upon appetite— Shame where is thy blush ? Can rebellious hell wanton in a matron ? He then proceeded, in eloquent terms, to contend that Mrs. Sainter was the seducer—that the defendant, being a youth only twenty-three years of age, had fallen into the snares of a de- signing woman that the object of the action was not for the pur- 11 pose of obtaining a divorce, but, in order to induce the defendant to leave Macclesfield, so that the plaintiff might take back his wife before long, and concluded by observing that he trusted that the jury would make up in their consideration his deficiency but above all, said he, I pray you to remember that most mer- ciful injunction which is given in that spirit of love and charity which characterised everything that fell from the holiest lips that ever spoke—I say unto you, gentlemen, let him that is without sin cast the first stone and I say unto you in the same spirit- be merciful as you expect mercy." After an absence of about a quarter of an hour they returned into court with a verdict for the plaintiff—damages, £ 350.

NORTH WALES, PiAiLWAY COMPANY.

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THE BLUE BOOKS, IN WELSH.…

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