where she received the most cruel treatment at the hands of those ladies. He took all her money, and spent it upon his own dissolute pleasures, threatening to take her life if she ever uttered a complaint to her parents. Well would it have been had he confined himself to threats! I am instructed that upon one occasion he struck her in her dressing-room with some heavy implement—that she fell to the ground, and retained the mark of the injury for many days; that upon another, when they were at Brussels, he seized her by the hair, flung her upon the ground, and dragged her about, concluding this scene of violence by cutting off her hair. Again, when they were at Folkestone, he saturated the lady’s handkerchief with grease, and when she was asleep applied it to her face and set fire to it, thereby putting her in extreme danger of her life. I must also refer to another incident, which I am compelled to characterise as disgusting, which occurred at Folkestone. Mr. Barber here actually accused my pure and injured client of an indelicate desire to show her feet and ankles when getting in and out of the railway train. But enough of this! It was, again, his constant habit to lock her up in a dark room, because he had ascertained that my client has almost a childish fear of the terrors of the supernatural world; but surely something, in such cases, can be forgiven to the constitutional timidity of a woman. He has been known to lock up cats shod with walnut-shells, upon an occasion of the kind, and to draw pictures with phosphorus on the walls, in order to increase her apprehensions.”
At this moment a clerk slipped a paper into Mr. Battledove’s hand, who glanced at it, and continued:
—“And now, Gentlemen, I come to the lesser grievances to which I before alluded. These, taken by themselves, might be held to be nothing—mere trifles—the little cat’s-paws of a summer’s breeze which will ruffle—though but for a moment—the calm felicity of the best-assorted unions. You will, however, I think, in the discharge of your duty, take all the surrounding circumstances into account, and remember that the acts of which I am about to speak were the acts of a husband whose relations with his wife had been signalised in other more important particulars by tyranny and brutality of the grossest kind. Mrs. Barber—when she entered the married state, remember!—had 800l. per annum; Mr. Barber—nothing but his liabilities! Now, it would appear that Miss Cecilia Montresor—when the negotiations for a marriage were pending between herself and Mr. Barber during the course of her most unfortunate rides with that gentleman in Rotten Row—had expressly stipulated that, during the period of her coverture, Mr. Barber would not interfere with her, nor check her in her habit of purchasing, and wearing silk stockings—and no others. These, it was understood, were to be purchased with her own money. What will you think, Gentlemen, when I tell you that very soon after the fatal words were pronounced, which consigned the lady to his mercy—or, I should rather say, his brutality—he proposed to her to use as a substitute certain stockings which, as I am instructed, are known amongst ladies and in the trade as—Cotton Tops! I cannot give you any precise information as to the meaning of the term—whether the foot or the leg of these hybrid articles is made of silk I am wholly unable to say—or it may perhaps turn out that the fabric is a mere mixture of cotton and silk after all. Mrs. Barber herself will, however, give you precise information upon this point—but, at any rate, she indignantly refused to comply with his request. Mr. Barber then replied that he would compel her to wear worsted stockings—stockings of the coarsest kind, calculated to injure and otherwise irritate the limbs of a delicate lady. For a time he did so—though he afterwards relented. Upon another occasion, he absolutely burnt some petticoats adorned with open and curious needle-work, upon which Mrs. Barber set great value, and insisted that she should wear petticoats of thick stuff, with work at the bottom not above three inches in depth. Again, he abstracted from her a little dog who was greatly attached to her—and, poor lady! she had much need of the attachment even of the brute creation!—and caused it to be stewed with button mushrooms, and served up for dinner: and it was not until she had partaken freely of the dish that Mrs. Barber was informed of the nature of her repast. But I had forgotten, whilst we were on the head of drapery, to mention to you that Mr. Barber had absolutely refused to allow his wife to make use of those articles known to all of you, Gentlemen, under the name of Crinolines. Now, I am not here, Gentlemen, to defend all the vagaries of fashion; but, at the same time, I think you will agree with me, that it is a little hard upon a lady not to be permitted to use the dress of her class. What was the consequence?—three of the leading modistes’ houses in town actually struck Mrs. Barber’s name out of their books, and refused further to imperil their credit by working on Mr. Barber’s patterns. Whatever you may think of this, you will, I am sure, agree with me in condemning the profound indelicacy of a husband who, upon one occasion, actually put on his wife’s crinoline outside his own dress; and, entering a room in which a number of their friends of both sexes were assembled, executed in Mrs. Barber’s presence, and in the presence of their guests, a dance—known, I believe, as the Cachucha—whilst the poor lady’s cheeks were burning with shame and confusion. But, Gentlemen, I will not weary you with reciting, at any length, details which you will hear more appropriately from the lips of the injured lady herself; and very confident am I that when you have heard her simple and artless tale, you will at once—under his Lordship’s direction—conclude that Mrs. Barber shall walk out of this Court free from all further servitude—that she may lay her head upon her pillow at night without any longer apprehension that her uneasy slumbers may be disturbed by a curse and a blow. You will stand between that feeble woman and her savage master. You will remember that you have wives, sisters, daughters of your own: that you are men, and Englishmen, in a word, and will not sit quietly by and see sacred womanhood assaulted and outraged in the person of my unfor-