The Zierenberg Case.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 30, 3 February 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Zierenberg Case.

End of thb Sixteen Days' Trial.

Labey Again Triumphs,

(from our own correspondent.)

London, December 15. The lengthy Zierenberg libel case, which has occupied a High Courc Judge and a special jury for the best) part of the last month, came to an end on Wednesday afternoon, the twelve good men aud true with hardly any hesitation giving the re" doubtable ' Labby ' the verdict. This action, as your readers will most of them re* member, arose out of one of those slashing denunciatory articles which have made ' Truth ' a terror to the swindling fraternity. Ib led off (says a summary of the circumstances) with a question, 'Is Zierenberg's a Home, or a Gaol?'and he suggested that ib was really a placeof business keptup for the benefit of M r nndMraZierenberg, while ostensibly serving the purpose of inebriate reform. To the outer world • ZierenbergV was an institution at Kenniugton-park known as the Sb. James's Home for Femalo Inebriates ; and and adjacent to ib was a so-called Temperance Hall, afc which entertainments were given to the inmates and to the general public of the neighbourhood. The Sb. James's Temperance Hall was contrived a double debt to pay,for onSundayfiib was bhe 3cene of religious ministrations. • Truth ' maintained that both Hall and Home were carried on undor overy kind of false pretence, and that) the Hall was a gaff which had deservedly loab its license on account of the character of the performances. Tho Home, on the other hand, was alleged to be little bettor than a sweating den, in which women of all ages, and of all characters, good and bad, drunken and temperate, were herded together in the most demoralising companionship, for the benefit of the proprietary pair. Tbe inmates were obtained through tbe agency of the Midnight Meeting Movement and other movements of the kind, and sometimes directly from the police courts. Mrs Zierenberg, ib was said, watched the police courts and generally made herself prominent as a philanthropist prepared to deal on religious and charitable principles with the most desperate cases. With some of her patients, if such they wore to be called, she received grants of money from the institutions in question or payment; on the parb of friends. Others wore admitted withoub paymenb, but all were compelled io work like slaves for the profit of this scheming pair. The Home, ia fact;, was in the main a steam laundry, working like other laundries for a profit, while obtaining valuable grants in aid from public beneficence. Its inmates were grossly overworked and underfed, and were virtually held as prisoners, on the plea thab they were there fcr the purpose of reformation. It was not denied that some of them had been enabled to emigrate, and had received outfits for bheir journey. But this, ib was urged, did not aft'ecb the general character of the establishment, and was little more than a blind.

The Zierenberga, of course, denied all these charges. Tho institution, they said, was exactly what it purported to be, a well-conducted reformatory and home. It was under distinguished philanthropic patronage. The inmates were well fed and well treated, and there was no restraint whatever on their personal liberty other than such as reasoning and persuasion might impose. The plaintiffs had given both time and money to the work. Tho money was derived from considerable private possessions of Mrs Zierenberg, and moreover from the lawful profits of her refreshment counter at the musichall, and from her equally lawful gains by the keeping of pigs. The form of the pleadings necessarily threw the burden of proof on the editor of • Truth.' Ib was not so much for the plaintiffs to show that) they were very good people, as

for him to show bhab they were very bad ones. He addressed himself bo the task with his accustomed energy. He began by giving a biographical sketch of the Zierenbergs. They came from Germany nearly thirty years ago, and. for bhe tirsb five years of their stay here, they lived by bßgging letters. They started in business ; and their was a fire on their premises, for which they made a claim for nearly £3,000, from an insurance company, which they entirely failed to sustain in an action at law. In 1873 Mr Zierenberg became bankrupt, and never paid his creditors a penny. At a later period he was in difficulties again, and he made an assignment of securities for bhe benehb of creditors which turned oub to be absolutely worthless. The statements as bo private income which placed them above the temptation to misuse charitable /subscriptions were totally unsupported by proof. At a time when, as they declared, they had £900 in a cashbox, they were actually borrowing £50 on a bill of sale. The books which Mr Zierenborg said would have proved his disinterestedness could not be produced as they had most unfortunately been burnt for want of room. The pretended Home, or rather factory, was scandalously ill-conducted. Women and girls were detained there against their will, and when they refused to work, or asked to leaye, were pub on dry broad, and sometimes drenched with water, or shut up in a sort of black hole. Mothers were nob allowed to visib their daughters, or, when they rieited them, were compelled to conduct the whole interview before witnesses who listened to every word. The hours of labour were killing. The unhappy beings began work at 6.20, and sometimes worked till 7 or 9 ab nighb. They had twenty minutes for lunch, and aboub halfan hour for dinner. They took their exercise, in all weathers, in an open yard. The sanitary arrangements of the place were abominable. There was but one bath for the use of about eighty persons. The moral associations were worse. Innocent girls and women of the worst character wero herded together—sometimes in the same bed. All this was supported by evidence, and some of the evidence was terrible. One witness after another legitimately interested in the inmate? came forward to say that they had found the greatest difficulty in obtaining access to them. Girls who insisted on leaving woro sometimes turned oub into the bleak streets with scarcely a rag to, covor them. There were frequent strikes, bhe poor creatures herding together in the yard, refusing to go back bo the workrooms, and holding oub until they were tamed with bread and water, or sometimes with blows. Two girls, ib was said, who had been shut up in a cupboard, had gone oub of their minds. One, who was called 'the Stoker,' from tho nature of her occupation, was the picture of misery. Her dress came only to hor knees, and below thab her legs were swathed in rags. The music hall, which was another of the proßb-mongering concerns of this precious pair, was so badly conducted that on the frequenb complaints of the residents the County Council had refused the_ licence. The sones abounded in coarse inuendo; the dancing was indecently suggestive; and the raw boys and girls that formed no small part of the audience did their courting in public in the intervals of the entertainment. This trial and verdicb will of course bring this whole scheme of fraud to an end.