The Humors of the Divorce Court.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1553, 16 February 1887, Page 2

The Humors of the Divorce Court.

Sir Charles Rußßell's speech to the jury in the Campbell case was remarkable among other things for containing. , an excellent adaptation 'of a happy „ quotation. Here ib the Quotation":;-- "-' !' Ido pot know whether you' remember. ' reading a passage which has always struck me as one of the' most remarkable '■ in any language, and which I haye 1 tried," ' as best I could, to present. It is from that well-known work, ' The Barber of Seville,' and it brings to my mind. with fulness and vividness^ the perception How easy, once a slander ia set going, to predispose the minds of others to believe it possesses their minds ; and once possess . their minds they view things with a distorted vision. The writer says:— ' Calummy, sir ! You hardly know what you are despising. I have seen the most

respectable people almost overwhelmed by it. Believe me there is no sort of wickedness, no horror, no absurd talk tbat you cannot make the idlers of a village believe in if you set the right way about it. First a little humming sound, skimming the ground like a swallow before a storm; pianissimo pianissimo, murmuring and buzzing, and spreading the poison as it goes. A breath catches up, piano, piano, it glides into your ear adroitly. The harm is done it takes root, it climbs, it travels, and rushing from mouth to mouth, it travels like the devil., Then, all at once, you hardly know how, you see it raising its head, swelling itself out, growing monstrous under your very eyes. It rises, takes its flight, whirls round you, clutches ' you, drags you along, bursts forth, and thunders, and becomes, Heaven help us ! a general shriek. crescendo, a universal chorus , of hatred and proscription. Who the devil can withstand it ?'"— Fall Mall Gazette.