INFERENTIAL PROMISE OF MAR RT AGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 570, 1 November 1862, Page 6

INFERENTIAL PROMISE OF MAR RT AGE.

(From the Saturday Review.') The obvious defect of the law is, that the least protested female — the orphan girl, who is without the safeguards of home and family — is left the most defenceless. The solitary lamb is the most natural and easy prey to the wolf. But there are lambs who occasionally show something of the fox's faculties. It is as though nature, in a wisely compensating dispensation, made amends for the untoward accidents of life. The wind is tempered to the shorn one. Briti»h law, in arming the unprocected female with the powers of the action for breach of promise of marriage, has made ample amends for its appar nt harshness in not giving a girl a pecuniary interest in her virtue. Miss Thomas has just tried, in her action with General Shirley, the utmost capacities of this very peculiar Jiritish institution. The present assizes &eeiu destined to test the limits to which this action can go ; and perhaps a check was wanting to its elastic facilities. At Durham a curious case has just been tried, W which an injured female who had a little misfortune, has contrived to extract £150 from the father of the little misfortune on the strength of two letters conta ; " ; ng a promise of marriage, although the said letters were written by one who, on this occasion, though otherwise not an illiterate person, forgot how to spell his own name. At York a still more curious ca-c, illustrating the tenderness of the law, has occurred. An aged plaintiff of bixty-one has jnst got a verdict with £500 damages, for a breach of promi.-e of marriage made more than forty years ago, the accompaniment or consequent of which promise was a little stranger who has been in the grave some thitty-onc years. Such being the actual working of the ladies' action, even the Committee for the Defence of Women's Rights can scarcely urge a grievance in the present state of the law as regards marriage and things pertaining to marriage. The law ha^ not defined promise, because promise is, perhaps, undeniable. Documentary evidence of promise is of course the best ; so good is it that it occasionally tempts to something which, as in the Du-ham case, looks a little too good. If love-letters are vague and inexplicit, they can be helped out by oral evidence ; and though the parties to the action are not allowed to appear a-> nesses i'l their own case, there is, generally enough of amorous talk to fasten hints of int2iided matrimony, even upon the coldest of suitors; and, to do them justice, British jurors, under the influence of a flair-nig woman's advocate, generally construe the slightest of hints into the most explicit of prom- .«. In the case of Thomas v. Slrrley, the fa ; r plamtiff tried both documentary and oral evidence. But in each case she bent the bow a little too strongly. The history of this young lady is, we trust, not typical ; and we shorM be loth to regard her as a representative woman- -Sho r *- '*-- ""««■<-* into yu-uns instance not the raw materials) of a novelist's heroine. An orphan, asbisted by the trifling legacy of a relative, she was enabled to commence what is sentimentally styled the battle of life, under creditable auspices. She pursued the honorable calling of a governess, and in that capacity she " entered the families " of two solicitors. "Whether her three years and a half experience in teaching the young scions of the law dibgnsted her with the work of instruction, or whether an ungrateful world scarcely appreciated her " educational " powers we are not distinctly told, but a change came over her ambition. Under the advice of a Miss Moon, the Lady -Principal of the Collegiate and Musical Agency Office, in Xcwman-street, i'l whose father's house she resided, she advertised for the situation of housekeeper to a gentleman. The office sought was certainly as ambiguous as the terms in which Miss Thomas under experienced advice, offered her services. It Avas from a "widower or single gentleman" that "the young lady, accomplished, and of lady-like deportment, was desirous of obtaining an engagement as housekeeper." Her name being plain Anne, she preferred to be addressed as Constance. An advertisement so romantic and suggestive, at least to the cai nal mind, was answered by a Major-General Shirley, a man of fam"'y and fortune, and on the look out for what ..e would style " bonnes fortunes? who kept a considerable establishment, and was blest with a wife, who was also blest wltk a separate maintenance. Brookside Lodge is the gallant soldier's residence, and his Rugby paradise only lacked a casual Eve. Although fifty years of age the General possessed a handsome person, as Avell as fortune, but according to the burning words of Sergeant Shee— for Sergeant Bnzfuz AAas not in the case — he " proved himself as heartless a seducer as ever appeared in a court of justice." On the one side, a girl, young, poor, and friendless ; on the other, rank, fortune, experience of life, and every external quality which could fascinate innocence and simplicity. Nothing could be more interest'ng or proper than Miss Thomas's a low of so ambiguous a situation as housekeeper to such a man. _ It would be equivocal, it would compromise her; the cold, cruel Avorld, Avould misunderstand the position. To be sure, it was exactly what she advertise&ibr ; but the reality of her own suggestion appalled her tender and' alarmed virtue. She positively declined the situation, but so meek and attractive was her demeanor, and "so silvery her voice," that she fairly fascinated the experienccdgeneral. The lion AvaS in, love, and so ! much in love that at the very second interview, the very day after they met, Hercules offered Omphale u his hand and fortune." It Avas arranged that they should meet again, and in a short time she should be his wife. Such is Sergeant Slice's historical statement. These arrangements were carried out Avith a celerity and completeness Avhich shoAved that the general Avas a veteran in the courts of Venus as Avell as on the fields of M'irs. lie at once proposes that the young lady should meet him at a friend's house, a most respectable Avoman, Avho Avill not in any Avay be curious as to our meeting in her house. And further, that she should leave toAvn Avith him for Saturday and Sunday, just for a run in the j country, or a trip to the seaside. We are led to the conclusion that this is the practice -with engaged persons. It seems that, as soon as eA'cr a promise of marriage has been given and accepted, it is our English custom for the gentleman and lady to meet at the house of a incst respectable Avoman, in " Charlotte-street, Portland Place " (the initial letter of this place is important), and run down solus cum sola to Southend. It is a trait in our national manners. In this instance the Airhole train of perfidy was carried out just as in a book. The fair innocent modestly and coyly declined to meet her mature swain at his convenient and umnquiring friend's residence in Charlottestreet; but he did persuade her to dine Avith bun a little Avay out of town. " After dinner the last tram was gone," and " then her rum was effected." As in the famous Latin version of Miss Baily's sad misfortune—

Seduxit miles virgincm locatus in hybernis ;

or, as the jury ultimately thought—

Suduxit \ii£;o lnih'cm

Now, in this painful history, all that was really important was when and where the promise of marriage was given. It wa< admitted that General v with a craft and cunning almost incredible, excluded from his | letters almost every w:r.l whlui made express reference to marriage;" but so, Sergeant Shee j argued, such promise ''ini'jht fairly be inferred.'' We are asked, therefore, to believe that, when a young person of "accomplishments and lady-like deportment" advertises for a situation :is housekeeper to a widower, or a single man, and when such widower or single man (only in this case he was a married man) answers such advertisement, and after a single interview addresses the latly as his "'darling little Annie," and proposes a three days' trip to the country with her, without a single word about mnrriagc, he means marriage all the time, and substantially promises it. This is the legal doctrine of inferential promise of marriage. Miss Thomas, who, after ''her rr> ; n wns effected," was installed as iv : stress of Bruoksidc Lodge, and passed under the name of Mrs. Shirley, seems to have discovered that the inferential promise wanted verbal strength. So, with artless simplicity, she writes a pretty letter to her lover, reminding him of a certain

promise, and demanding its fulfilment, not without a d;n - k reference to legal proceedings ; and in order ta that little link which was wanting 111 the golden chain which was to secure her a hu. jiitid or goodly damages, she plants aconvc>''jnt and faithful friend within earshot of the (General's answer to her tender complaints of her sad fate and hetiayed virtue, more particularly in the matter of being obliged to wear a summer bonnet and cloak i \ December. The gallant General, however, though the interview was stormy, like the season, never pleaded to the promise. In dark December lie forgot or denied the secret pledges and promises of May. Mi^s Thomas, uii'ler the advice ot the Me^rs. Lewi-, attornics, bring* her action, and takes nothing bj 7 it. But society takes a good deal by it ; and to jSaron Bramwcll we owe, what was only to be expected from a British judge, a prorit'ible Httle essay on the d'ri'erence between i\al and fictitious seduction After cnlaiging with what is styled, "indignant emphasis '" on the crime of robbing a woman of lier purity and peace of mind under nase anl fraudulent pretences, the learned Uaroa proceeded to remark that there might be cases in which no promise of marriage wa« ever given or thought of, nnd that there might be women who not unwillingly were won, and who sold themselves with their eye i open, merely to extort money by the threat and terror of exposure. Under such circumstance:., to give a \erdicfe to a wo nan, would be a most cruel w rong, and a grievous injury to society. Ir', hjcause a woman lias a child by a man. a jury is to infer a promise of marriage, then women will be encouraged to vice and immorality. These emphatic remarks received an emphatic answer from the jury. They gave a verdict for the defendant; and, lnuch a< we may pity Mm Thorn-is, public morality is to be congratulated, for often as the action for seduction and the action for breach of promise ha\ c been used for evil and wrong, no case i-> conceivable in which a heavier wrong could have been inflicted on society anl morals than by giving a verdict to Miss Thomas. One thing this curious case disposes of — the doctrine of inferential promise of marriage. And another, though a minor, benefit it confers on society in general, when it teaches us in what sense to read advertisements by accomplished young ladies for the post of ''Housekeeper to a widower or single gentleman." A third piece of information which it incidentally conveys is how to estimate the discretion of ''Lady Prmpmalc *vP P/»lU t ;..tn —1 IX — :~a -L,^.,^ Ofliccs," and of the sort of nuns in whom such abbesses take an interest.