THE ARMSTRONG TRIAL. The Defence-Mr stead's statement. (From Our London Correspondent.) London, Nov.5.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 133, 19 December 1885, Page 3

THE ARMSTRONG TRIAL. The Defence-Mr stead's statement. (From Our London Correspondent.) London, Nov.s.

The trial of Mr Stead, Mr Bramwell Booth, and the other defendants accused of being concerned in the abduction of the girl Eliza Armstrong, commenced at the Old Bailey on the 23m ult., , before Mr Justice Lopes and a BMciai,^»ry..,T|ie profieedinge dtjring the earlier staged of the. case were a mere repetition'bf what oocUrred at Bow- street, and attracted tut little public interest.! On the third day, However, Mr Stead took in hand th?' croßß : examination of Mrs Aralstrong. •nd r fehiiag6 at once became livelier. Between 'the tbllce Court inquiry and 1 the trial this good lady had ' evidently had the weak ' poitits of ; her - testimony poipted oat to her. She now desired to correct them, but. alteration was- not easy, iMr S,teatf • met. every, attempt with . the remorsefeiß question: <v Then what you said at?th«f Police' Court was untrue!?"— Witness. :/ Yes.wS.tead : A lie point qnt -of fact?—^itne'ss^ Yes.— Stead : What made you tell thai He ?,'-Witness (freely) : I don't khqw.—Thra dr^stJO tr^tment proved so dieoompoßiffg thrft , the' unfortunate woman after* .trying^ vainly .to seoure the Court's sympathy;. Jy^^ttdry ' .bjwste t ot. weeping; completely lost her head, cQntradictingiherseljf so jhofieleßsl^that her testimony wasn't w.orth, a qfuni^.^ On qrie ipoint alone she remained Uiisnaken!: ' Thajb she had qualms abdutffie^chiWVdeetth&tion, and had eus pwted" JaFrret?waßtqu|te .plain, ' but ( thafrehe j}ad>e,ysrjso^d p^a;orreQeived f more than a. s.hf(luig ftctni '^r any .purpose she denHest B^aiti f ahd J 'ag6jh? a Mrs Proughtbn 'afsß cm-Us'b'&cl{!y M in cross^scamination (;• in factrwhefc the'.^rSse^ation Closed 'it was felt the oase had assumed a; new, appearance. Mr. Chaß. Russell, opened the defence^ of Jarrett in a brief but eloquent speech, and then Mr Stead got up and told

' l'he : fetory of the Secret Commissioi). He' began by expressing regret that the Salvation Army should have been drawn into the case, and after ajwuiing the Ccjurt of Mr BramwelL ßooth's complete innocence, claimed, entire responsibility for any lawbreaking there might have been. The circumstances out of which the Seriret Commission arose were then touched upon. He r said. that it* was many years sinee 1 he firs,t took an interest in. the elevation 1 of fdlen women. "Mrs Josephine. Butler, whose name never can be mentioned in any assent blage of civilized and Christian men without profound reverence, was a north, country woman, as lam a north country man. She has been labouring for 15 or 16 years in a cauee closely allied to this. When I was editing a norbh country journal I came into communication, with Mrs Butler, and was tired with some- of her enthusiasm, of her love and reverence fpr the weakest and most degraded of her sex. I have now been a journalist for 14 years, and during all that time- 1 have uniformly .written in the sense of which I have written of late. This is no new thing with me. Many long years has the thought burned into my heart and brain that this infamy was going on, and these outrages being perpetrated under the very shadow of the English law, without any possible redress for those who suffered them." Mr Stead then detailed tho parliamentary action which resulted upon the issue of the report of the Committee of the House of Lords, which was appointed on the suggestion made in 1880 by a committee over which Mr Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain of the City of* London, presided.

Mr St«*<T« Interview with the City - Cluunberlain • Having explkined the failures of the bills of- 1883, 1884J and 1885, emasculated though the latter bill had: been in order that it might be got through the House of Commons, Mr Stead ..continued : I had to face, on Saturday, May 23: J, this certainty, that a bill, the urgency of which had been known to all philanthropic workers for many years, which had been known a.nd declared publicly by Ministers Of the Crown in the year 1881, was to be adjourned sine die to the Greek Kalends. Mr Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain of theCiry of fondon, came to my office. Mr Benjam nn o >tt was known to me not merely an eh .irman of that committee which led to the appointment of the Lords Committee and was therefore in one way the author, .if I may say so, of the Criminal Law Amendment Act originally, but he was known |o me as the chairman of the committee who had prosecuted, and unsuccessfully prosecuted, Mrs Jeffrieshe came to me and asked me if anything could be done. , He is a much older man than I, but for sik j^ars, as he told me, the horror- and the agony of this unfortunate traffichad weighed uDon him every waking hour. He, said : '*It is now five years Bince I brought this question before the attention of the Government: they have admitted the truth of ifc all j the Lords have passed the bill three times, and now for the third time the bill is lost. Can you do nothing If I was slow, I admit it with shame, to accept hia suggestion. The responsible conductor of a London journal has to consider many things before he takes a course which may ruin the property of his employers, which may entirely blight his own career, and which may, after* all, do no good. MiScott went, on ,to tell me not merely about the traffic abroad, about which I knew something,,. -but concerning the traffic in Bnerltsji girls in English brothels; about which I confer. I did doc kijowmuch He told me of . bnV.'c&e in 'particular, and that case was' oneoff^ Htfle" girl . —The AttorneyGeueralV-MylWd, I So not think we can go into thaW«t- Mr Justice Lopes ; You must not go fe'tpiletail.-r-ME Stead : I will not mention it in detail. — Mr Justice Lopes : You would not be in a position to prove it. - L M-r Stea«M He* deposition was; taken, and her eyideaee, iwouloi • have , been, heard in Court ore thfl Jteffries case if it had 1 gone on. — '> » -- « i«- , '••

Where Motive -May .Come, In, Mr Justice* Lopes': fewi*h to give" you every poeßible reasonable latitude that I oan, but you must recollect- as'l have already said tiimly, and 1 shall pay Brmly again when the time anives — that the motive has nothing to do with ;the crime which is charged in this indictment. Motives may have much to do' with what would follow a conviction in this case, but with that the jury have nothing to do.— Mr Stead : That is cfuite true, my lord, but I think you will see the close connection there is between the c&ee of Eliza Arm strong and this particular case that Mr Scott mentioned to me. Mr Justice [Lopes: I do not think you can go into that.

How the S.eoret Commission .was Started. 1 ' Mr Stead s I defer, to you, my lord, I propose to call Mr Scotfc, and I propose to call all the other persons to, whom 1 refer. The reason why I proposed to mention this was because it had an immediate and direct bearing upon the process of proouririg Eliza Armstrong, a girl of 13, and taking her to a brothel; she not knowing what it was., I will orily say ihat in consequence of stato ments ma2e/tome by Mr Scott, :the full senae of the 1 and of the" hp'pelessne/'s oriminttl Ila organised * ftr 1 London .' flashed upon me as it had never flashed