Lola Montez : $b An adventuress of the 'fortiesD'Auvergne, Edmund B. (Edmund Basil)
History
Lola Montez : $b An adventuress of the 'forties
D'Auvergne, Edmund B. (Edmund Basil)
Montez, Lola, 1818-1861
"Mr. Bingham, after a short consultation with Mr. Hardwick, said: 'It
is observable in the present case that the person most immediately
interested (a person of full age and holding a commission in Her
Majesty's army) is not the person to institute or to countenance the
prosecution. It is quite compatible with the evidence now produced
that the accused may have received by the same mail from India a few
hours later than the official return, a letter communicating the death
of Captain James from cholera or some other casualty. The law presumes
she is innocent till the usual proof of guilt is brought forward. Here
that proof is wanting, and the magistrate is requested to act on a
presumption of guilt. I feel great reluctance in doing so, even to the
extent of a remand without an assurance on the part of the prosecutor
that the evidence necessary to ensure a conviction will certainly be
producible on a future occasion. No such assurance can be given in
this case, because between the 13th June and the last marriage, a
period of nearly six weeks, Captain James may have been snatched from
life by any of those numerous casualties by which life is beset in a
military profession and a tropical climate. However, upon the express
admission of the advocate that in his judgment sufficient ground has
been laid for further enquiry, and upon his offer to find security, I
shall venture to order a remand, and to liberate the prisoner, upon
finding two sureties in L500 each, and herself L1,000, for her
reappearance here on a future day.'
"Bail was immediately tendered and accepted. The Countess of Landsfeld
and her husband were allowed to remain some time in court in order to
elude the gaze of the crowd."
Her counsel's blunder had cost Lola and her husband two thousand pounds.
The prosecution succeeded in ruining the beautiful woman against whom it
was directed. A spiteful old lady had taken advantage of a bad law. The
whole proceedings were cruel and vindictive. A law framed by bigots and
administered by idiots condemned a woman to lose her conjugal rights; and
when she attempted to contract new ties and create for herself a home, it
threatened her with the punishment of a felon. Decrees like that of Dr.
Lushington impose on women the alternatives of celibacy and prostitution.
Lola, who was too human for the one, and too highly organised for the
other, was accordingly bludgeoned, defamed, and driven out of society.
Somewhere between this world and Nirvana there should be a flaming hell
for the makers of our ancient English law; though, perhaps, we should seek
them in the limbo of unbaptized innocents and idiots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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