Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/119

107 , refers to the plea of her coverture; now it so happens that within the last few weeks a poor man, Peter Dooladdy, came to and showed me a notice that he had received from the Westminster County Court, informing him that Mrs Norton would plead coverture in an action which he had there brought against her for wages due to him, and I understood that she has given a similar notice to several others of her creditors.

Lord Melbourne promised me the appointment of police magistrate before he visited at our house, or before, I believe, he even knew Mrs Norton (!)

''Lord Eldon had appointed me Commissioner of Bankrupts in 1827j and when such appointment was abolished by the construction of the Bankruptcy Court in 1830 or 1831, I considered that I had some claim on the Home Secretary, having received no compensation for the loss of my situation. I must add, the acceptance of the police magistracy necessarily involved the relinquishment of my profession.''

Mr Trail, the receiver of my rents, proved on Thursday that my income from every source did not average 2,400l. per year.

It is true, therefore, that the agreement of 1848, to allow 500''l. a year was not conditional upon the relinquishment of an allowance from Lord Melbourne's estate. It is not true that I ever said or suggested the contrary. It is true that after Lord Melbourne's death, and when I was informed of such an allowance, I required Mrs Norton's solemn assurance that she had never received, and would not receive, an income from such a source; that at one time that solemn assurance was given; that at another the bare suggestion that any such benefaction from Lord Melbourne had been accepted was treated as an insult, and that nevertheless, upon obtaining access to her bankers' books, I ascertained that she had actually received that allowance from Lord Melbourne's estate from'' 1849.

It is not true that I refused to perform the agreement of 1848, because it was made between man and wife; but it is true, that the agreement, having been of a temporary and not of a per-