Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/139

127 letters in 1837 was not the same advice I had given to the supposed injured husband of 1836. I gave Mr Norton, on the fancy case he submitted to counsel, good, sound, honest advice, to the best of my ability; and I gave him the like advice when his real case became known to me. If he had abided by that advice, and by his written pledge, the curiosity of the world would not now be gratified by details of his private affairs, which he compels others to publish piecemeal for their own justification. I am sorry, for his sake, that such publication ever took place; and I am glad for Mrs Norton's sake; because I consider there never was a more deeply-injured woman, and that his conduct to her certainly has been marked by 'the grossest cruelty, injustice, and inconsistency,' that ever any man displayed. Mr Norton may attack me with impunity: I shall not answer him; but I will not allow him to persuade the public that there is any inconsistency in an opinion formed on a thorough knowledge of his case; which opinion, now that all the circumstances of that case are more generally known, he will, I think, find to be universal.

This letter was considered, when it appeared, to be "unanswerable"; but Mr Norton's struggle was not yet over. On the 24th September,—eight days after Sir John had thus declared the true circumstances of our story,—Mr Norton re-appeared in print. He began by saying, that he had delayed his answer for a few days, and during the interval consulted counsel upon his power to file a criminal information against Sir John Bayley; but that course (he was advised) was no longer open to him, 'inasmuch as all parties had already resorted to the newspapers.'"

Any lawyer would know this excuse to be a false one; and that it was perfectly competent to Mr Norton (if he could have dared the result), to take other legal measures against Sir John Bayley. Declining refutation of the general charges, Mr Norton commented on two only: the breaking open of the doors, and the surreptitious letter privately sent, contradicting that which he affected to write and send at his referee's dictation. He admitted that he burst the doors open; called it a "frivolous quarrel"; and with that mania about money and money's worth, which made him deem such an excuse the