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Mr Norton could not have subpoenaed my publishers in the County Court, to annul my right even to my own soul and brains. Had there been no such proceedings,—then, instead of this pamphlet, the work I was occupied upon, would have appeared; harmlessly to amuse those who had leisure to read it. I give them, in lieu of such a work, this "Story of Real Life;" taking place among the English aristocracy; with perfect impunity on the part of the wrong-doer! I invite Mr Norton to disprove it. He cannot. If he had merely been unfaithful, I would have forgiven it. If he had merely defrauded me, I would have confined myself to the formal struggle against that fraud; but he has publicly libelled me; and against that public libel, repeated after an interval of sixteen years, I will make my final stand. It is not in human nature to bear, without the deepest resentment, the last attack made upon me. I do feel the deepest resentment; and I consider this especial time, when the marriage laws are said to be under consideration, a fit opportunity for shewing what can be done under the laws as they are. Whether those laws are amended or not, henceforward those who malign me, will do so in the face of proved evidence against them:—henceforward those who have loved and upheld me, shall not merely say,—"We believed her,"—but shall be able to assert,—"these are the facts: and on these, we upheld her."
Mr Phillimore, in a bill brought forward this session, for a very different legal improvement,[1]—observed that the object cf the bill was "to withdraw from the spheri of private animosity, caprice, and revenge, that which never ought to be left to private animosity, caprice, and revenge; and to see that justice was properly administered." There is no question that the principle is a sound one for all legal control; and there is no reason why such control should be in abeyance for one particular class of persons, or class of cases. The law compels the poor man to be responsible to the community at large, for the mal-
- ↑ The establishment of a Public Prosecutor.
