The Armstrong case, so much talked of, has at length
been brought into the Courts. The Government have resolved to prosecute ; and on Monday Mrs. Jarrett, Mr. T. Stead, Mr. Jacques, Mrs. Coombe, Mr. B. Booth, and Louise Mourey were charged at Bow Street with conspiracy to abduct and detain Eliza Armstrong, a child under fourteen. They were also charged with indecently assaulting, and causing to be indecently assaulted, the same child. The case has not yet been fully heard, and the defence is not known ; but it appears from the evidence and the proceedings in Court to be practically admitted that the child was taken away without the father's consent,— the mother's is still in dispute,—was carried to a bad house, was there medically examined by a French midwife without any consent either by the parents or the child, and was then sent a way to France. It is alleged also, but not yet legally proved, that the child was also chloroformed, and that she is identical with the "Lily," about whom such a frightful story was told in the Pall Mall Gazette. The latter statement rests, as far as the Police- court is concerned, on the fact that some lines written by Eliza Armstrong, and forwarded through her captors, were published in the Gazette as lines written by " Lily." The possession of the lines remains, of course, to be explained. The evidence adduced greatly excited the huge crowd in court and the rough crowd outside; and careful precautions had to be taken to protect the defendants, who were admitted to baiL Mr. Stead " takes the fall responsibility" of all the proceedings ; but that, of course, makes no difference to the law.
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