The disposition of the general public to review the pro-
ceedings of Courts of Justice, and to arrogate to themselves the right of censuring Judges and juries and granting re- prieves, has increased, is increasing, and ought to be sharply checked, for the general public is just about as well fitted for this work as it is for the regulation of an elaborate service of railway-trains or the organisation of an army. On Tuesday a public meeting, called by Mr. Alexander W. MacDougall, was held at the Cannon Street Hotel to consider the May- brick verdict, and was addressed by that gentleman, who, on the ground that he had spent three nights in reading up the verbatim report of the trial and the summing-up, assumed a position rather more authoritative than that of the Judge, and announced to the meeting,—who would hear nothing from anybody who thought the Judge or jury better fitted to pronounce a judgment than themselves,—that Mrs. Maybrick had gone up to London, on the occasion on which she met Mr. Brierley there, to bring about a separation between herself and her husband,—indeed, to settle with her solicitor a deed of separation which had already been approved by counsel, on the ground that there was "another woman in the case," whose relations with her husband would give her the means of obtaining a divorce. Evidently Mr. MacDougall should have taken the defence out of the hands of Sir Charles Russell, so much better could he have conducted it.
