A wonderful crystal ball, formerly belonging to Lady Blessington, and
now to the proprietor of Zadkiel's Abnanack, has been the occasion this week of a very amusing law-suit. Sir Edward Belcher spoke of the proprietor of the Crystal Ball in the columns of the Daily Telegraph as a man who was in- effect a rogue, and "took money" for the visions which a boy pretended to see in this crystal. Zadkiel, or Lieutenant R. Morrison, late of the Royal Navy, and a profound believer in the ball himself, brought an action for libel against Sir E. Belcher for this letter. It appeared that he had never taken money for exhibiting it, that a great number of fashionable' people had eagerly applied to be allowed to inspect it, but that only one or two favoured persons had ever seen anything. The visions in the Ball were of a very miscellaneous character, the most antique, being' Eve (after the Fall), the most infamous Judas Iscariot, who did not seem to like the Ball he lived in, infi- nitely preferring, he said, to go back to Kell. One lady of ripe years was examined who had been discouraged from look- ing into the Ball as not being young enough for visionary purposes, but her infan tine, simplicity of soul appears to have answered as well, since she turned out the plaintiff's best wit- ness after all, deposing with much pathos and courage to visions of a "man in armour"—could it have been the City man in armour ?—and other persons which she had seen in it., but declining to look again in the profane region of a court of justice. The great people who had seen the Ball, but nothing in it, were of use to Zadkiel only to show that other people are as credulous as he. The jury did not think Sir Edward Belcher had a right to- speak of a man as lending himself to a fraud, because he was the slave of a crystal. Even the genius of Aladdin's lamp would be fairly treated by an English jury. Mr. Morrison. gained his verdict ; but considering, probably, that his almanack trade is, at least, a piece of charlatanerie, the jury gave only 20s. damages, and the Chief Justice refused the plaintiff costs.
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