A clergyman has been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for
a libel. The Rev. T. R. Birch engaged himself as tutor to Mr. F. Taylor, a merchant residing at Slough. He discovered after his engagement that Mrs. Taylor was a divorcée, who had borne her present husband two children while living with the first. Mr. Birch disliked either his position or his duties, complained of false representations, and after dismissal addressed to ilia successor letters warning him that " he had entered into a sink of the grossest crimes and infamy and vilest disgrace." Mr. Birch denies per- emptorily that he wrote this letter, but he was found guilty, and sentenced as we have said, the Recorder, in his judgment, declar- ing his belief that the libel was written simply in consequence of his having been discharged. The sentence will, we trust, put a stop to a practice always frightfully common.
Previous page
