The Express.
London, England, 1863-10-28 00:00:00

intsremi:

--Fermi peewee, meet of whom were is a humble solidi-
fies of life, were examiaed ea wittiness, and they proved
the repreeentations that had been mad* to them by one or
Mawr of the &deadest. as to the tiourithing condition of the
society, and to there being a reserved feed of 5,000(., and
amid that in oossequence of these repreesatatioes they
sums of mosey every month so the society as mem-
Mrs. Littlejohn, the widow of the pares whose
life had been Mauled, described the circumstances under
which the insurance was effected ; and aim also said that
when she applied for the mosey the first objection that
was made by the defendants to paying her was that they
had been deceived as to the state of health of the de-
em/led, and that she had concealed the fact that be had
previously been attended for assumption by a medical
man. It appeared that upon this she consulted a person
samedfitears, and he communicated with the defendants,
and endeavoured to obtain the amount of the insurance
tress them, but we. unable to do so, and that criminal
roseredtissgs were consequently instituted against the de-
Robert (Mears, the person above referred to, and who
described himself as a " referee," was examined as a
witness, and he stated that in consequence of in-
formation relative to the affair, given to him by Mrs.
Littlejolui, he west to the residence of the defeedant
Oxford in Lambeth-square, and had some con-
versation with him upon the subject of the claim. He
represented that, in answer to the questions he put to him,
the defendant said that be had no funds from which the
claim could be setisned, and that there was no money at the
beakers'. He also said that the society was still obtaining
mosey [rein the piddle for policies, but that the whole of
the mosey so resolved was expended in paying the expenses
' of collecting It (A laugh.) The witness also represented that
Oxford admitted that the society was hopelessly insolvent
at this time, and that they had no mesas of paying Mrs.
Littlejohn 's claim. He likewise said that a conversation of
a similar tenor took place shortly afterwards, during which
all the defendants were present, aid he stated that upon
this occasion be told the defendants that if they were
really acting in the way they stated, they were committing
• fraud upon the public, and were guilty of felony.
This witness was subjected to a very severe croft-exam i-
nafion, which lasted double the time it otherwise would
have dope owing to the extraordinary manner in which he
' answered the questions that were put to him, and be tensed
a good deal of laughter by repeatedly telling the learned
counsel who was examining him that it was he who was
westing the lime of the public by putting frivolous ques-
tions ; end although the learned Common Serjeaut told the
vitae.' several times that he was bound to gnawer the
gaieties. that were put to him, and that many of the
answers he gave were very improper 011 M, the reproof ap-
peared to have very little effect. The principal !seta
that were elicited, as affecting the ease of the
defendants, appeared to be that when the wit-
ness was stemmed before the magistrate he did tot
say anything about the defendanta admitting that the
was in • hopelessly insolvent state, and that he sp-
in the first instance to have treated Mrs. Littlejohn 'a
cam as a disputed claim between the parties on meant of
the alleged false representation as to the state of health of
her husband.

Several other
witnesses were examined in support of the
promientioa, whose evidence went to show that they bad
effected insurances upon their own lives and upon those of
their mistime, and that in every case where a death took
Oboe the defendant. refuted to pay the amount insured.
In several instances the ground of this refusal was that the
society had been deceived as to the condition of health of
the person *soured, but Moos Maiming it appeared that they
mimed to pay on the ground that the premiums had not
beau fatly paid up, wh arms solely from the neglect of
the_Larierer Donn in me calling for the money, be having
y told the party that if the collector did not call
riTtlir money he would not in any way sutler by his neglect.
Mr. Henry Tainpkia, the chief clerk is tail office of Mr.
Tide Pratt. the registrar of Friendly flonieliss, proved that
is July, 1862, a balancesbeet was mot is to the office by
the dsfesdaste, by which it was made to appear that there
was a balance of more than 3801. in favour of the society.
In answer to questions put in cromexamioation this see-
Masan slated that it was the duty of the secretary or ma-
nager of ever, benefit society to send in a balacesabest
each year, and by neglecting to do so • penalty of twenty
shillings was incurred for each default. He said that this
mulatioe was not complied with by more than half of the
different societies, and the registrar took proceedings to en-
I force the act of parliament as much as be maid, but as
there were more than twenty thousand such moieties in
axisdeoce, it was impossible to prosecute io every case
where this provision of the act of parliament was infringed.
Mr. Oifferd, at the close of the clue for the promcution,
addresser the jury for the defence, and he said the answer
he should make to the charge was that the defeedants had
endeavoured to establish a book Ede friendly society, and
the real fact was that having been uneecceesiul in doing so,
curtain parties, who felt themselves aggrieved, turned
I round upon them, and sought to peaieh them
I through the medium of the criminal law, He remarked
I epee the fact that although the society had bees in exist-
'wee fer four years, only a very small number of eases had
bees brought forward where they had refused to pay upon
the policies that had bees effected with them ; mod he
argued that, wader the circumstances, they were justified
resistiag them particular claims. He said he should
show that they had paid hundreds of claims is the most
bosnurable manner ; and that. wheel it sea found that the
society could sot go on any loafer in comeliest. of the
charges that were made against its managing olliews. a very
large poetics of Weimar was headed over to somber
=; sad ha argued that wider these corcutairdinoss it
be most unjust to markt the defendant, open the
presume shares.
&t this stage of the ernes the wart equine&