The Express.
London, England, 1846-09-03 00:00:00

I ato linttlligcnce.

SECONDARIES' COURT.—V_EsTERDAY.
Before Mr. Sasondsri Potter.
BELL AND ANoTBER o.II.—BAILWAY Coers.—ln
this action the plaintiffs are civil engineers, and the defendant
is the Hon. Captain Gore, R.N., and M.P. for New Ross.
In November last, a surveyor contracted to survey the lice of
the proposed Direct Manchester, Leeds, and York Railway
(of which Vie defendant was one of the provisional directors),
but failing to do so, on the 15th of that month the company
engnacd the plaintiffs to complete it, and to finish all the
plans, &c., by the " 30th" of November. For their services
they were to receive ten guineas per day, exclusive of ex-
penses, sad five guineas per day for their assistants, and their
expco .es. These terms were accepted. The work was done,
and the plaintiffs claimed 2191.95. 9d., payment of which the
company guaranteed. Subsequently the plaintiffs refused to
execute other work unless their former account were paid.
Mr. Whitehead, secretary to the company, proved the en-
gagement of the plaintiffs, the execution of the work, and the
?Aims* of the charges. The company would have paid the
account, but they had no money. The witness proved the
guarantee, and that defendant bad admitted his liability, as
he (defendant) had offered to contribute 501. toward, the
expenses of the company. The Secondary said that the de-
fendant was clearly responsible. Verdict for plaintiffs.

COURT OF BANKRUPTCY.
Before Mr. Commissioner lane.
1w RE ATIIIB.—IIKPOILTANT JUDOWEET.—THE SMALL
Dears Am.—lbis insolvent obtained his final order from
this court on the 2nd of July last, and had inserted in his
schedule a debt of 21. 17s. due to Mr. Abercrombie. He was
sued by Mr. Abercrombie, and judgment of the Palace Court
was signed against him on the 2nd of May last. Summonses
were taken out upon this judgment. He was ordered to at-
tend the Palace Court, but thinking himself safe by his inte-
rim order, and in anticipation of his final order, he did not
attend the court as required. Subsequently he was taken
to prison under the Brasil Debts Act, and he now applied to
this court for his release from custody.
Mr. Commissioner Fane, after having gone through the
facts of the case, said that he had no risdiction in the
matter. The final order was dated the lad of July, 1846,
and the order for imprisonment under the Small Debts Act
was made prior to the fins! order. Application refused.
ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.
NORTHERN ClRCUlT.—LtvzitrooL, SePT. 1.
GERARD, Blur. r. Musritarr.—The defence in this
case was resumed before Mr. Justice Cresswell, and Mr. S.
Curtis, formerly land-agent to the Duke of Newcastle, de-
posed that the result of his observations of such of the plain-
tiff's estates as lay within the vicinity of defendant's che-
mical works was, that some portions of the hedge-rows and
plantations were healthy and flourishing; but where decay
was observable, its causes were natural. He also criticised
the mode of planting unfavourably.—Mr. Richard Evans,
who occupies a farm belonging to Mr. Legh, the nearest
point of which is due-north of the defendant's works, said
his house was exactly opposite to the chimney ; and although
he had aeon vapours issue thence, he had never sustained
any damage in consequence, either in his crops or planta-
tions. He bad himself been in the vapour when going
in the direction of Newton ; it had a sulphurous
smell, and affected the eyes—Several other witnesses
were called to testify to the comparative harmless-
ness of the vapour issuing from the works.
Dr. W. A. Miller, Professor of Chemistry in King's Col-
lege, London, deposed that he had, in connexion with Dr.
Brett and Sir R. Kaye, of Dublin, made a series of experi-
ments at the works of the defendant, on Friday last. In the
process of the manufacture of alkali, muriatic gas was
evolved ; a part of that gas was condensed, and a part of it
escaped iuto the air. The gas which arose in the chamber
in which the decomposition of common salt, by means of
sulphuric acid, took place, passed through a flue, separate
from the smoke flue, into a tower filled with coke (as he was
informed), through which a stream of water was flowing.
The water was admitted from a cistern at the top, the effect
of which was, that the gas ascending would meet the water
descending upon it, and thus, being absorbed by the water,
would run down iuto the bottom of the tower ; and he had
ascertained that no vapour escaped from this chamber.
The gas which was not conveyed into the oar
densing tower, was evolved from six reverberatory furnaces ,•
those were opened by doom through which the material
was stirred from time to time, and through which a strong
current of air was passing; in consequence of the flues being
connected with a long, horizontal main flue, and that mate
flue opened into the great chimney immediately at the hit
he understood the length of the shaft to be 500 feet.
muriatic acid from these furnace*, therefore, passed into the
main chimney, and escaped into the air. A stream of watt"
was flowing through this flue, which, of course, tended to
condense a considerable portion of the gas, but not the whole ;
and be had no accurate means of determining the compara-
tive quantity condensed, and that which escaped. He bad,
however, analysed the air as it passed through the n sin
flue into the chimney, by means of a hole which was broken
into the arch, at two different periods of time. There must
necessarily have been a difference in the quantity of gas
evolved at each of these experiments, from the manner in which
the operations were conducted; because the evolution of gas
was greatest soon after the charge was first introduced, and
when it began to get hot; and at that time a larger quantity
of gas was given off from the materials used. The two
periods, therefore, at which he analyzed the air were, firstly,
vaunt the charge was introduced, and again when it was in
more active operation. From that examination he bad as-
certained that when the gas was in the largest quantity, It
was in the proportion of one part of muriatic acid to 1886,
or nearly one part of 2000 of atmospheric air and other gases;
the proportion when the least quantity of gas was evolved
was one part in 6,500, or between 6,000 and 7,900. The
fumes have the greatest tendency to fall to the earth in damp
weather; whilst in dry weather they were generally carried to
a great distance, mainly dependentupen the force of the wind.
There was no water falling down the chimney, and therefore
the whole of the muriatic gas from the reverberatory furnaces
would pass into the air. Mehra no doubt, from observation
and experience, that this column of smoke would be diluted
fifty times or more in travelling a distance of half a mile
*crow the country, independently of diffusion ; and taking
all circumstances into his consideration, he had no hesitation
in saying that the quantity of gas in the column of vapour,
after it had reached a distance of two miles from the chim-
ney, would not be appreciable, and in no degree injurious to
vegetation.—ln cross-examination Mr. Miller admitted that
if a vapour coming from the chimney affected the eyes, smell,
and even metals, at any distance from the works, that cir-
cumstance of itself undoubtedly indicated the presence of
muriatic acid. Sulphuric and muriatic wises were the only
noxious vapours escaping from the defendant's works, and
they were injurious to vegetable life, if in sufficient quantity.
—Mr. R. 11. Brett, lecturer on chemistry at Liverpool, con-
curred in the evidence given by Dr. Miller.—Mr. White, of
Warrington, was re-called as to the question of damages, and
he said the deterioration in the value of the unhealthy
• mber he observed on the estate would not, in his opinion,
exceed 200/.—Ut will be remembered that the plaintiff
estimated his damage at 6,0001 I The case for the
defendant having closed, Mr. Martin replied. His
lordship, in summing up, said that the law affecting this
case was extremely simple. If Mr. Muspratt's works had
done injury to Sir J. Gerrard's property, he was entitled to
such compensation in damages for the actual injury to his
estate, comfort, and convenience, as a jury might think fit to
award. The law did not tolerate that one person should
erect works injurious to the health or property of another.
There was no doubt, in many instances, the legislature was
in the habit of interfering with private rights and of authorising
the actual invasion of them—both by taking the property and
by erecting works which might be injurious; but in that
case the legislature made such terms on behalf of the indi-
vidual as in their judgment they thought fit, by making
a law to alter the common law, by which alone the
jury were to administer justice between the parties in
this cause. The main questions for the consideration
of the jury were, had the trees been injured by any
deleterious vapour proceeding from the defendant's works
were those works of a nature to do such injurr ; had
they been the cause of it, and if they had, what amount of
damages was Sir John Gerrard entitled to receive? With
respect to the works being in themselves, under certain cir-
cumstances, capable of inflicting the injury, there had been
ao conflict of evidence; but, on the contrary, it was stated,
by the scientific men on both sides, that, during the course
or the operations carried on at these works, a quantity of
noxious gases of various descriptions was evolved, which wee
injurious to vegetable life. On the part of the defendant,
two gentlemen had been called, of great respectability, and
he had no doubt of great science, who stated that they had
visited the works but week, and from the meaner in which
the works were conducted in their presence, no quantity of
gas was evolved which was at all calculated to do the injury
of which Sir John complained; but then the jury would
recollect that they had no evidence before them of the mode
in which the manufacture was generally carried on by
the defendant, and they would, therefore, have to draw
their own inferences from the statements of the various
witnesses. With respect to the amount of damages, that
would be a question entirely for the consideration of the
jury ; but it was a very difficult matter indeed for any one '
to estiMate them correctly, because, if the evidence for the
Santa' were correct, the effect of the noxious vapour was
Mot immediately perceptible, but operated like a slow poison,
tad Iles lft mould not be ascertained until a lengthened
pwiall bed doge* The jury retired, and after an absence
dlre mem Om an hour, returned a verdict for the plain-
' tl.—Emogeo USK
• idler sibs beraght by the same plaintiff against
s defendants soma then proceeded with, but as it was
miloomeluded *hen the court rose, we shall defer our re-
port otit till tomorrow.

POLICE.—T*TridtD- AT.
MANSION-ROUSE —Fowl= AND RoIIBIRY BY •
SOLICITOR'S CLlll.l.—HenryJampHyde,a genteelly-attired
youth, aged only 16, was cheesed with forgery upon and
robbing his employer, Mr. H. Piriery, solicitor, Fenchurch-
strest.—Mr. Bush attended to prosecute.—Thomas Hein,
cashier at Messrs. Smith, Payne, and Smith's, stated
that about 10 o'clock this morning the prisoner presented a
cheque for 321. 12s. 6d., which bore the signature " Henry
Peffiey." The cheque was dated 28th August. Prisoner
said he would take it in two 51. notes, and the rest in gold.
Wituss had cancelled the cheque, when he suspected the
genuineness of the signature ; and, on showing it to other
clerks hie suspicions were confirmed, and prisoner was de-
tained, when he gave the address as Williams, of Weymouth-
terrace, Commercial-read. Another cheque for 51. 4s. Bd.
bearing a similar signature, was paid on Thursday last.
—Mr. Henry Pedley, solicitor, of Fenehurch -street,
stated that the prisoner was is his employ, but ho had not
been authorised to go to the bankers by him. The cheques
were not drawn or signed by witness, but by the prisoner, as
he believed, who bad never been authorised to do so. The
blank cheques, he had no doubt, had been taken from his
cheque-book, which ho kept locked in his desk, and which
he found broken open when he came to the office this morn-
ing. Alexander Scott, on searching the prisoner, found
another Cheque, similarly filled up, for 381. 10s. 6d.—Prisoner
was then remanded till Friday.
BOW-STREET.—ASSAULT ox • Serensv. —Michael
Kearney was charged, before Mr. Henry, with committing
an asseult upon • sentry, on duty at the residence of the
Queen Dowager. Henry Martin, a private in the Grenadier
Guards, mid he was on duty yesterday evening at the gates
of Marlborough-house, when the prisoner entered his box
He asked him to leave; he wculd not, and he turned
him out. He then forced his way into the gates of the house,
and when he went to put him out, he struck him in the face,
and cut hie lip. He was very drunk—The defendant said
that he wu very sorry, and was very drunk, and hoped that
would be an excuse.—Mr. Henry said it was a • ery bad
offence, and must he punished, but, taking all the circum-
stances into consideration, he should mitigate the fine to 31.,
which was a very great mitigation.
CLERKEN WELL. EXTRAORDINARY APPLICATION.
—A middle-aged man, respectably attired, who was in •
trembling state, and wet through, applied to Mr. Coast*
fora warrant.—He said that this muting he was in the
neighbourhood of Islington, near • field where some women
were larking together, when they seised him and asked
him to treat them to some gin. He refused, as they were
perfect strangers to him. They then dragged him some die-
tame, until they arrived at a water-tank, when they pit
him head foremost into it, and he had a narrow escape c
his life.—Mr. Combo: How much water was in the tank?
—Applicant : Four or five feet deep.—Mr. Combo : Are you
sure you gave no other provocation than refusing the gin ?
Applicant: Positively sure, your worship. There were
seven or eight of the women • thee actio•lly carried me on
their shoulders, human, until they pitched me in. I
could not resist or extricate myself from them.—Mr. Combs :
You may have the warrant.
WORSHIP-STREET.—Ansoen FRLONIODS Portals-
SION OP PROPERTY.—Mr. Edward Honeyball, the well-
known brewer of Stamford-hill, was charged -vith having
feloniously received a stolen gelding, the property of Mr.
Thomas Colson, an extensive briekmaker, at Mercer's-
terrace, Upper Holloway.—Mr. Robinson, who appeared
for the prosecution, stated that in August, 1846, the hone
in question was purchased at Dixon's Repository, in Barbi-
can, by the prosecutor, who placed it, with nearly thirty
others belonging to him, in a paddock at Highgate, whence
it was stolen on the 21st of September last. He immedi-
ately caused handbills to be circulated, but obtained no clue
to the missing animal until a few days since, when he was
informed that it was in the possession of the defendant, to
whom be applied for its restoration, but the latter positively
refused to deliver it up, unless he was paid 211., which had
been incurred for its keep and other expenses. Under these
circumstances a warrant was applied for, but as the charge
amounted to a felony, the magistrate declined to grant it,
and the prosecutor was therefore reluctantly compelled to
give the defendant into custody.—The prosecutor deposed
that on Monday last he saw the horse attached to a cart
belonging to the defendant, and instantly recognised it as
his property. He followed the animal to the defendant's
premises, and related the circumstances under which he had
loot it, when the defendant replied that it had strsyei into
has fields, and insisted on detsiniag it until the sum before
mentioned had been paid. The defendant also added that
he had advertised the horse in three papers. but admitted
having failed to do so until six months after it had been lost.
—James Foddy, the prosecutor's foreman, also positively
identified the hone, and stated that it must have been stolen,
es the paddock was securely fenced, and there was no aper-
ture to admit of its ge.—ln answer to the charge , Mr.
Hobler emphatically denied that there 'were the slightest
grounds for such an accusation against his client, who was a
person of the highest respectability, and said that the
prosecutor and his witnesses were evidently mistaken
in the identity of the animal, as he had abundant
evidence to prove that it had actually strayed into the de-
fendant's field a month before it was alleged to have been
stolen, and he should also prove that the horse had been
extensively advertised in the ensuing March, and that every
effort was made to trace its owner, but without success.—
Mr. Greenwood, however, considered the evidence wholly
insufficient to substantiate the charge of felony, however
sucoesOully it might be advanced in support of an action of
trover, and he should therefore discharge the defendant,
with the assurance that nothing bad transpired in that court
to militate against his character.
SOUTHWARK. ROBRMRY. Thomas Gibbons,
alias " Dukey," and John Torrey were brought be-
fore Mr. Cottingham, the former charged with breaking
open a box and stealing 31 sovereigns the property of a Mrs.
Driscoll, and the two with being concerned in another rob-
bery of a quantity of grocery articles from a shop in Black-
friars-road.—A few days ago a pane of glass was broken in
the window of a grocer's shop in Blackfriareroad, and a
quantity of tea and sugar abstracted through the aperture.
The prisoners were seen running away from the shop, and
being followed they threw away the bundles, which enabled
them to run quicker, and to escape. They had since been
summarily, convicted of another offence, and were now satis-
factorily identified as having committed the above robbery.
In theeounse of the investigation, a Mrs. Mari Driscoll came
forward and stated another and a more serious charge is
affected Gibbons. She said that she lived at Mill-Wall,
Poplar, and that in January last Gibbons lodged in her
house. On Sunday, the Ist of February, there being no
person at home but her and the prisoner, he went into the
room where she slept, she being engaged in another part of the
house. She was surprised at his absence, and on proceeding
to her apartment she saw him leaving her room with her
purse in his hand. She exclaimed, " Gibbons, you have been
robbing me ; that is my purse and money you have got ;
give it me up, or I shall make an alarm." He struck her on
the breast, knocked her down, and run out of the house.
On recovering herself, she ran to the street-door, but be was
out of sight, and made his escape. Her box had been broken
open, and her purse, containing thirty-one sovereigns, the
hard savings of several years, taken.—Mr. Cottingham com-
mitted both the prisoners on the former charge ; but with re-
spect to the second, he said that Gibbons must be brought up
again, that it might be ascertained how he had disposed of
the proceeds of the robbery.
LAMBETH--WHOLEBALS PLCNDIR BY A SERTANT.
—Louisa Arney, Julia Arney, Charlotte Arney, Emma
Arney, and Henry Arney, were charged with felony.—
Mr. Clarkson appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Rip-
pen for the prisoners. The stolen property was so bulky
as to require a large van for its conveyance to the
office. The prosecutor, Thomas Blaydes, Esq., is a retired ,
banker, having estates in Yorkshire. and a mansion at '
Englefield-green, near Egham, Surrey. The elder
Louses Arney entered his service as house-keeper in =
ber, 1843, at 401. per annum, and it appeared that a eye-
tembecl plundering by wholesale was shortly after begun,
and earned out up to the period of her arrest on the 9th ofl
August. At the time of her engagement with Mr. Muds%
she represented herself as • widow without family, the fact
being that she bad four daughters and a son living at No.
17, Hertford-place, Walworth. Mr. Blaydes having, on the 1
Bth of August last, got certain information as to the
removal of property from his house, applied at
this office, and went with Serjeant Morton of
the police force to the house in Walworth, where the four
daughters of prisoner were residing, and found in their pos-
session
such a quantity of his property, as justified him in
giving the three elder girls into custody, as guilty receiverl
of the property stolen. Nothing appeared tote too large or
too small for the housekeeper's notice. The goods displayed
for identification included every variety of article in domestic
1% use up to a mattress and a feather-bed, with bad bed
curtains, window curtains, carpets, stair nupcifts
counterpanes, decanters, sager-basins, wine-ghavas,
glasses, wine and brandy, and, in fact, the table of the
office presented more the appearance of a miscellaneous
room than • court of justice. Tke greater part of the WS
two days have been occupied in taking the examinable of
the witnesses identifying Mr. Blaydes' property. The defames
attempted for the female prisoners is, that the elder prisoner
was entitled to take the articles as perquisites. Mr. Elliott
committed the female prisoners for trial, and allowed the
son to be at large on his own reoognieanoe.
WEST M I NST ER. MILITARY VTRAOE. Richard
Marsh, William Biter, and James Clark, three privates in
the Scotch Fusileer Guards, were charged with the following
outrage, and Edward Stockwell and Alfred Withers, CIR.
liens, were charged, the former with assaulting the police,
and the latter with inciting the populace to rescue the other
prisoners. The facts as detailed by a number of wit-
nesses were these—Biter, who was drank, sallied with his
two military companions out of a beer shop in Great Chapel-
street, on the previous evening, with an evident determine-
ti
on to muse themselves by insulting and ill-treating any
person who had the misfortune to cross their path. Biter
commenced operations in Orchard-street, by kie • over a
poor woman's stall loaded with erockery•ware ; the next I
exploit was throwing a poor deaf organ-grinder and his
machine into the road, and the third, knocking down a man
named Burrell, who has charge of New-square, be-
I cause he enterfered to prevent their doing mis-1
chief at the expense of the humble residents in
that locality. Burrell, who in his fall from the effects of
the blew had his head cut, fetched the police, who in vain
for a length of time endeavoured to secure Biter, but were
obstructed and assaulted by his " companions in arms." A
crowd of five or six hundred persons assembled, and it was
not until the arrival of a large party of the police, so violent
was the resistance, that the three military defeadmits WON
captured, and anything like order restored to the agifillimnft-
hood. Withers, in the course of the riot, used gal.
edited to incite the mob to rescue the military, Mbl
well, on being repeatedly requested to remove fleas Ile
entrance to the station, struck one of the constables a Ala
blow. The whole of the defendants told a rambling day,
which had but little to do with the charges against do m.
Clark received a good character from a eerjeant of the
ment, the other two were spoken of bat questionably.
was fined 61., or two months' imprisonment ; Marsh, Si.,
or six weeks' imprisonment; Clark, 34 cc one month'. im-