The Express.
London, England, 1866-02-08 00:00:00

THE Anti 88a TBITRSDAY EVENING FEBRUARY 8, 1866

TIE CHANCELLOR OP THE EXCHEQUER AND

THIATESS AND PLACES OP AMUSEMENT.

The licensing system—that portion of it which
governs or attempts to 'evens theatre. cad places of public
amusement—is jut about to resolve another complicated
improvement. In London, which may be takea to mesa
the metropolis sad suburbs, bat must not be takes to mean
Chelsea, Bayswater, Sydenham, and one or two other
plane, all theatres and plans in which dramatic perfor-
mances may be given must be linseed by the Lord Cham-
berlain, while in the country such lionises can only be
obtained from the magistrates. All other plans of amuse-
meet in Loodoe---esecert-roome, music-balls, casinos, &a—
we
licensed by the magistrates as they are in the country,
except where the proprietors, like the proprietors of a ter.
taia fashionable West-end assembly-room. are bold enough
to open without a license, fruiting to the awful grandeur
of their audiences and patrons to warn off policemen and
vulgar informers. The Lord Chamberlain works chiefly
under an act pissed in 1843, and known se the Bth and 7th
Victoria, cap. 68, while the magistrates draw their power
from an act nearly a century older, and known as the 25th
GeorgelL ,cap. 36. The 25th of George UL has certain old-
fashioned peculiarities, one of which is a clause forbidding
all persons holding buildings licensed under its powers to
open before five o'clock in the afternoon under the penalty
of losing their lionise without right of ap-
peal. Attention was somewhat roughly drawn to this clans
at the last October lionising mosioes. and the proprietor,
of the Hanover-square Rooms and Baptism-hall were
threatened with the lose of their licensee if they again
committed the enormous effete* of giving morning eon-
sorts before five o'clock is the afternoon. In their ex-
tremity, not seeing the enormity of the offenes,sed not Wog
willing to give up morning concerts dosing the season of
1868—the season just opened—they went to the Hems-
offioe to see what the law-makers could do for them ; and
the law officers of the Crown were sat to work et nee,
because this was a fashionable grievance, and not a case in
which the amusements of the million were threatened with
extinction. The law Alone eon reported that the Lord
Chamberlain could alone cut the knot of the difficulty by
virtue of a clause in the 25th Geo. IL—the Magistrates
Act. The clause or clauses alluded to (section 4of the act)
seem hardly to confer any power on the Lord Chamber.
lain, but merely save from the operation of the act any
power then or thereafter lawfully existing.' Fortified,
however, by the law officers' opinion, and knowing that
former Lord Chamberlains licensed such places as
the Hanover-square Rooms before 1843—the year
is which the 6th and 7th Viet was passed—though
not sines that date—the Lord Chamberlain has decided
to isme at ease a spacial license for morning performances,
guarding himself against specifying in any way what the
performances are to be. These licenses will be bend in a
very few days, the usual rooming counts will be an-
nounced, and several very Dice points of law will be raised.
It is very questionable whether a Lord Chamberlain's
Leese can ever carry more or less than a Lord Chamber-
lain's license, viz., the power to perform every kind of dramas
and to sell wines, beer, and spirits in spite of the excise and
the magistrates. ffir George Grey has doubtless pleased the
fashionable claws by his prompt action is this matter, but
at the cost of raising further legal difficulties. Sir George
Grey has promised that a select committee shall be granted
at an early period of the session to examine the whole ques-
tion of public amneements, and this speculative extension
of the Lord Chamberlsin's powers will daddies@ foam Gas
of the prominent points of investigation.

ILitb) Nrittfitgente.

DOUBT OP QIJICINT. BENCH..--Bill. 7.
After Terns Nisi Priam ninny at Westminster.—(Befcre
the Lord Chief Justine and Special Juries.)
PITZOILLLD e. 110111200TII AID Axernia.
At the close of the defendants' case,
Mr. Kerslake addressed the jury on the whole of
the evidence, observing that although some of the jury
bed expressed a strong opinion before hearing the whole of
the esen,_be did not despair of their doing what all
honourable men could and would do when they tad beard
both eiders—review their decision, and form another upon
the whole of the Leta before them. He pointed out to
them that the canes of this action arms from a &nee of
Mr. David Fitzgerald to mums his strength with the
heads of the college, after repeated warnings and the
learned counsel urged that Dr. Northoote had done no
more than was necessary to maintain the discipline of a
large educational establishment. The discipline at Ouott
was very severe, but it was known to Mr. Justice Fitzgerald
before be put his sou there. In fact it was for that reams
the eon returned to the cane, Mr. Justice Fitzgerald
believing indiscipline would be beneficial to him rather
than to be under private tutors whilst studying for
the London University. What the doctor did was with
pain and reluctance, and it was the only coarse be had left
to him. Whatever sympathies they might have, if they
looked calmly at all the circumstance', he felt certain they
would come to the conclusion that Dr. Northoote bed acted
in the only way he could in the difficult position in which
he was placed.
Mr. Coleridge thee replied on the whole of the evidence.
At the end of the plaintiff's case Dr. Northcote might have
'ruefully retired from the one. That had not suited the
interests of Dr. Northoote and Mr. Stone, but one of
the ablest man in England had bean engaged to attack
Mr. Fitzgerald. Divested of all irrelevant matters, the
potato for cousiderstion were few, and singularly
simple. First, was there • reasonable belief in Dr.
Northootes mind that this conspiracy did exist,
and secondly, did he do what be did in pur-
suance of that reasonable belief ; sad thirdly, if there
was that reasonable belief, did he transcend, or not
transcend those limits of releasable necessity under which
all persou in Dr. Nertheote's poultice were to act. They
had heard the evidence of Dr. Northoote and Mr. Stone.
They had sot contradicted one substantial statement made
by the plaintiff, and after hearing their evidence, the facts
remained substantially where they were before the plaintiff
left the box. There could be no doubt the mastic training
of priesta would not do for laymen, and there could be no
doubt also that to mix up in the same institution where
priests ware trained a public school for laymen, could not
but result in great mischief to both partial. The
rpm mode would have been to have treated the
1 anti-Bunker confederation" with that supreme eon.
tempt which it deserved. Whatever the plaintiff
might have written in hie book about beakers,
he had no objection to walk with them, play at
bagatelle with them, and drink the best beer with them he
could pt, showing that the confederation was a piece of
pure boyish nousectse. The clerical mind was not sus-
ceptible of • joke, or when Dr. Northcote and Mr.
Stone read that Governor Moody was unanimously elected
for his magnanimous sentiment' about Sedgeley-park they
must have seen the absurdity of the thing ; but instead of
that, they put on their clerical magnifying glasses, and
looked at it through the haze of a strong olerio4l imagina-
tion, and with as much gravity as if in the dark sges we
were dealing with Guy Fawken If there was anything
serious in the conspiracy, why bad not the other students
been called, instead of relying on entries in a pocket-
book mixed up with other. relative to roan
many water to be had from Birmingham for the
purpose of making his hair glare—(latighter)—axtraces
from Prim mays. and mathematical problems' If Dr.
Northcote meant fairly by Kr. Junin Fitzgerald and hia
son, why did he not telegraph to the judge saying, " David
is going on so badly, come and take him away at once."
Expelling the eon without any previous intimation was, he
must say, an unnecessary and unpardonable act, and Dr.
Northoote had not shown that feeling whieb a priest and
a head master of • school might have been expected to
have thews.
The Lord Chief Justice said the action was not for the
expulsion, but for the imprisonment. The expulsion is
Merely the 07;pin-stoma to the imprisonment.
Mr. Coleri then is a most powerful appeal asked the
jury for their verdict.
The Lord Chief Justice, in summing up. said the expul-
sion of the plaintiff, except incidentally, formed no part of
the change, thoush to his Wed it should have been the
essential pert of it. However, as the declaration was not
so drawn, they would not have to deal with it as a primary
part of the complaint. In point of law, the plaintiff was
assaulted by Mr. Stone, when he took away the pocket-
book. On two °emulous he was imprisoned there could be
so doubt, but the main question for them to consider woo
whether the circumstances justified those procesediegs.
The first question for them was, what was Mr. Fingerald's
position to the authorities on bis return, be having passed
through the coarse of studies at the college. One could
readily understand a young man going back under such Or.
cumelances. He might imagine he was not to be subjected
to the strict rules of the college, but the evidence on tbie
point was all one way, and there was nothing to show that
he was to be exempt from them, but on the contrary, in
on. of his letters to the father Dr. Northcote points
out the advantage of his being ander the discipline of the
college, and the father had never in any mouser objected
to it. Mr. Fitzgerald also bad recognised the authority.
Thee came the question, did the circumstances justify
what was afterwards done' The eon, no doubt, when he
retired was in an anomalous position. and, without im-
porting anything wrong or harsh to Mr. Stome, we well know
that when a man fleet gets into authority he is likely to
exercise it more harshly than • man who is well fined ie
hie seat, end it might be that, seeing a yeasg. man in the
anomalous position Mr. Fitzgerald was then in, and who
had shown a mutinous disposition towards his former mas-
ters, one could not be altogether surprised to find that be
and Mr. Stone should not be perfectly pleasant town&
' each other. Thera was no doubt that a short
time after his return this young gentleman seemed to hive
got into as many scrapes as a young gentleman possibly
could in so short a epos of time. It was necessary there
should be certain rules laid downier the regulation and pre-
servation of order in an establishment of this kind, and that
they should be enforced. This young mu stays up alter
hours, goes beyond bounds when he ought not to, sad is
found in a public-home with others, and then there is the use
of fire-arms. Oa that occasion, Mr. Stone seems to have
forgotten I himself (though be afterwards apologised for part
of what he did in the heat of tempo), because" lie* was a
word that grates upon every person's ear. He regretted
acem warning had not been given to the father before the
son was sent away. The culminating point of
this young man's grievances was the a or
suppeaed existence, of the secret confederacy.
Now, if he really bad organised a confederacy to annoy
those who were beneath him in rank and position, it was an
unjustifiable proceeding, and would call for the interven-
tion of the authorities in some marked sad iconspietens
manner before it had come to • bead, to prevent the evil
contrequenoes that might follow therefrom. An ill feeling
was likely to arias between the two classes because the
tauten were taken from the divines who up to a certain
time were the schoolfellows of the others. There had
been, and no doubt it would eceithina, an ante/rennin be-
tween schoolmaster and scholar, and it was to be regretted
that in this eatablishmeat the authorities should mama
schoolboys Into schoolmasters without much difference of
age. And if the schoolmaster comes from that class not
the most distinguished is social position, ose could quite
understand there would sprier up • certain amount of
antagonism and uncomfortable feeling between the two.
That ought to be kept down as much as poedble.
Severity would se* extinguish ill-feeling, it rather
smoulders, but it was by evolving generous sentiments and
by teaching them the true aristocracy of life that youths and
moo might he induced to give up any petty and miserable
feelings which might mere or less arias anseept thus, and
which sometimes existed among um, but which Devertha.
lees were discreditable to those who entertained them. (This
part of the leaned judge's obeervatioes was rather loudly
applauded by those in court.) His lordship then proceeded
to say that the solsoolestater's power fee the tints loans was
the same sea father's, and with regard to the existence of
the coafederatien its object was a matter for their eon-
midst-alien. In his (the learned judge's) days they used to
call these establishments sabools, with head masters,
m on,
ooed masters, and so and with tint,, wooed,wooed,and
titled forma or classes, but sow we have got somewhat
eeterged to our notices, and we have now col-
leges and principals, and instead of classes, philosophers,
poets, and rhetoricians. (Laughter.) Now, when • school-
neuter undertook to educate • bey. be was boned to do so
mama he miseondueted himself ie such a manner that he
maid no logger regal% without the dosser of his °onsets'.
sating the others, and then the master would be at liberty
to send him away. No student had been called to show
that he had received any annoyanee or molestation, and it
was to be regretted that Dr. Northoot• did not make fuller
ioquiries before be expo/led the defendant. He thought Dr.
Northoote bad some to a hasty oonelurion ea the subject.
If they thought the explains was unjustifiable tbse their
verdict must be for the plaintiff. Some of the jury, in the
early part of the investaptioe, expressed a desire to stop
the ewe, but he thought they would now be satisfied that
it was desirable they should bear it eat, sad that there was
more in it foe their decision than at first sight appeared.
The jury retired at • ovate past four, and -alter an ab-
sentia of see hour and twisty-fin minutes came into
court with • pellet for the plaintiff—Damages, fit.
Hie lawlehip willed for • special Jam, sad that it was
a tit cue ito be tried in a superior wort. He uteri to
give the defendant leave to move the court above. bet maid
he weld move without hia leave if he thought proper.
Can 011 nlAndln wows.

It is eudentood that all the jades will assemble to-
***row (Thurgau) reereinf, atWesterlodge for the per-
ceerultiag oe the ease el Charlotte Wieser, sed the
newt
courts will, tberelere. sot grit bates 11 dole*,

COURT OP COMMON PLIAS. —Fix 7.
at NW
ndia Br Prima
ie is
gad Mattaim-.-( d
Juryßglor.) • Lord Mel
I • fipssi
MIMS r. MI LONDON, CIATILLI. WPM ILIMWAT
00117/11%
Ms plaistiff ails epee, •gegassimi of colour, and • '
mitre of Naas% ad been Is Ibis .cold for &best fogy
fan stratriag for Os kw. Bo vas " dada' by Os

Society of the Middle Termite In June ha. The nation'
was to recover damages fee the hjuries sustainerdia a cont.
sion which occurred ad the Ludgate *tat ins on the a Wawa
of the 16th &um, 1864 ; sod the liability of the eimpsny
was admitted, so that the only gunnies is dispute was the
amount of the damages.
The plaintiff, in cross-examination, admitted that he
had gone frequently, before and after the aooidest, to the
Surrey Music Hall, which was clogs to his lodgings, sad
added that the doctors did not object to the practise. He
also admitted that at times be had drank at the bars of the
Rockingham Arms and the Horseshoe public-houses, bat
denied any excess. He added that he had keown for months
that he had been constantly watched, but ha had practised
no concealment. The watchers saw him leave his 1
in the morning, and followed him to his chamber=
Temple. They waited all day, prepered with clothing to
resist the weather ; they saw him home at night, acconina-
nied him to the inneic-hall, and finally saw him home the
last thing. This watching accounted foe the questions
which had been put in ercem-exandostioe. Another cir-
cumstance was that the plaintiff had c'aimed 1001. for the
expenses of his jourcey to the continent and foe his kepi-
AIM, and also 5/. se. for medical charges ; bat it was saki
that this claim was made before the serious symptoms ap-
peared.
The jury, after considering the matter foe a few miautes,
found for the plaintiff—damages 250 i.