The Express.
London, England, 1866-05-22 00:00:00

IN RE O. T. JOHNSON.

The bankrupt was a debt-collector, of Chatham ; debts,
4921. He attributed his failure to his having brought
actions, under the advice of the Poor-law Board, against
the board of guardians of Chatham, to recover penalties
from them for supplying articles to the workhouse. The
actions were unsuccessful ; 2007. of costs were incurred;
the bankrupt was taken in custody, and remained in Maid-
stone gaol three months.
His Honour, observing that he had been punished
enough, granted the order.

LAW AS TO RITUALISTIC INNOVATIONS.—The
Archbishop of York stated in the House of Lords on Thurs-
day that some of the bishops were at that moment engaged
in taking the opinion of the most eminent counsel on the
present state of the law as to the Ritualistic innovations.
We understand that the opinion has now been obtained,
and, according to the Attorne7-General, Sir Hugh Cairns,
and other counsel, the Ritualists are acting illegally, and
may be stopped by legal proper.—Record.
THE SAD CASE OF SHOOTING IN THE HARROW-
ROAD.—The boy Thomas Leffley, who it will be recollected
was recently shot by a canal boatman in the Harrow-road,
waited upon Mr. Yardley, at the Marylebone police-court,
yesterday, accompanied by his father. The poor little
fellow had a linen bandage round his head. His sight is
entirely gone. The father said he was trying to procure
interest to get the lad elected at the next election into the
Blind School. He said it would greatly facilitate the
object, perhaps, if the press would notice this application,
as parties having votes to spare would know where to
bestow them. Mr. Yardley, after speaking to the lad in
a very feeling manner, said he would use what influence he
could towards attaining the object. For the above object
2/. has been forwarded by "A. M." Through Inspector
Steer, of the X division, also a further sum of 10s. . . .

AN INGENIOUS PEISONER.—A curious point of
law was raised by an ingeniousprisonerin his own defence,
at the Maryborough Circuit Court, last week. One Coulter,
being charged with obtaining money under false pretences
by passing off a valueless cheque, pleaded that as the
cheque was post-dated, it was only a promise to pay, and
therefore that he should have been arraigned rather on a
civil than a criminal cherge. The cheque, in fact, by being
post-dated, was converted into a bill of exchange. The
ingenious nigunient was admitted, after some demur, by
Judge Williams, and the prisoner was acquitted. The
point determined is of considerable value, we should
imagine, to all persons in trade, and it seems strange that
it should not have occurred before.—Melbourne Spectator,
March 10.

A STRANGE STORY. —A most extraordinary case
has just been brought before the Court of .Assizes of the
Seine. In November last, a shopman named Dubuc cited
one Domenc, a concierge, before a juge-de-paix at Paris
to recover 1,000 f., the amount of an acknowledgment of
debt signed by the latter at Marseilles on Ist January,
1863. As the magistrate was not able to settle the matter
amicably between the two parties, Dubuc commenced pro-
ceedings before the Civil Tribunal, and obtained a judgment
in his favour. On the day after the trial, however,
Domenc lodged a complaint with the Procureur-Imperial,
declaring that the paper establishing the debt
which he had been condemned to pay was forged,
as he had never owed the plaintiff any money,
and had signed no acknowledgement of the kind.
Dubuc was called before the Procureur-Imperial, and the
investigation which followed showed that the paper in
question had not been written by Domenc, who further
proved that he was not at Marseilles at the date given.
A close scrutiny of the document also led to the discovery
that the paper bore the watermark of 1865. That a for-
gery had been committed appeared evident, and Dubuc
was accordingly committed for trial. When the case was
called three days back, the prisoner stated that he and Do-
menc were both natives of Orgibet (Ariege), and had been
intimate from their boyhood. He admitted that he himself
had written the paper in question with Domenc's con-
sent, for reasons he would proceed to explain. His (pri-
soner's) father and three other persons were condemned
in 1850, through false evidence, to hard labour, for the
murder of a relative of Domenc, but they were subse-
quently released on the discovery of the perjury. His
father died soon after being liberated, and he (the pri-
soner) had ever since been anxious to clear his parent's
memory, and thought that no means so effective could be
devised as declaring all the circumstances publicly in a
court of justice ; he added that the forgery of which
he was accused was only a stratagem to attain
his end. After proceeding so far, the prisoner, to
the astonishment of the court, jury, and even
of his own counsel, produced a written agreement between
himself and Domenc, in which it was stipulated that he
should write an acknowledgment of the debt in the name
of the latter, sue him on it, and then get himself arrested,
that he might have an opportunity of solemnly proclaim-
ing his dead father's innocence. He added that Domenc
had the same reasons as lthaself for his share in the plot,
as one of his near relatives had been condemned as an ac-
complice in the same crime. Domenc having fully corro-
borated this statement, the Avocet-General proposed that
the further hearing of the affair should be postponed till
the following session, and that in the interval the pri-
soner should be examined by medical men as to his sa-
nity. The court at once consented to the course pro-
potied.—Gabgriani.
THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING TRADE. —The COM
of manufacturing books in this country has driven a number
of our publishers into the English market, and will drive
others thither, unless the present system of oppressive
taxation is revised. Many of the late publications of the
Messrs. Appleton. are manufactured for them in London,
by Eyre and Spottiswoode, and other English houses.
Messrs. Lippincott and Co., of Philadelphia, patronise the
English book makers lergely, taking whole editions of
popular books, as the Globe Edition of Shakespeare ; the
favourite " Golden Treasury" series of Messrs.
Macmillan and Co. ; Figuier's " World Before
the Flood ;" Professor Owen's "Comparative Anatomy
and Physiology of the Vertebrate Animals," of which,
by the way, the second volume is nearly ready ; and
most of the cheap English editions of the English novelists,
Messrs. Roberta Brothers, of Boston, have about one-half
their publications manufactured in England, the most
recent instances being Combe's " Tour of Dr. Syntax,"
Butler's " Hudibras," and Miss Jean Ingelow's " Stories
I for Children." Mr. W. J.Widdleton is manufacturing books
in England, while Messrs- Leypoldt and Holt are manu-
facturing theirs, at least the Tauchnitz series of " British
Authors," of which they are the sole American publishers,
in Germany. There is a moral in this, if our legislators
had the wit to perceive it, and one not at all creditable to
their sagacity as political economists.—ifere York .Natiors,
May 8.
MANCHESTER CHURCH SUNDAY SCHOOLS. —The
usual Whit Monday procession of Sunday school chil-
dren in connexion with the church of England took place
yesterday. The weather was exceedingly propitious, and
from 16,000 to 20,000 children walked in procession
through the principal streets to the cathedral church.
The senior scholars went to church to join in the service
and hear a sermon, and the juniors were marched off to
their respective schools to be refreshed on buns and milk.
An immense concourse of people, including a majority of
the softer sex, assembled in the streets and at windows
overlooking them to witness the pleasing spectacle.
Afterwards the accumulated traffic, in the shape of
wagons and lurries, pent up in narrow streets opening
into the thoroughfares through which the procession
pissed, was set at liberty and the usual 'on fol-
lowed, In which hairbreadth escapee and some personal
injury was sustained, but we heard of no fatal accident.
up to lb* lbw of writing.