The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-12 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

NORTE ERN CIRCUIT.-- MANcuEsma,

(Prfore Mr. Justice Hannan.)
MllOll 1011 DANAON DONE Irr Jo Mgllo.

During yesterday the case of Bee*ley v. the Inhabitants
el the Salford Hundred was heard, the issue exciting con-
adorable interest. The action arose out of the recent
riots in Ashton-under-Lyne, and its object wine to recover
dameges for the injuries done to St. aliu-y'es Roman
Catholic Chapel and priest's (the plaintiff's) home, on the
loth and 11th of May.
Mr. Hopwood appeared for the plaintiff; and Mr.
Iliggin, Q.V., and Mr. Addison for the defendants'.
The action was ',brought under an set of parliament
of ancient date, but recently re-enacted by the 7th
and Ath George IV., which provided that if any
chapel, dwelling-house, or other building by
a crowd :riotously assembled, feloniously
belied, or in part demolished, the owner had a claim
against the hundred. The statute required that he should
go before the justices of the puce and enter into reeog-
SiZAUCCP to prosecute the offender, and to comply with
various other stipulations. From the way in which the
*aunty meets such cases the jury was not troubled with
any of these considerations. Further, the amount of
damage had been arrived at, namely, 781. loe., which the
hundred would pay, provided the jury held them to be
liable. The jury bad to try just the matter of fact
whether or net this was a felonious demolition, or part
demolition, of the building in question. The facts of the
ease were these :—Mr. Beesley was ono of the old iating
pneets, and was perfuming his office on the evening
Sunday the 10th of May, when information was
eonveyed to him of what was proceeding in other
parts of the town. Some time after the service
had concluded, a mob assembled round his chapel,
attacked the windows, and used an.. amount of
violence which, taken in conjunction with the
used by certain of the rioters, undoubtedly indittura
felonious intent. Before, however,, they had time to
commit very serious damage a force of constables arrived,
and they were driven away. The attack was renewed on
the following morning, when the rioters succeeded in
entering the building, and were proceeding to demolish
the furniture, &c., when Mr. Kenworthy, a magistrate,
with a force of special constable's, came up, and the work
of destruction was stopped. The Rev. J. Beesley. and a
number of other witnesses were called, with a view to
prove that the mob, by its actions and language, had a
felonious intent to demolish the chapel.
The Judge, in summing up, said there was no doubt
that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover, unless he
made out that the chapel had been feloniously demoluihed,
pulled down, or destroyed, whally or in part, by persons
riotously and tumultuously assembled together. It would
not be a demolition in whole or in part, unless there was
an intention on the part of those who were engaged in
that undoubtedly riotous and tumultuous assemblage to
destroy the chapel as a chapel. The pulling out of a
single brick of a house, if it was intended by those
who did it, if uninterrupted, to pull down the whole
edifice, would amount to a demolition in part • but if
there wan an absence of that intention, then the mere
doing of mischief to the chapel or house would not
be a demolition, pulling down, or destruction in
part, any more than a mischievous boy throwing a stone
through a window would be a demolition or pulling down
in part. It might be the first step towards it, but it must
depend on the intention of the persona whether the act
done, injurious in itself, was a partial demolition, pulling
down, or destruction. He did not think, however, that
there must be (as the coons I for the defence had sug-
gested), a destruction of the body, the carcase, so to
speak, of the chapel, in order to constitute the offence. No
doubt there was great difficulty in defining exactly what
VIM meant by demolition. Ifiß meaningwould bebetter ex-
pressed by an illustration. If the rioters, having got inside
the chapel, had set fire to it, they would have shown an
intention to destroy it utterly ; so, on the other hand, if
men had taken into the chapel crowbars, and begun
to demolish the send woodwork and brickwork of the
place, that would have been an act from which the
inference would almost irresistibly have been drawn that
they did intend to destroy the chapel as a chapel. If,
however, the rioters had no other intention but to do
mischief, to commit such acts as would evidence their
hatred and scorn of the worship carried on there, or
their hatred to the Irish party who were personified or
represented, as it were, by the building they came to
attack; if their intention was to pull down the figure
sacred in the eye of the Roman catholics, and to trample
upon it and destroy it, and that only, that would not
be an intention to demolish the chapel. There
was undoubtedly evidence upon which the jury
might adopt either of these views. The crowd seemed to
Lave uttered cries which, if they were to he taken an ex-
actly expressing their intention, would indicate an inten-
tion to destroy the place,—" Let's pull down the chapel,"
and PO on. But, as they must all unfortunately know,
language in the mouths of low ruffians like those rioters
did not always express the idea which was, prima facie,
contained in the words. They were a means of expressing
merely a highly-wrought state of fury. If the jury came
to the conclusion that they really expressed the intention
of those who uttered them, then the rioters would have
fulfilled the language of the act. The jury must use their
own judgment, and say what was their (the rioters') in-
tuition.

-vdiet for the ---Tre—itkr, aft
dr a few moments' consultation, found a
eefendants.

THE POLICE COURTS.