Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-05-23 00:00:00

'ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES.
Sir,—Ten Years unremitting protestations,, both in and
out of the Irish Court of Chancery, against the delinquencies
of its officers, has made my sister, Mrs. Catherine Winter's
same, and that of the large Irish estates which belong to
my family, and to me, something more than familiar to the
British public. My sister's appeals against the injustice
and oppression with which she has been treated, have
become matters of history, and are fully explained
in the works which :he has published. And it has
been my lot to skare with that gentlewoman
the heavy costs—the ceaseless anxiety—the bodily
and mental labour which so protracted a season of
litigation must necessarily entail on all who embark in law.
Mrs. Wintii lost no opportunity of bringing her grievances,
as they bore down upon her, from time to time, before the
world; and I have thrice thrown up my scientific and
literary pursuits to sustain her in her struggles with the
legal tyranny of which she had just cause to complain.
But, while there was a private individual whO set up so
much as a pretence to a right which could keep us out of
possession of our maternal estates, which yield an annual
income of over £15,000, I did not feel justified—l did not
think it would be manly for me to complain publicly of the
wrongs from which I was suffering, and to call upon those
numerous friends and the public, in whose interest I have
spent 'say life working in literature and science, to sustain me

against my opponents.
Now, however, I have to complain, not only of the

rickery

perjury, and the stealing of rents from my tenants
gang of property robbers and their arnts, but I have also to
complain of the administration of justice in Ireland, and the
conduct of the Irish courts of equity and law. I have now
to,fight with the officers of the Crown in that country to get
possession of my property, and as such struggles cannot be
carried on by any individual whose means are withheld from
him; and as determined resistance to injustice coming from
such quarters, is a duty every man owes to the public, as
well as' to--his-own family, I feel assured that, the numer-
ous classes to whom I am known in England, will not
leave me to be trampled upon while I am standing up
for my rights. My charges against the Irish Law Courts
are specific and- intelligible. I charge the Court of
Chancery with knowing that my brother Parnell Maillard.
and myself, were made parties to the felonious suit of
Stubber v. Wolfe while minors, and were brought before
the court without being represented by a guardian or a
friend, and as though we had been adults and of full age—
that receivers were appointed over our property—that these
receivers feloniously suppressed the existence of our large
real.estatei—that these receivers were never called upon
by the court to account for our rents while minors—that
the large personal estates to which we were entitled, were
also for the most part suppressed and never accounted
for—that the money which was brought into court was
withdrawn from the Bank of Ireland upon orders
of the court, which are not to be found on its
records—that the accounts supplied to us from the Account-
ant-General's office show serious irregularities, amounting
to a charge of embezzlement, against some of the officers
of that department ; and, lastly, that we, who ought to have
appeared as minors in that suit, have_ been kept
before the Court for a period of THIRTY-FOUR YEARS,
and are still kept before the Court, and receivers over our
property in these felonious proceedings, These facts
were brought prominently before the late Irish Chan-
cellor by Mrs. Winter, and before the present Chancellor
by myself, and in both instances on oath.
Where a felony can be proved, the reader will ask,
" How is it the offenders have not been given into cus-
tody and brought before a magistrate ?" The answer is,
4‘ offences committed in Chancery, must be dealt with by
the court in which they have occurred." This at once
explains the difficulty of bringing the offenders in our case
to justice. The Chancellor must be moved by counsel, and
you must not expect a shepherd to turn butcher,
for the mere love of slaughter. We have tried hard to work
this conversion, and it has failed, and I now pass on to the
charges which I have to Wing against the stipendiary
magistrates of the Queen's County. After spending eight
years in endeavouring to extract our actual title to the
estates in question from the records of a twenty-five years'
Chancery suit, we found that our grandfather, the Rev.
Sewell Stabber, was seized in fee , of the estates he
bequeathed to us, and that he had made leases on those
*states to his tenants, and we being the devisees
and representatives of the lessor, issued warrants of
distress for rent, and put our bailiffs into possession. These
distresses were allowed tor:remain unmolested for the time
nquired by law. When the day of sale came, the property
seized was sold by public auction, and after it had been
sold for rent, without legal opposition, it was suffered to be
rescued by infuriated mobs, and has been, up to this time,
feloniously withheld from its lawful purchasers. Immedi-
ately after the rescue took place, I applied to Capt. Whelan,
the stipendiary magistrate for the Queen's County, for the
assistance of the police, but he refused to take the informa-
tions of our bailiffs and ourselves, and the aid
of the police was not, therefore, to be had. One of
the tenants distrained on this occasion, Mr. Robert Hamilton
Stubber, took legal proceedings in order to try and relieve
himself from my distress. He commenced a replevin suit
in the Court of Exchequer, and laid the 'damages for
detaining his cattle at £5OO ; but he repudiated his suit
the day after he served his writ, and thereby abandoned
his right of action, and admitted my right of.distress beyond
all question. Yet this was not enough for Captain Whelan
to grant me protection in the exercise of my legal rights,
and the property taken from me by mob violence is still
rtgAniouily held fp% me,

Finding that there was to redress to be had from the
magisterial bench, I was advised by counsel to file a cause
petition against Sewell Maillard Stubber, Robert Hamilton
Stubber, and others, to compel them to acconnt for my
rents, which they had been receiving during my minority,
'and without my knowledge or consent ; and, in the sworn
answers they filed to this petition, Mr. Robert Hamilton
Stubber disclaimed all right and title to by far the largest half
of the estates willed to me and my brothers and sister, and
set up, for the first time in thirty-four years, litigation,—
a shadow of a title which could only be tried at law. and
could not be entertained by a court of equity. I was,
therefore, advised to distrain again on the tenants, and, in the
month of November last, I levied a second distress on Mr.
Mr. Robert Hamilton Stubber, who held the lands of Castle-
&ming', as tenant under a lease executed by the Rev. Sewell
Stubber, one of whose devisees and representatives I am.
This distress was levied by two persons well known in
Liverpool, who offered to undertake that duty for me. But
here again mobs were resorted to, and the persons actingas my
bailiffs were placed in danger of their lives, and were obliged
to abandon their distress. An application was then made
to the nearest magistrate, Col. Fisher, for protection. This
gentleman refused to act, and the application was treated us
" an unwarrantable intrusion." Resource was then had to
the assistant stipendiary magistrate for the Queews County,
Mr. Samuel Hanna, who refused to act in the absence of
the local magistrates,* and referred the applicants to the
petty sessions, when Mr. Hanna again refused the informa-
tions of my bailiffs, but offered to grant summonses against
a neob, which summonses could not have been heard until
'the time fixed by law for selling the-goods distrained had
expired, and my distress would have gone for nothing.
The public will know what construction to put
upon this mode of proceeding. Had the persons
distrained any cause of complaint, they could have
replevined at a cost of a few shillings, and
my right would have been legally tried by a jury in the
county in which they are as well known as I am. But

there would have been both law and justice in this—and
the parties with whom I had then to deal knew full well
that neither one nor the other would do for them ; and
therefore, after sending my bailiffs and auctioneer to the
ground on the day of sale, I was obliged to abandon my
distress in a house closely barricaded against the execution
of a right every man is allowed to exercise where he stands
as the representative of a lessor of the holding distrained.
I now pass on to my charges against the judges of the
Irish Court of Queen's Bench and Common Pleas. When
mob violence was suffered by the magistracy to defeat my last
distress for rent, I was advised by Queen's counsel, Mr
Walter Bourke, to serve a tenant, named Joseph Duigin,

with an ejectment for non-payment of twenty years' rent,

which was done; and Mr. Robert Hamilton Stubber, who

is himself a tenant under ejectment, applied to
the Court of Common Pleas to be allowed to
defend this tenant. I was opposed to admitting him,
but I was overruled by my counsel, who said that, "if
Mr. Hamilton Stubber pleaded, that the issue could be
tried at the following assizes." But he could net
plead as the law directs in a case of ejectment for non-pay-
ment of rent, an,d consequently there could be no issue for trial.
Joseph Duigin, the occupying tenant, and the other persons
served with this ejectment, did not take defence, and I caused
the pleadings in the action to be taken off the file, and
judgment was marked a,gainst them. The momeut they were in
default, I was entitled, as every other man is, to judgment
for the amount of rent set forth in any ejectment against all
the parties who had not taken defence to the action. This

is the every day practice, and the right that every man
enjoys in the United Kingdom. Still there was no such
measure of justice for me in the Irish Court of Common

From the moment I had established my right in a court
of law' the officers of that court, from the master down to
the humblest clerk, took the deepest interest in the cause,
and nothing that I did was right. When I demanded
that whiCh I was entitled to, in a wa y that could not be
objected to, I was told that'such things could not be done ;
whereas, all that I did was, to mark judgment with a view
of getting execution for £2,769 5s against tenants
occupying my land, and who had allowed judg-
ment to go against them by default. To refuse
a plaintiff execution under such circumstances, is a perver-
sion of the law, which I call upon the public to support me

in resisting

While I was engaged in these singular parleys with the
officers of the Court of Common Pleas, Mrs. Winter was
occupied in her memorable and praiseworthy motions before
the judges sitting in chamber and in court, where she had
to combat the highest genius, and most popular men at the
Irish bar. She had been brought into court by Mr.
Robert Hamilton Stubber, on notice to set aside a rule
made by the court, to entitle her to appear in person, This
motion she successfully resisted, and Chief Justice Monahan
after hearing her statementii on three motions, and learning
that she was one of the devises of the lessor of the lands
before the court—said that "the best thing she could do
was to issue her Sabers, and enter into possession
of her property." Mrs. W inter had previously complained
to the Chief Justice that the officer of the court had refused
to enter our judgment, and the Chief Justice replied, that
"if the officer of the court refused to 4:lh his duty, she was to
bring him before him." Tb e officer has since then repeatedly
refused to enter the judgmE .nt.
But my complaint in this : matter is, that all the judges
who have had these ejectm; :nts before them—namely, Judge
Keough, Judge Ball, and C hief Justice Monahan—have one
and all of them been made acquainted with the fact that my
sister and I were suing tens nts as the devisees and repre-
sentatives of the lessor of c the lands occupied by those
tenants. Knowing this, upt ni what pretext could any court
allow third parties to enter into the suit, more particularly
men who were tenants thetaiselves, and under ejectments
served by us. A man I rho receives rents of lands
bequeathed to another is a fe, lon, and ought to be treated as
such by those who are plac ed in the position of public
guardians. Who can go between a lessor and his
tenants, but the heirs named it i the will of the lessor, before,
a paramount title has been es tablished at law. The frau-
dulent usurpation and receipt of rents by these persons is
no justifieation of what is in itself a penal offence. I now
turn to the Irish Court of lane en's Bench. No sooner had
Mr. Robert Hamilton Stubber obtained leave to take
defence in my action of ejectment against my tenant,
Joseph Duigin, than he served th is very tenant with an eject-
ment grounded on the lease, in which the rents reserved by
it are payable to me, and the co-representatives of the
lessor. To this ejectment, Joseph Duigin took defence, but
owing to some accident, his defence was not filed until
the day after the time allowed by law had expired'
Consequently, an application was made to the Court of
Queen's Bench for leave for Mr. Hamilton Stubber to mark
judgment against the very tenant who Mr. Stubber had been
trying a few days before to protect against the claims of the
Maillards. Mrs. Winter appeared to oppose the motion,
and again gave the court distinctly to understand that the
defendant, Joseph Duigin, was a tenant under a lease exe-
cuted by the Rev. Sewell Stubber, whose devisees and repre-
sentatives she and her brothers were. On this occasion, Mr.
Brereton, Queen's Counsel, who appeared for Mr. Robert
Hamilton Stubber, admitted both our will and the lease !
Where, then, was there a counter right or a shadow of oppos-
ing title ? There could be none ; yet the Chief Justice of the
Irish Court of Queen's Bench allowed a Queen's counsel,who
had admitted the right of distress and eviction in Mrs:Win-
ter and her co-devisees, to walk out of court to mark.
judgment against a man who was morally and legally
bound to pay his rent to the representatives of the man who
made his lease. Did Chief Justice Lefroy want to be told
that the men who received the rents reserved in that lease,
and who were not the heirs or representatives of the lessor,
laid themselves open to a charge of felony ? And that, the
Court of Queen's Bench was a most appropriate place to
have investigated the suspicion of such a charge ?
Mrs. Winter had applied to this very judge, as a party
*beneficially interested in the notion brought by Mr. Robert
Hamilton Stubber against this unfortunate tenant, to bo
allowed to defend him.' But he ruled in direct opposition
to Judge Keough, "that no third party could be allowed
to take defence to an ejectment for non-payment of relit."
In this case the judge of the Queen's Bench was quite right,
and Judge Keough of the Common Pleas, who had allowed
Mr. Robert Hamilton Stubber to take defence in my
action against Duigin, was palpably wrong! But when
Chief Justice Lefroy found that Mrs Winter could not be
allowed to take defence on behalf of her tenant, and hav-
ing a clear, unmistakeable, and paramount title before him,
was he not bouni to dismiss Mr. Hamilton Stubber's eject-
ment ?

The recital of these proceedings will, however, be suffi-
cient to show the British public how law is administered in
Ireland ; and that I am kept out of my property, not by
private individuals, but by dereliction of duty on the part of
the officers of the Crown ; and that between the Irish Courts
of Chancery, Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and the Queen's
County Magistracy, I and my co-divisees have been kept for
thirty-four years out of possession of large personal pro-
perties and real estates, with a rental of at least £15,000 a
year ! And, will it be believed that upwards of £6OO worth
of property seized and sold by me.for rent in the month of April,
1867, has been suferal by the Irish authorities to remain in
the hands of a mob up to the present time. Such a statement
will scarcely be credited. Bat it is too true ; and now,
after I have spent over £4,000 and ten years of my life, in
endeavouring to rescue my property from the hands of a
lawless band of usurpers, and that they are laid by their
own oaths and admissions prostrate at my feet, I have fresh
opponents in the Irish courts themselves, to combat.
I rely, however, on the generous sympathy of the public
for funds, to enable me to bring_ my grievances, which
are now of a public character, before Parliament, and to
take such other steps as I may be 'advised, to obtain simple
justice.
I have endeavoured to develope and review a combination
of events governed by public officers of every grade, from
the Lord Chancellor to the Tipstaff—who, by having
usurped an authority over the right of the subject, prove
that some measures are wanting to enable unfortunate
individuals who may be placed as I am to find some speedy
remedy for their lawless oppression and, tyranny ; or
presently the boasted right of a British subject will be cut
down to the lowest grade of oppression and degradation,' and
we shall feel ourselves manacled and chained down, and
chained up, by persons in. power who may, frOm some cause
that does not appear, decide
upon our ruin by a breach of
those laws every good citizen is bound to protect —I remain,
sir, your very obedient servant,
May 12, 1859.
NICHOLAS D. MAILLARD.

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