Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-12-17 00:00:00

POOL, THURSDAY, DECRAII3F,R 17. 1857..

LIVERPOOL ARCHITECTURAL AND
ARCH2E °LOGICAL SOCIETY.

YCRKSHIRE WINTER ASSIZES, Dec. 15.

The fifth meetinj of the session of this society was held
last night, in the Roj'al Institution, Colquitt-street ; Mr.
S. Huggins In the chair:
Mr. W. Wardhouse Hayes, Mr. E. A. Hafer, Mr. Wm.
Irvine, and Mr. J. R. Cooper were elected associate
members •f the society.
TAR LIVERPOOL ACADEMY.

TRIAL OF H. S. BRIGHT FOR FORGERY.

Henry Smith Bright, 41, was yesterday placed at the bar
and arraigned en nine indictments, for having forged and
uttered certain transfer deeds and other instruments, with
intent to defraud. To all these charges he pleaded not
guilty. The jury having been impanelled and sworn, the
court proceeded with the first indictment, in which the
prisoner was charged for that he, on the 4th day of July
1853, forged the name of " Robert .ohn Taylor" to a
certain deed for the transfer of shares in the North,
Eastern Railway Company, And that he uttered the said
deed with intent to defraud. Mr. Overend, Q.C., stated
the case at some length. The prosecutor is a gentleman,
named Robert John Taylor, the son and administrator of
Sohn Taylor, who was formerly an extensive corn
merchant at Hull, and died in 1856. The prisoner who
now stood before them. was Henry Smith Bright, and was
the cousin of the poosecator, and nephew to the late Mr.
Taylor. The prisoner's uncle received him into the
concern, in the first instance, as a clerk, and subsequently
as a partner (in 1848)'; in January, 1856, Mr. Taylor died.
and the business was afterwards carried on by Mr. Bright
alone, and Ihr his sole interest, tilt his bankruptcy in
1857. The prosecutor was not a partner with his father
and the prisoner, but only a cashier in the concern ; bat of
railway shares, 238 extension shares in the North-Eastern
Railway, bought in May, 11349: 144 were registered in the
name ofJohn Taylor,. 36 in that of Brieht, and 58 in that
of R. J. Taylor. In July, 1853, Mr. Bright effected the
sale of 48 of the shares standing in the name of Robert
John Taylor, by forging that gentler:zoo's name to the
transfer deedoand this constituted the charge into which
they were now. inquiring. There were also other shares
standing in the name of Mr. Jblin Taylor, which Mr.
Bright had sold by means of forged transfers, his own
name appearingeas the attesting witness to such transfers.
On the shares now in question £1;080 Was realised, which
Bright paid away in two sums of seloo each,-on his own
sole account. The prisoner caused the books to ho made
up, as if all the shares remained the property of the firm ;
though it was subsequently found that all in this- company
had been sold (except two lots of eight and ten shares),
most of them by means of forged transfers ;. so. that of
the 238 shares, only IS remained. Mr. Brightrhowever,
,still continued to pay the dividends to the account of the
firm, up to Mr. Taylor's death. The dividend warrants
for the 18 shares still remaining in the names of the
Messrs. Taylor were regularly issued, and -to every oee
of these warrants Mr. Bright had forged the names of
these gentlemen for the receipt of the dividends- The
prisener's private memorandum of 1854 was read, in vehicle
he admits pawning and selling shares to meet engage-
ments, and to he " agonised on, for day and night has
been. my mist ry." Another memorandum, of February,. ;
1856, marked ;.` Most private," was also read, in which, he
stated that the firm had lost X 30,000, of which Xlo,ool3'wae
his own; but that had his uncle lived, he would never
have asked him for it. Yet in March or April ho had
the private ledger made up, as if all the losses on shares
were the late Mr. Taylor's, and sous to show, instead of
Bright being a debtor to the firm of £lO,OOO, that there
was a small balance in his favour. The facts- having
been proved, Mr. James addressed the jury. for the
prisoner, complaining that the prosecution, instead of
allowing the prisoner to give an account of the various
traneaetions in which he was engaged, stepped in when
he was-going through his books, and so prevented him
from giving a fair and honest statement— The
transactions of the firm from 1845 exceeded
1,250,000; the railway speculations, from January 1,
1845, amounted to about X 159,000, including 1,000 to
1,2J0 transactions—and all these gigantic undertakings
had devolved on Mr. Bright's management and control ;
and he had the full authority of the deceased Mr. Taylor
for all ho did. The court adjourned to the next morning.
s IMr. Justice Williams, on taking his seat on Tuesday
morning, proceeded to sum up the evidence. The only
real question for the jury, said his lordship, was whether
the deed of transfer was,a forgery or not. If it were, then
it was plain that the prisoner forged or uttered it with a
guilty knowledge. They would probably decide without
hesitation• that the deed was not signed by Robt. John Tay.
for ; yet it by no means necessarily followed that it was a
forgery. Though the shares transferred by this dead
stood in the name of Robert John Taylor, he was only the
nominee or agent of his father and of the prisoner. Ttre
shares were undoubtedly partnership property, and .
Robert John Taylor had no interest in them; being then,
only a clerk in the house. If, therefore, the prisoner
honestly put the name of Robert John Taylor to the
deed bona fide intending to sell the partnership property
for partnership purposes, with the authority of his par-
ner, Mr. Taylor, then it would not be a forgery, though
Robert John Taylor were entirely ignorant of his name
being put to the-deed. The learned counsel for the pri-
soner had stated that the prisoner bad a right, as a part.
nor or joint owner, to dispose cf them, and was incapable
of committing forgery by any step necessary fur their
disposition ; but it was his (his lordship's) duty to. tell
them that the.law was not so. The partner had uncines-
tionably, in point of law, authority to put the name of the
firm to a bill of exchange or any similar instrument, and
if he does that for his own purposes and not for the
partnership it is not a forgery, but merely an abuse of the
power with which the law vests him as a partner. But
it was obvious that this was not the writing of the name
of one of the firm, but of a stranger, Robert John Taylor.
The jury must take the law from him to be this :—lf the
evidence satisfied them beyond reasonable doubt, that the
prisoner, without the authority of his partner, Al r. 'ray lor
either express or implied, wrote the name of Robert John
Taylor to the deed of transfer, or uttered it with a guilty
knowledge in fraud of the partnership,And for the dishonest
purpose of,Secretly and privately t pplying partnership
property to his own purposes, he was guilty of the crime
imputed to him by this indictment. After reading_ over
and commenting upon the evidence, his lordship observed
that he thought the jary would agree with him, that there
was no doubt that the signature to the transfer in question
was a forgery. Then came the question whether, the
forgery not being genuine, was it dishonest ? Robert John
Taylor was the cashier of the establishment, living at
Hull, and might have any moment been had recourse to
if Mr. Bright had been anxious to have his signature,
Tee defence was that notwithstanding that the signatur,.
was not genuine it was not honest, because it was done
in the great hurry of these enormous concerns, as means
of keeping the firm in funds, and not for the private
purposes of Mr. Bright. To meet this view of the case,
the conduct of the prisoner was put in evidence, which con-
sisted briefly of these particulars :—That there is no entry
at all of the transaction in question in the books of the;
partnership, which they would have expected to have found
if this really had been a partnership transaction ; that the
money received is not placed to the credit of the railway
share account, as it would have been in the ordinary course ;
and that at all events £5OO of the proceeds of the sale
were appropriated by Mr. Bright to his own purposes,
without any minute of the remittance being made in the
book. Then there was the prisoner's conduct as to the
dividend warrants—signing the name of Mr. Taylor and
his son to those warrants, and receiving only the dividend
upon eighteen shares, though treating with the cashier as
if the 233 shares had been in the possession of the firm.
Lastly, there was the feet that when the affairs were gone
into between young Mr. Taylor and the prisoner, as the
surviving partner, he treated these shares.as still being
in. existence, These were the heeds of the case, and the
jury were to say whether, looking at all these circumstan.
ces, they were satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that
when Mr. Bright put the name of Robert John Taylor to
that transfer, he did it with the intention of dishonestly
appropriating the partnership propety, to his own pur-
poses. If they thought he did that,,he was guilty of
forgery ; but if,:on the other hand,, they.: thought they
could reconcile the prisoner's conduct with the view, that
although the signature was not genuine, the- prisoner did
not mean to act dishonestly, but to raise money out of the
partnership assets for partnership, purposes, then he was
mot guilty of forgery in the sense in whicla that expression
is used in the indictment, and they must therefore acquit
him. The Jury retired at a varier to,eleven o'clock, and
after an absence of 29 minutes, they returned with a verdict
of guilty. Mr. Overend said there were other charges
against the prisoner, involving the forgery of bills of
exchange. Mr. James said, his Lordship would have
learned from the depositions. that these cases were of a
very peculiar character. The Judge said he endeavoured
in vain to understand the cases, the depositions were
illegible. Mr.. James : Mr. Overend, on behalf of the
prosecution, will admit, that these charges are of a pecu-
liar nature,, and if they are to be considered in the
punishment, I should request your lordship to read over
the depositions, or to hear a statement with regard to
these allegations. The palsorfer being then asked if
he had anything to say why sentence should not be
passed, he made, the bellowing remarks to th,e learned
judge : —May I be allowed to say two or three words ?
I have no fault whatever :to find with the way in which
this prosecution has been conducted against me in this
court, and I thank the jury for the patient manner in
which they have listened to the whole of the statements
that have been brought before them. 114 lord, what Ido
say is with a lull recognition that a few years ago the crime
of which the jury have found me guilty was punishable by
death, and I desire to say, with that conviction on my mind,
that the whole of the transactions conhected with my firm,
carried on as a speculative account ha my individual name,
were so carried on for the sole aeirpose of retrieving the
position into which that firm had got.by railway engage-
ments in the year 1846; that :the principal of these
speculations were known to my partner ; and that it was
with his knowledge/and with his privity entirely that I
launched into these speculations. They were left entirely I
in my management, and kept from his son, because that
son, as is notorious, was nor a man of business, and kept
from the clerks, because the knowledge of it would have
been the ruin of the firm. Tho jury have found me
guilty, and I must leave it to your lordship to pass what
sentence you think I deserve. His Lordship said he was
entirely satisfied. with the verdict of the jury, and there-
fore he need not say that he did not believe what the
prisoner had been saying. Ile felt great compassion tor
the prisoner, who, after falling from the respectable
position he had held, had been convicted of forgery,
TrtE NORTIIAMPTONSHIRII ELECTION.--Mr. Hunt, the
Though he felt compassion for the prisoner, he should be
doing a great injury if he were to allow that compasslon
Conservative candidate, has been returned for Northar-4. to prevent him passing such a sentence as was oornmen-
tonshire, in the place of the late Mr. Stafford, kdating surate with the crime. That Sentence was that the
the Minteterial candidate, Mr. Vernon. prisoner undergo pima), lervitucle for 10 years,'

Mr. Bonit then came forward, for the purpose of pro-
posing the series of resolutions, of which he had given
notice, in reference to the Liverpool Academy.
Mr. Frank Howard rem to a point of order, and pro.
tested against the resolutions being brought forward in
that society.

Mr. Boult said Mr. Howard was himself out of order,
inasmuch as there was yet no business before the society
If, when the resolutions wero read, Mr. Howard did not
think that meeting a proper arena for their discussion,
he could then move an amendment to that effect.

The Chairman, while expressing a hope that all gentle-
men who entered upon the subject would keep strictly to
the question, decided that Mr. Bouit was at present in
order in proposing the resolutions.
; Mr. Boult said, as a matter of convenience, be thought
it better to propose the- resolutions seriatim, and he
therefore read the first ; in support of which he said he
thought it would be desirable to impose upon the academy
the responsibility of accounting for its proceedings. It
now consisted of nine members, ten having been the
number, until, as the Courier of that day laid,- they had
conferred upon Mr. Herdman the only honour in
their power, by expelling him from their body.
These nine gentlemen were appointed- by each other.
If a vacancy took place, it was supplied by
the votes of the gentlemen in the academy.
It was, therefore, a close corporation, self.eleeted,
irresponsible, or responsible only to its own members.
He did not think that in the present day a society of that
nature was one which any of them could feel disposed to
trust with the expenditure of the public money. He did
not think any of the rates of the community, which many
found it difficult to pay, ought to be placed at the irre-
sponsible discretion of a body of that character, and he
therefore submitted that it was the duty of the Town
Council to obtain from those gentlemen an account of the
mode in which the funds of the Academy had been dis-
posed of. He contended that this was a legitimate subject
for discussion by that society. It was stated in one of
their rules that the society was established for the
advancement of architecture, and promoting'and facilitate
ing a knowledge of the various arts and sciences connected
therewith. Upon these words he rested his standing
there. He contended that painting and sculpture were
arts naturally connected with architecture, and remarked,
as an instance of the correctness of his view, that Mr.
Frank Howard himself had contributed to the society a
paper upon pre-Raphaelitism, and Ruskin's Principles of
Art. He would beg to remind the Academy that although
they had thought proper to erase the name of Herdman
from their list of members, they had not answered the
accusation which he had preferred against them, and that
it they would stand fairly before the public, they would
enter into mere justification of their conduct than they
had done.

The Chairman observed that he thought Mr. Boult was
now travelling outside the question.
Mr. Boult proceeded to say that he considered that any
public body in the- receipt of public money should be
subject to some control. Formerly, he' believed the
honorary secretary of the Academy raised £2O a year for
travelling expenses : he was Wormed that the present
honroary secretary was in receipt of a salary of £lOO.
He should protest against the practice that was growing
up now a days of paying salaries to honorary secretaries.
Mr. F. Howard rose to order. They had nothing to do
with matters which Mr. Boult was introducing, nor were
the facts such as were stated by him.
Mr. Boult continued to argue that the course adopted
by the Liverpool Academy for some years back, but
particularly within the last two years, was most prejudi-
cial to art, and that his allegation to that effect was
supported by the concurrent testimony of nearly the
whole community, of the Press of Liverpool, and of the
leading art journals of London. Be felt it was the duty
of the society to protest against this persistence.in wrone,
and it was therefore that he rose to propose the resolutions
of which he had given notice. In conclusion Mr. Boult
read the resolutions, which we gave in the report of last
meeting.
Mr. Boult proposed in the first instance that the first
of these resolutions be adopted.
Mr. J. Hay seconded the resolution, and observed that
the Academy did not provide that accommodation in
their exhibitions for architectural drawings which they
ought to do, and such as was provided for them in
exhibitions in Edinburgh and London.
Mr. F. Howard rose to protest against the discussion
going any further, and observed that he would content
himself with simply contradicting the statements which
Mr. Boult had made, in order to form a ground for his
resolutions. He (Mr. Howard) was the only painter in
the room, and it might probably be supposed that for
reasons of his own he had instigated Mr. Boult to make
this attack on the Academy. He had had occasionally
controversy with the Academy, but he protested against
those controversies being introduced into the heart
of the Architectural Society. Mr. Boult said
that he was informed that so and so was the
fact, but he (Mr. Howard) apprehended that such
an attack as that then before them should not be
conducted on " mere information." The only assistance
which the Aca.lemy received from the Town Council was
the use of the rooms, the rent of which was estimated at
£2OO a-year, but the Academy had them only for six
months, or perhaps less. It was urged against them that
the Academy elected themselves; undoubtedly they
did elect themselves, but that was the principle on which
all Academies were conducted. They were in no way
responsible to the council or to the rate-payers, but if
they were responsible to the rate-payers the society did
not meet as such, and had no right to entertain such a
subject. As to the selections of the Academy, why
" they paid their money and they took their choice,"—
(laughter)—and as any gentleman had a right, if he
thought proper, to find fault with their choice, so also had
they a right to make it. The society might disapprove
of their selections, but did not conceive that they would
r be therefore justified in adopting the sweeping resolutions
which Mr. Boult had submitted for confirmation. In
conclusion, Mr. Howard referred to the comments oa the
Academy which appeared in a late number of the
Athenceum, and declared that no statements more errone-
ous or absurd had ever before been :published in a
newspaper.

Mr. l'iclon said he did not feel himself competent to say
whether Mr. Millai's picture ought to have the prize or-
not, nor did he think the Architectural Society were much
more competent. (Hear, hear,) He objected to these
resolutions, as a precedent. That society had a special
object, and so long as they kept to that object, they would
make themselves respectable in the eyes of the public ; but
if they became a kind of organised Don Quixote, and ran
full tilt against every windmill that offended them by its
gyrations, they would get thrown on their back, like that
redoubtable champion of old. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
The Academy only obtained the use of the rooms from
the Council, and all the account they were bound to
furnish was such as this—" We get the use of the rooms
for the purposes of exhibition, and we exhibit the pie..
tures." The Architectural Society get the use of their
rooms for a very wall sum from the proprietors of the
Royal Institution—were the proprietors therefore to have
a full control over the management of the society ? The
mode of giving the prize, or the grant of any prize at all,
was not a part of the stipulation on which the
Academy obtained the use of the rooms from the Corpo
ration. He asked, were the members of the Town Council
themselves to choose the prize-picture, and if not what
other body but the Academy was to do so ? The very
most that could be charged upon that body was an error
of judgment, and there being no final tribunal,which could
absolutely decide even upon that point, he did not see
what right the society would have to pass any resolutions
such as those which had been proposed. Mr. Picton
concluded by proposing an amendment, to the effect, that
it was foreign to the purpose of that society, and•inimical
to its interests, to interfere in the affairs .of other
societies, and that, therefore, the resolutions animadvert-
ing upon the conduct of the Liverpool Academy could
not be entertained.

Mr. F. Howard seconded the amendment.
Mr. Alderman Bennett admitted that it would have
been as well if the Council, who were undoubtedly sup-
posed to be the patrons of the Academy, had taken the
question more into its consideration for some years
back. The Council did for three years actually give the
£5O Ariz The giving the use of the rooms to the
Academy was, in point— of fact, equal to a grant
of £2OO a year, less. what the Council received for their
use from other soiarees during the year. He agreed
with Mr. Boult, that so long as the grant was given, the
Council ought to receive some account of the expenditure.
He regretted, however, on several grounds, to say, that he
believed the present year would be the last in which the
grant would be made. The lease which the Council had,
of the rooms having expired, the Council would in future
have to make an annual payment far them if they retained
possession of them, and, in the altered state of the Cor-
poration finances, he feared that would be one of the first
articles of expenditure retrenched.
Mr.R.P.Horner suggested another amendment, to be sub-
stituted for Mr. Pieton's, in order to avoid pledging the
society not to enter upon discussion, which upon a future
occasion might be thought desirable...,The amendment he
suggested was to the effect, that the society did not think
! it expedient to elver, in the manner proposed by Mr.
Boult, into the Liverpool Academy 's conduct of its own
affairs.

Mr. Picton consented to withdraw his amendment in
favour of Mr. Horner's, and Mr. Howard seconded the
latter.

Mr. Boult having replied, a division took place, when
there appeared 18 votes for the amendment, and 6 against
it. The amendment was therefore declared carried.

The paper oi the evening was then read by Mr. Alfred