The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-21 00:00:00

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....a.„2e" e..,e--------t-e",-----.'---- '/ ' , NEwsIAPER
Z---)/Z c,;. THE PEV. DR. MELIAI;I4II2‘..;4NOr'" rfoccLz
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sound, all we can say is that we must begin to look
sharply about ourselves. The case is this :—We owe
a man a bill, about which there is, as there is about
liiiimmiredikaillilleMNlMlNis
' bills, a little hitch. Uufortunatel
Dr. inMz eelia at C4:::d*- 4...t-Z2::: -1:1:211.,--1;;;14

a great many

ly it

PRICE.— —..4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

is not unusual for creditors and debtors to take dif-
ferent views on this subject. In the meantime,
while the dispute is going on—and these little dif-
ferences sometimes do go on for months—the time
cornea for our annual trip on the Continent. The
year before last we went to the Pyrenees, last year
to the Tyrol, now let it be a little tour up the Mc-
selle, or a month at Baden Baden. We let out in
conversation that we "are going abroad." Upon
this Jones, the upholsterer, whose bill is the subject
of discussion, makes an affidavit that we owe him
such a sum, and that we are going abroad and leav-
ing England without paying, and that he considers
the whole affair to be suspicious. He applies to a
lodge in Chambers for an order of arrest. A capias
is issued, and a sheriff's officer pays us a visit, carries
us off, and places us under lock and key. It must
be admitted that this is not a plessant proceeding,
and that it is something of an interference with the
liberty of the subject. Yet it is just what has hap-
pened in the case of Dr. Melia. Dr. Melia, a Catholic
priest, an Italian by birth but a naturalised English
subject, has a dispute with a Mr. Fish, a builder.,
about an account sent in for work done in the erec-
tion of a new Italian chapel. Dr. Melia presents
all the appearance and circumstances of a respect-
able man who pays his bills and discharges all fair
demands upon him. He is working in the erection
of this new chapel in combination with a committee
of Italian gentlemen, at the head of which is the
Marquis d'Azeglio. Having signed the contract he
is formally responsible for the payment of this ac-
count ; but the responsibility really belongs to the
committee of Italian gentlemen representing Italian
society in London. It is not a case of private ex-
penditure the settlement of which Dr. Melia is dis-

as the climate, although hot, is everywhere good; the
c,oitton plant produces in six months, reckoned from the d
—i,
Fs
rsoorowna,
sourceylelds two
hihgahrvaeustthsoarnituntalilly, and lasts six years.ay
oil ion has been received :—" By oYur leatfeo
Ai di n district, it wouldffere
dappearthat the sl
cottonito awdi
thatlnpigleeeens:ll:7lnnimu tnhithe
o;ucciht.opufrrun
josmelviv lesoci,:c—fursotins as‘ seviaes
to
et
tonehe
presentfoiio crop of Turkey may,
not suffered
about as
district i s
think,t rict habvee
calculated
tinimanei,elpstyc:ical.
sth.soey,ool2oadk.intTaihs
or A2nsato follows:—Anatolia a
bales; C er . .
70,000 kintele,
Greece Dardanelles,m,: I r 2r05,0i
u, oeoeoakb lona: 1s;
&other islands in
the Archipelago. 20,000 kintals; Georgia,
bales.3o,ooo kin-
his ; total, 9;0,000 kintals, or about 315,00'0"And
total, 340,000 bales."—The following intelligence
placed before the committee, supplied by the Levag:tncewas
of Aug. 5 :—" The reports received in towa of the Herald
appear-
ance of the cotton crop in the neighbou-hcod of Dardanelles
and Gallipoli are very favourable ; the quantity sown this
year being apparently greatly larger than any ever
hitherto grown, and the quality at the same time being
proportionably superior. The American seed has suc-
ceeded excellently in the district in question, and the
produce will be a class of staple which is freely taken by
buyers at the present moment as equal to ordinary
Orleans."—The following letter was read :—" Milford, near
Derby, August 13, 1863.—Sir,—We beg to enclose a cheque
on Messrs. Smith, Payne, and Smith, for £5O, as our sub-
scription for the current year to the Cotton Supply Asso-
ciation. We shall be happy to continue our subscription
for five years, if the Association continues its operations for
that period. We cordially agree as to the importance of the
undertaking.—We are, sir, yours faithfully, W. G. and J.
STRIITT.—Isaac Watts, Eeq."—This concluded the busi-
, ness of the meeting.

puting ; the question relates to a public fabric
built for public worship; and it might have been
supposed even by the most nervous creditor that the
Marquis d'Azeglio and his friends would not have
left Dr. Melia in the Lurch, but would have consi-

_ .
dered themselves the real debtors. In this state of
the case, however, while the dispute about the
builder's claim is going on, Dr. Melia communicates
in conversation the fact that he is anxious to go

abroad, " as he wants rest." Upon this the builder's
attorney, Neate, sends Crump, the attorney's clerk,
to hold an interview with Dr. Melia for the purpose

of obtaining enough disclosure of Dr. Melia's wish
for foreign travel to swear by. Crump does ob-
tain sufficient evidence of this wish or intention,
and swears accordingly, and upon this application
is immediately made to a Judge in Chambers for an
order of arrest, and Dr. Melia, in spite of his appeal
—" For God's sake do not take me to prison to-
night, as lam un well"—is locked up in the sheriff's
officer's house till he finds bail.

The question, then, is whether the case against
Dr. Melia, as laid before the Judge in Onambers,
was honestly stated, or whether it was not partially
and unfairly stated with a view to obtain more
immediate payment than under the circumstances
the defendant had a right to expect. It must be
remembered that though the sum claimed by the
builder, Fish, was undoubtedly a large one, and one
that might naturally create some anxiety, there
was a clear right on the other side to dispute its
justice, and nothing vexatious in a temporary re-
sistance to it. It had been agreed in the contract
that the architect was to pass the builder's account
previous to payment, and the architect in this case
had not passed it—nay, had actually disputed it.
Was this fact, then, laid before the Judge in
Chambers ? It was not. Nor, again, was Dr.
Melia's official relation of priest to the new chapel,
which nisch) it improbable that his intended stay
abroad would be permanent, mentioned. For to say
that the Judge might have inferred, from the fact of
the part he took in erecting the chapel, that Dr.
Melia had this permanent appointment is simple
nonsense. Here are two most important facts bearing
upon the very question of Dr. Melia's intention, in
his wish to go abroad, to defeat his creditor, which
were omitted in the statement laid before the Judge.
Taking a common sense view of the matter, we
should have certainly said that we had here an
unfair statement, and that an unfair statement
proved an unfair purpose—the purpose, viz., on the
part of the builder to obtain the full payment of his
bill at once and by the bold stroke of bringing a
sheriff's officer on the scene, before time had been
allowed for the lair consideration of objections to
the amount of the bill. It is impossible that Mr.
Fish could soberly and seriously have believed that
it was Dr. Melia's intention to go abroad for good
and escape his creditors. He himself, in his evi-
dence, says that he did not:—
" Mr. Sergeant Shoe—Did you believe that ho meant to
stay abroad ?
" Witness—l was fearful he did.
" Mr. Sergeant Shee—Di t you believe that he was going
abroad to defeat your claim ?
" Witness—No, I don't say that; but I feared that I
should not reccirc my money for a considerable time."
Tnat is to say, the defendant knew that his
debtor was an honest man and would sooner or
tater pay, but that his olsjection to the amount of
the bill (in which he was backed by the architect)
would take some time to satisfy, and therefore that
tie determined to get his money instantly by the
weapon of an at rest. Respectable men do not like
being arrested, and therefore this instrument gives
you a power over them, and is convenient for
quickening payment.
On common sense _rounds, then, we should have
said that the builder's arrest of Dr. Melia was
unfair, and unfair upon his own evidence; that is,
that there was malice in it, as the law defines
malice, the real fear of nonpayment, the only legi-
timate motive for arrest, bcirg absent. What the
proper conclusion may be on technical, legal
grounds we cannot pretend to say, If, as Judge
Blackburn says, we are obliged to take the credi-
tor's assertion upon his oath that he did feel his
money in jeopardy as the criterion of a legitimate
arrest, there can be no doubt that such an assertion
was made in the affidavit in Chambers, and that it
was made in court in some parts of the evidence.
But we should certainly have expected beforehand
that the law would require something more than
a creditor's assertion on this point,—that it would
have required that his assertion should be borne
out in some considerable degree by the facts
of the case. A man may say that "he felt"
and "he thought ;" but had he a right to feel
and to think so ? Were the character and posi-
tion of the debtor and the circumstances of
the whole case such as to justify him in enter-
taining such a suspicion ? If they were not, and
if he had not the slightest right whatever to
suppese that the person intended to cheat him, then
whatever he thought, the act of arrest is plainly
unjustifiable, and if it is law, it is very odd law,
though, even taking this criterion of a legitimate
arrest, this criterion appears to be very partially
satisfied on this trial. Mr. Fish may assert that ho
felt his money in jeopardy, but the evidence which
we have appears to us to go directly counter to
that assertion, and to leave him an inconsistent and
unsound witness.
So much for this outrageous and indecent arrest
on a respectable foreigner—a gentleman whose cha-
racter, btation, and connections, and temperate ob-
jection, upon architects' authority, to a builder's
bill, gave to not a fragment of right to :suppose
that he was a proper subject for such a proceed-
ing. The Judge himself, indeed, though against
Dr. Melia in point of law, calls it " a most impro-
per proceeding ;" and the jury agree. Such au act
is, indeed, a violation of all the equities and cour-
tesies of English trade, even if it is technically legal.
It is a diegrece to us as a business community, or
would be a disgrace, did not the whole community
rise up at once to repel and denounce it; and. it is
the worse for being a gross outrage upon a foreigner
and a guest.

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