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

The usual meeting of the magistrates of Middlesex
was held yesterday at the Sessions House, on
Clerkenwell-green (Mr. Pownall, chairman of the
bench, presiding), to consider business relating to
the county. There were about 40 magistrates pre-
sent. The agenda-paper did not contain any mat-
ter of more than ordinary interest.
Mr. BALDWIN, the deputy-clerk of the peace, read
the minutes of the preceding Court.
The report of the Committee for Accounts and
General Purposes was then brought up, and amongst
other matters it recommended that a sum of £582
should be voted for repairs at the militia store-
houses in the county.
Mr. KEMSIIEAD the chairman of the committee,
proposed, and Mr. TURNER seconded the motion
that the report be adopted, which was carried, but
Mr. Turner said he hoped they would not be called
upon for this vote annually, though store-houses
must be kept in repair, and it was resolved that
that part of the report which related to the annual
visitation of inspection by the committee be de-
ferred until the next Court, when it was understood
it will be proposed that a committee of six should
be appointed to make the inspection, instead of the
general Committee of Accounts and General Fur-
poses. The report referred to the vacant office of '
Inspector of Weights and Measures, consequent
upon the death of Mr. Thomas Reynolds, of the
No. 1 Tower Hamlets division. Some discussion
took place upon the recommendation of the com-
mittee that the situation should be offered seriatim
to the three remaining inspectors, viz., Mr. John
Wright of No. 2 division, Finsbury and Clerken-
well ; Mr. Morrison, of No. 3 division, Bloomsbury,
St. Giles's, &c. ; and Mr. James Gregg, of No. 4, or
the Brentford division. It was resolved that the
vacant cffice should be offered for the acceptance of
Mr. John Wright, the senior inspector, which he
accepted, and was accordingly appointed to that
district, one of the local justices remarking that,
upon ;the death of Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Wright took
charge of the duties of the situation, and discharged
them not only to the satisfaction of the magistrates,
but for the benefit of the poor, who only were the
real sufferers by such nefarious practices, as was
exemplified by the great increase of cases in which
the magistrates had to inflict fines, which had been
exceedingly large since Mr. Reynolds's death, and
he was sure they could not have a better officer for
the situation.

Mr. Morrison, on being asked if he would accept
of No. 2 district, very respectfully declined, so he
still retains No. 3 district; and the inspector of the
4th district, Mr. J. Gregg, not :being present to
make his choice, the matter concluded by the dis-
trict No. 2 being left vacant for the present.
Mr. TuRNEB. approved of what had been done in
the matter, but he thought that the election, being
one by the Court, they ought not to adopt the prin-
ciple of seniority when these vacancies occurred,
but to see that the office would be filled by an able
and competent person.

THE PRISON REPORTS.

The usual reports from the three county prisons
were brought up and read. It appeared that there
were in Coldbath-fields in all 1,583 prisoners, of
whom 69 were sick, but the general state of health
and the discipline of the prison were good; and the
Court, on the recommendation of the committee,
granted several pensions to retiring officers. In
the Westminster Bridewell there were in all 681
prisoners, all females, and the surgeon reported
that, notwithstanding the prevalence of diarrhce
dysentery, and other diseases, outside the prison,
there had been no illness inside of anything like a
serious nature. A notice of motion was given for
improving the ventilation of some of the cells, gas
repairs, and some minor alterations, which had been
recommended, and the specifications prepared by
Mr. F. H. Pownall, the county surveyor. In the
House of Detention there were 235 prisoners, six of
whom were under medical treatment.
A report was brought up from the Reformatory
School Committee, appointed at the last Court-day,
"as to the propriety of entering into any agree-
ment with the directors or managers of any refor-
matory school or schools for the reception and
keeping in any such school or schools, juvenile
offenders from this county eenteaced to be detained
in a reformatory school."
The committee recommended the adoption of the
proposition, which was supported by Mr. W. H.
Bodkin, the learned Assistant-Judge, who said
that as they could not send boys over fourteen to
their own school at Fathom, it was desirable and
very important that they should be enabled to bend
boys from 14 to 16 to some reformatory—
an age at
which the discipline of the reformatory would have
most effect.

After some discussion the proposition was adopted

The Deputy-Clerk of the Peace, Mr. G. D. Bald-
win, laid before the Court a letter from the Home-
office, enclosing a letter from Mr. Perry, inspector
of prisons of the southern district, recommending
the further enlargement of Coldbath-fields Prison
by two additional wings.—Referred.
After some minor matters had been disposed of,•
the Court adjourned.

SUMMARY PUNISHMENT FOR A DRUNKEN WIFE.
—" Manhattan" says :—" Dennis Haggerty ob-
tained a divorce from his wife this morning by the new
mode. She had been in the habit of getting drunk for
seven years. Mr. Haggerty went out early and warned his
wife that if she got drunk before he returned he would kill
her. She was drunk when he went home to dinner. He
drew a pistol and shot her dead. He will be locked up for
some time."

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Elizabeth Jacobs, of extreme nervousness, indigestion..
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(From the 7imes.) isi II
If the verdict against Dr. Melia at Croydon is
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
a great many bills, a little hitch. Uufortunately it
is net 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
comes for our annual trip on the Continent. The
year before last we went to the Pyrenees, last year
to tho Tyrol, now let it be a little tour up the Me-
selle, or a month at Baden Baden. We let out in
conversation that we "are going abroad." Upon
this Jones, the upholsterer, where bill is the subject
of discussion, makes an affidavit that we owe him
such a sum, and that we are going abroad and km--
ing England. without paying, and that he considers
the whole affair to be suspicious. He applies to a
Judge in Chambers for an order of arrest. A eapias
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 pleasant 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. Ho 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 ace
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-
puting ; the question relates to a public fabric
otitis ea. rue.ic worship; and it might have bees
snpposed 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. Cramp does ob.
tain sufficient evidence of this wish or intention,
and swears accordingly, and upon this application
is immediately made to a Jadge 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 unwell"—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 Chambers,
was honestly stated, or Rhether 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 =de 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 Shee—Did you believe that he meant to
stay abroad?
" Witness—l was fearful he did.
" Mr. Sergeant Shee—Did you believe that he was going
abroad to defeat your claim ?
" Witness—No, I don't say that; but 1 feared that I
should not receive my money for a considerable time."
That is to say, the defendant knew that his
debtor was an honest man and would sooner or
tater pay, but that his objection to the amount of
the bill (in which he was backed by the archits-ct)
would take some time to satisfy, and therefore that
he determined to get his money instantly by the
weapon of an arrest. 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 grounds, 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, being 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 bo 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 tbo 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
suppose 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 he
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, station, and connections, and temperate ob-
jection, upon architects' authority, to a builder's
bill, gave him not a fragment of right to auppose
that ho 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 disgrace 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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