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

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THE REV. DR. MEL •
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If the verdict against Dr. Melia at Croydon 7a3
sound, all we can say is that we must begin to look
sharply about ourselves. The case is this :—We We
a man a bill, about which there is, as there is about
a great many bills, a little hitch. Uufortunately it
is nit 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 the Tyrol, now let it be a little tour up the Mo-
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
England
aannd-d awsi
ht he or
infit.„
s officer
paying,ffi e er pa
anyds tui
si eat
vhi es i ct
,een
as
ri dr
ie.:::
such a sum, and that we are going ebroAd and 'env-
: issued,g E
Judgewhole affair to be suspicious. He applies to a
udge in Chambers for an order of arrest. A capius
us off, and places us under lock and key.
It roust
be admitted that this is not a pleasant proceed:mg,
and that it, is something of an inter f
ere
liberty of the subject,
is it nce with the
yet just what has hap
pened in the case of Dr. Melia. Dr. Melia Catholic
priest, an Italian by birth but a naturalised Enlish
subject, has a dispute with a Mr. Fish, a blig
about an account sent in for work done in the
tion of a new Italian chapel. Dr. Melia
preentc
:*
all the appearance and circumstances of a respeeB
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 laa
is formally responsible for the payment of this ii,a.
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.
penclitnre the settlement of which Dr. Melia is dis-
puting ; the question relates to a public fabric
built for public worship; and it might haves 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 an weir—is locked up in the sheriff's
officer's house till he finds bail.

STAMPED -.M.

harvests aunuale
as the cliit7, although hot,
the
cotton plant produces in six montiligs,
irvi,orakynowndholeiarsfetrsogn
from
xotdhy ee;
it is sown, yields two ha day
—From a source of high authority
the following communi-
cation has
been received :--" By our latest advices front the
Aidin district, it would appear that the cottonc plants in that
district have not suffered CO much from l cuostfsas was at one
time expected they had. The present crop
I think, be calculated about as follows : Att°ll4
Cure"
Turkeyl may,
mania, Syria, 550,000 kintals ; Romnelia, from N °
Dardanelles, :.350,000 kintals; Cyprus and other is 11: to
the
the Archipelago, 20,000 kintals; Georgia, sc,, 20,000d:104i
tals; total, 9;0,000 kintals, or about 315,000 bales. And-
Greece will produce about 70,000 kintals, or 25,000 bales
total, 319,000 biles."—The following intelligence was'
placed before the committee, supplied by the Levant Herald
of Aug. 5 :—" The reports received in town of the appear-
ance of the cotton crop in the neighbourhood 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 is 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
STRUTT.—Isaac Watts, Esq."—This concluded the bus
/less of the meeting.

The question, then, is whether the case against
Dr. Melia, as laid before the Judge in Chambers,
was honestly stated, or NC hether 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 cane, 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, bad 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 nal do 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.
Talking 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 !air consideration of objections to
the amount of the hill. It is impossible that Mr.
Fish could soberly and see iously have believed that

it was Dr. Melia's intention to go abroad for good
and escape his creditors. He himself, in his evi,
deuce, 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—Dit 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 receire my ?nonty 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 hie objection to the amount of
the bill (in which he was backed by the archit,.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
yet; a power over them, and is convenient for
quickening payment.
On common sense grounds, then, we should hare
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 &fines
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
I3,ackburn 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 cert..inly 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 net the slightest right whatever to
supp,,se 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 Lim not a fragment of right to suppcims
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 an act
is, indeed, a violation of all the equities and cour-
tesies of English trade, even if it is technically legal.
It is a diegrace to us as a business commuuity, 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.

Full benefit of reduced duty "obtained by par.
chasing Horniinan's pure Tea ; very choice at 33..4d. and
4.5. " EiCn, Staudaid "ut 4a. 4d.. (forsnerly 4w. 8(1.:), is t)la

ttor.gut and most inDrorced. i':4
Eur, pi:- it in lackets,