The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-12 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEVIBER 12, 1862.

LAW IN7ELLIGENCE, Dec. 11.

VICE CHANCELLOR'S COURT.
(Before Sir W. P. Wood.)

GLADSTONE AND OTHERS Y. MUSEUMS BEY AND

OTHERS.

This was a motion to have the Governors of the
Bank of England restrained from paying or deli-
vering to any persons other than the plaintiffs or
their nominees, or except under the direction of the
court, the sum of £20,000 Turkish Bonds, or the
coupons, and
interest for the same now in their
hands. A similar injunction was also prayed
against the defendant, Constantine Musurus, the
Turkish ambassador in this country. It appeared
that in the year 1858 the plaintiffs and others took
up a scheme for the formation of a company with
joint-stock capital of £1,000,000, to be divided into
50,000 shares of £2O each, for carrying on banking
operations in Turkey under the name of the Bank
of Turkey. The case made by the bill was that it
was an essential stipulation in such scheme that the
Government of Turkey should grant to the pro-
jected company the exclusive privilege of issuing
bank notes throughout the Imperial dominions, and
that the whole of the kaimes or paper n oney which
was then in circulation in that country should be
withdrawn, and that no further issue of paper
money should be made by the Government. The
Sultan, on the 18th of May, 1858, gave his assent to
a firman or concession in the Turkish language,bat
it was not delivered to the plaintiffs until the 15th
of February, 1859. It was one of the stipulations
in this concession that the bank should commence
operations in Constantinople within six months at
the latest after the delivery of the Imperial firman,
and that in default thereof the sum of £20,000
Turkish Bonds deposited with the governors and
company of the Bank of England as stakeholders,
should be confiscated to the Turkish Government.

The plaintiffs alleged that they have been prevented
from commencing their banking operations by
reason of the Turkish government not having yet
withdrawn the paper money in circulation at the
t;me the firman was granted, and that the sum of
£20,000 Turkish Bonds deposited with the Bank
of England has not yet been forfeited. The Turkish
ambassador, however, now threatens to cause the
£20,000 to be treated as forfeited unless the plain-
tiffs will give up the firman and all rights thereby
...fcileo. It appeared tnat many persons who had
taken shares in the scheme had called upon the
directors to return the deposits paid by them, and
the directors had complied with such demands, and
in fact partly wound up the affairs of the company
among themselves, but not under any legal process.
The Turkish ambassador refused to appear upon
the present motion upon the ground that he was not
liable to the jurisdiction of the court, he being the
representative of an independent sovereign.
His Honour said that in the present state of
matters he could not say to whom the securities
really belonged, and the course he should adopt,
therefore, would be to rest ain the governors of the
Bank from parting with the securities in their hands
until the cause had been heard upon its merits.
Order accordingly.

ous affair—they call sausage-olls" on the counter
—(laughter)—and he told theplaintiff that be sold
about 600 the first week.

Mr. Justice Crompton—Tlen the sausage•rolls
made the beer go off?

Defendant--Yes.

Mr. Biron—Did you sell 6(.0 ?
Defendant—More than 6(o—between 800 and
900. The brewers made a treat display on the
panels of the sausage-roll business. He did not ask
a man named Conway to sent round a few sailors
to show off the business, as hehad a party about it.
Conway on a previous occasior had offered to do so
for £5, but he declined his offer. After the deposit
was paid Conway sent round some sailors. Defen-
dant told him he had done a very wrong thing, but
not liking him to be a loser ae gave him half-a-
crown. The busin?ss was advertised and sold by a
person named Tozer, who called himself " Thomas
Norris, Esq." in the advertisement. Plaintiff told
defendant he had been offered £260 for the business,
and he advised him to take it, as he appeared to be
unable to carry it out from want of money.
In cross-examination, Defendant said he kept
for three years the Ben Janson in Shoe-lane.
He had sold four businesses before this—two
public-houses and two ham and beef shops.
One of the latter he sold for £2OO. The pur-
chaser died shortly after, and he bought it back for
£6O cash, a bill for £2O, and the back rent and
taxes. He sold it after for £l5O. He was now
managing the Queen's Arms Hotel at Kilburn for
Mr. Kenshole. Tozer sold the Ben Jonson, and
was employed for the sale of one of the ham and
beef shops. When the sausage rolls got stale he
gave them away.
Messrs. Lightfoot's manager said the house had
been in the hands tf four unfortunate tenants, and
the trade had suffered in consequence.
Mr. Walkley, pieman, deposed that he supplied
the defendant on the 20th December, for the open-
ing of the house, with one gross of 2d. " weal and
ham" pies, a gross and a half of sausage rolls, and
the same quantity of mince pies. On the 24th he
supplied him with one gross and a half more. He
called on the plaintiff, but received no order. De-
fendant did not tell him not to call.

Cross-examined by Mr. Sergeant Parry—Do you
eat your own pies ?
Witness—l can eat anything after the aristo-
,,,m.;) yr estuourue-grove. (Loud laugflter.)
eat them every day in my life.
Mr. Sergeant Parry—And you look very well
after it. Seeing the effect they have on you I
withdraw my former notion respecting them.
(Laughter.)
The further hearing of the case was adjourned.

officer as that described in the affidavit. He asked ,
Dr. Spinks if he had read the affidavit:
Dr. Spiuks answered in the affirmative, and he
considered that the person making the affidavit had
described his employment.
Sir C. Cresswell said there was an air of mystery
about the whole matter, for the affidavit did not
give the Court the necessary information. It set
forth that the party making the affidavit had made
inquiries of the father of Matilda Lake, the wit-
ness in question, at Hackney-wick, and from infor-
mat ion he received he applied to a person at Homer-
ton, near Hackney, who said he knew where
Matilda Lake was then living. lie afterwards saw
the party,who said that Matilda Lake's brother had
given hint the name of the town where she was then
resid'ng, but the name of that town did not appear
in the affidavit. It then went on to state that
Archer wrote to the superintendent of police of the
town, requesting him to make inquiries respecting
Matilda Lake, and received a letter from him to the
effect that he had not obtained any information
about her up to November last. Archer proceeded
to say that he and the superintendent mentioned
were prosecuting their inquiries, with a view to
serve a subpoena on Matilda Lake.
Dr. Swabey, on the part of the petitioner, the
Hon. Charles George Grantley Berkeley, said that
it appeared the father of the witness Lake was un-
willing to give any information respecting his
daughter, in consequence of the painful nature of
the disclosures she would be called on to make.
Dr. Spinks said that no doubt there was a vague-
ness in the affidavit, but this was a case in which
the husband petitioned for a restitution of conjugal
rights, and the wife might be compelled to cohabit
with him again. The husband would not be put to
any additional expense by the postponement of the
trial.
Dr. Swabey observed that this inquiry relative
to the witness Lake had been going on from No-
vember, 1861,t0 the present month without success.
Sir C. Cresswell said he would consent to the
postponement of the trial till next term, if it could
be shown that Mrs. Berkeley had any separate
maintenance he would direct her to pay the costs of
the present application pending the suit.
Dr. Swabey complained that some of Mr. Berke-
ley's papers were detained by her attorney for debts.
Sir C. Oress well—Then let him pay the debts.

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

OXFORD CIRCUIT.—WORCESTER, Dec. H.

The assizes for this city and county commenced
to day, the commission having been opened yester-
day evening. _ . _

(Before Mr. Justice Mellor.)

The county calendar presented two cases of mur-
der, three of arson, and several of burglary and
highway robbery. There were no prisoners for
trial from the city.
Mr. Justice Mellor, in charging the grand jury,
alluded to the system of penal servitude. Alluding
to the arson cases he said it appeared to him that
penal servitude or imprisonment had no terror for
such criminals, and that consideration induced him
to refer to the theoz y on which the penal system of
the country was carried out, and how far it had
succeeded or failed. The question was perhaps not
quite ripe for consideration, but he did concur in the
remarks that had been made elsewhere in regard to
ticket-of-leave convicts. He would not say it was a
good system, and he always thought we had been
too hasty in abandoning the old system of trans-
portation ; for he thought there was little chance
of reforming the old and confirmed criminal as long
as he remained in this country. Bat under the
ticket-of-leave system a man sentenced• to penal
servitude might have a portion of his term of servi-
tude remitted it his conduct had been good subse-
quent to the passing of his sentence. The object of
this was to induce the convict to practise habits of
self-restraint, and to accustom himself to labour, so
that those habits might influence his conduct on
regaining liberty. And he was at a loss to know
how the carrying out of the full term of confinement
would benefit the public, or that it would effect a
greater amount of security for the public than if
the prisoner was liberated before the full comple-
tion of his term with habits of self-restraint and in-
dustry engrafted in his character. His own experi-
ence induced him to place no faith in the reforma-
tion of any criminal after he had attained a cer-
tain age, but he considered the reformatory system
which had been lately introduced into this country
one well suited to the treatment of juvenile
offenders. But with regard to the present system
of the treatment of adult criminals, he thought
they could not say that it had utterly failed. On the
contrary, if they could not return to the old system
of transportation he thought no better system could
be devised than that now in practice. It was, per-
haps due:to the ticket-of-leave system that criminals
were not reclaimed. He believed there was very
little chance of reclaiming a man who had suffered
penal servitude; and employers of labour were
naturally averse to taking into their service persons
of this kind. His lordship, after some further re-
marks, came to the conclusion that recurrence to the
transportation system was the only means of assur-
ing to the public comparative security of person and
property.