The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-26 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE—This Day.

COURT OF PROBATE AND DIVORCE.
(Before Sir J. P. Wilde.)
ARGENT V. ARGENT-JUDGMENT.

This was a case of probate, in which the plaintiff prayed
for administration as the administrator of the estate of her
deceased husband, who was a soldier in her Majesty's
army, and for some time in the Cape Mounted Rifles, and
who was resident at the Cape of Good Hope for many
years, and died there. It appeared that in 1850 the
deceased married a woman of the name of Amelia Adams,
and that marriage was dissolved in 1852 by the courts at
the Cape in consequence of the adultery of the wife some
time after; and while still resident at the Cape the deceased
contracted a second marriage with Selina rudmore, wi'o is
the plaintiff in the present case, and who claims administra-
tion. The plaintiff's claim was opposed by the defendant
as next of kin of the deceased, on the ground that the second
marriage was illegal according to the laws of England.
the courts at the Cape having bad no authority to dissolve
the first marriage, the deceased being a domiciled English-
man. •

The learned Judge, in giving judgment, sai(c, he did not
think it necessary to go into the question of domicile, so
ably discussed by the Scotch lawyers, who seemed to hold
that the law of the country whore the parties were married
was the law of the domicile, no matter to what country
they might belong. In this case the deceased had been
for many years resident at the Cape. The first marriage
had been regularly contracted and dissolved there by the
competent tribunals. The second marriage had also been
contracted there, and he was not inclined to hold that
marriage to be invalid. He should therefore decree ad-
ministration to the plaintiff as administrator to the testator
Decree of administration accordingly.

SHERIFFS' COURT.
CHLOROFORMING A PATIENT AND PULLING OUT THE
'WRONG TOOTH.-WAINWRIGHT V. GALPIN.

This was an action to recover a sum of money for per-
forming a surgical operation upon the defendant, for whom
Mr. Beard appeared. _ _ _

His Honour—Do you owe this money, defendant?
Defendant—lndeed, Ido not. He administered chloro-
form to me and pulled out the wrong tooth. (Laughter.)
Plaintiff—l deny it. He asked me to extract a tooth
which gave him pain, and I did so.
Mr. Beard—What are you ?

Plaintiff—A surgeon dentist. I did not attend upon de-
fendant as a friend, though we were both living in the
same house at the time the operation was performed. I
did not pull out the wrong tooth. lam quite sure.
Mr. Beard—Now, defendant, just tell his Honour what
occurred.

Defendant—l had a tooth which pained me very much,
and plaintiff agreed to extract it. He gave me chloroform,
and then pulled out the wrong tooth.
His Honour—Did he pull out a sound tooth ?
Defendant—lndeed, he did.

His Honour—And left the unsound tooth in your head ?
Defendant—Yes, and it is there now.
Mr. Beard—The loss of the sound tooth was serious to
he defendant.

Y
..
His Honour—You cannot recover in this case, plaintiff,
as it is very clear you have made a blunder. You must be
non-suited.

Plaintiff non-suited, and costs granted to defendant.

PHOSPHATE OF LIME.—The Abeille Medicale
publishes a paper by M. Collas, a chemist of Paris,
in which ho shows that, while the attention of scientific
men has been chiefly turned to the subject of finding
agents capable of preventing or suspending the putrefac-
tion of animal substances, it may not be uninteresting to
take up the contrary question, and endeavour to find out
those agents that favour putrefaction. Gelatinous phos-
phate of lime, he informs us, is of this class, as the follow-
ing experiments show :—Having made a solution of isin-
glass in distilled water, and strained it through a cloth,
he poured it into two porcelain basins, one of which con-
tained a small quantity of the gelatinous phosphate, while
the other was empty. Both vessels, on cooling, were
found to contain a jelly, the former an opaque and the
other quite a transparent one. They were both put into a
room, the temperature of which ranged between 10 and 15
dog. centigrade. At the end of 36 hours, the isinglass
containing phosphate of lime was in a state of putrefac-
tion, emitting an intolerable stench, while the other con-

tinned for six whole days in a sound state. M. Collas has
made similar experiments with beef and other kinds of
butcher's meat, and obtained similar results. Examin-
ing the question theoretically, our author is of opinion that
phosphate of lime, so extensively used for manure in agri-
culture, acts as a powerful stimulant of vegetation ; that,
if the flesh of fish is much more corruptible than that of
mammalia, it is because the former contains much phosphate
of lime ; but that, on the other hand, if a fish diet is recom-
mended to patients on account of itsbeing easy of digestion,
it is on account of the same ingredient, and that therefore
a small quantity of phosphate of lime added to butcher's
meat would render it much more tender and easy of diges-
tion.—Galignani.