The Sun.
London, England, 1836-11-21 00:00:00

SEAL DAYS.

His Hoxouß, upon taking his scat this morning, stated
that he had been with the Lord Chancellor, for the purpose
of fixing the seal days. The first seal would be on Satur-
day se'nnight, and the last seal the Wednesday before
Christmas.

CONTEMPT.-WARD OF COURT.-MR. WALKER AND MISS

WCULLOCH.

Mr. KNIGHT stated that his Honour would recollect that
a few days ago, he had made an order that a gentleman who
had attempted to run off with a Ward of Court, should at-
tend this morning. He had now to state that they had not
been able to serve that order upon him, in consequence of
the address which he had given before the Magistrates being
a fictitious one. His solicitor, however, had been served,
and he (Mr. Knight) was afraid that, under the circum-
stances, he must press for an order of committal, and exe-
cute it as well as they could.
The VICE-CHANCELLOR desired to be furnished with
the letter he had the other day ; after reading which he ob-
served that the party seemed to be a very uneducated per.
son, for he could not spell.
Mr. KNIGHT said that the family of the young lady
never could listen to the notion of a connection between
the parties. A. case had been laid before Dr. Lushington
with regard to the marriage, and that Learned Gentleman
had advised upon it.
The VISE-CHANCELLOR inquired what affidavit they had
of the service of the order of the Court.
Mr. KNIGHT said there was an affidavit to that effect,
but unfortunately it was not in Court.
The VICE-CHANCELLOR wished to see the affidavit.
Mr. KNIGHT said if the Court would allow the matter
to stand over for a short period it should be produced.
Mr. JACOB here said that he had to ask the Court in
the case of a ward, that the petition, of a gentleman (pro-
bably the party adverted to by his Learned Friend) might
be appointed to be heard on an early day.
Mr. KNIGHT trusted that the Court would not, for the
sake of its own dignity, grant the request until the party
had obeyed the order, and attended in Court. He was
not to be allowed to keep out of the way to prevent being
served, and then to present a petition, and appear upon
that petition by Counsel. His solicitor had been served
with the order, and the party knew it well.
The VICE-CHANCELLOR said he would not make any
order upon the petition until the party had attended the
Court, and by that means complied with its order. It
was clear his object was to prevent being served, and such
being the case, in his Honour's opinion it was trifling with
the Court, and acting towitd• it with great contempt, to
present the petition for the purpose of enabling him to dis-
obey the orders of the Court.
Mr. KNIGHT observed that it was quite clear, the party
having instructed his Learned Friend, had the means of
attending the Court.
The VICE-CHANCELLOR—I shall do nothing upon his
petition until he has obeyed my order, and appeared in
Court.
The case had not been mentioned again when our reporter
.eft.

ROLLS' COURT.-(THIS DAY.)

CILOUCA V. HICKEN.

Th• arguments upon the plea and demurrer in this case
were concluded, and his Lordship said he would give judg•
ment on Thursday morning next.

WILLIAMS V. CALVERLEY.—JUDGMENT.
Lord LAN GDALE, in giving judgment in this case, the facts
of which were stated in The Sun of Thursday last, said, it
appeared singular that under the marriage settlement it should
have been agreed not to transfer the annuities to the trus-
tee to whom the other property, belonging to Mr. Cal-
verly, which was very considerable, was assigned. The
object of keeping the Long Annuities in her own name
must have been to enable her to dispose of them without
the intervention of her trustee ; and it was not im-
probable that some particular application of them was
intended at the time that the settlement was executed,
Upon the day of the marriage, or the day after, Mr. and
Mrs. Calverly attended at the Bank, and the Annuities
were transferred into their joint names, by which Act the
husband became the legal owner of the Annuities in right
of his wife. The evidence being conflicting, the Court was
bound to look at the probabilities of the case, as arising
from the situation of the parties and the nature of the
transaction. Here was a lady very wealthy, having a
clear income of 1,0001. a year about to marry with
a person who held two situations which produced
him but a very narrow income. They were about to live
in the country, and his occupying these situations would be
inconvenient with an arrangement of that sort. He gave
up those situations, which was the only provision he had,
and it was but reasonable to expect that upon his doing
that he would acquire some other provision for himself. It
was stated by some of the witnesses that Mrs. Cal-
verley did not expressly agree, either in consideration
of the marriage, or in consideration of her husband
giving up those situations, to transfer to him the
Annuities, and she did transfer to him that part of her pro-
perty which had been intentionally withheld from the control
of her trustee. The affidavit of Mr Sharpe, which his Lord-
ship had desired to be made was not so precise as he wished,
but it was consistent with the view his Lordship had been in-
duced to take of the case, and upon the whole of the transac-
tion, and the facts not disputed, his Lordship's opinion was that
the intention of Mrs. Calverly, in making the transfer to
her husband, was to give him the right of disposing of that
property for his own use. That being his opinion, the in-
junction must be dissolved with costs.
There was one circumstance, however, his Lordship
thought it right to notice. The Court, very usefully for
the administration of justice, placed great reliance on the
conduct of solicitors in procuring evidence. Evidence on
affidavit was rarely so satisfactory as it was desirable it
should be, and it never could be at all satisfactory, unless
those persons who were entrusted with the task of procuring
that evidence conducted themselves with the moat perfect
propriety. In ordinary cases, when a witness appeared in
support of a particular fact or allegation, it was required of
the solicitor that he should be aware the witness accurately
knew something about the transaction of which he spoke, and
that he was a person of such intelligence and character of
mind as to be incompetent to a fair and true account of the
transaction. It very often happened that the only percipient
witnesses of an important fact or series of facts were per-
sons extremely young, and sometimes so young, that in
the ordinary course of proceedings it would not be presumed
they were competent either to understand the nature and
sanctity of an oath, or competent to understand the par-
ticular circumstances to which they were called upon
to depose. In the present case a boy of the age of
fifteen had been produced on behalf of the defendant,
and a boy of the age of 14 on behalf of the plaintiff, to
swear to character and conduct which his Lordship should
say was entirely beyond the capacity of persons in
their station and years. His Lordship thought it
his duty to say, that both the gentlemen employed
in getting up that evidence had committed an over-
sight, and he said, that in order that solicitors might be
more cautious, although he believed, generally speaking,
solicitors were meritoriously cautious in their conduct,
at the same time, he had thought it better that an occur-
rence of this kind should not be passed over without notice,
and he hoped it would nut be repeated.