The Sun.
London, England, 1849-11-10 00:00:00

THE SUN

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

QUEEN'S BENCH.-(THIS DAY.)
(Sittings in Banco.)
110USEFIF.LD V. CURTIS.

This was an action tried at the last assizes at Croydon
before Mr. Sergeant Dowling, to recover compensation
in damages for breaking and entering the dwelling. house
of the plaintiff, for assaulting him, and giving him into
custody on an unfounded charge of felony. The de-
fendant pleaded not guilty and justification.
It appeared that the plaintiff, who is a clergyman,
rented a furnished house of the defendant at Norwood.
This tenancy expired on March 20, in the preent year.
On March 31, at four o'clock in the morning, the house was
broken open by several bricklayers, armed with hatchets
and mallets, in the employment of the defendant. They
demanded admission entry, and on the inmates refusing
they made their way through the windows, which they
broke, and assaulted the plaintiff, who appeared at one
of the windows, and carried his children out of the
house and left them in the Norwood-road. The de-
fendant accused the plaintiff of stealing a silver spoon,
and gave him into custody, but the charge was not
maintained. The verdict was for the plaintiff,
damages. one farthing.
Mr. E. JAMES now moved for a new trial, on the
ground of misdirection on the part of the Learned Ser-
geant who tried the cause, and on account of the recep-
tion of improper evidence. The misdirection committed
is the fact that the judge told the. jury that the deft ndant
was justified in breaking into the house, holding that
the plea of the defendant, that the plaintiff was not in
lawful possession of the house at the time, his tenancy
having expired, to be a good one. He contended that
the case ought to have been left to the jury, and cited
several cases in support of his arguments.
The COURT acceded to the suggestion.

ARRIVAL OF THE LORD MAYOR

AT WESTMINSTER.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER.

On the arrival of the civic barges at Westminster-
bridge, the Lord Mayor and the other City function-
aries disembarked, and having formed into proces-
sion, proceeded at once, through Westminster Hall,
to the Court of Exchequer. A great number of
persons had collected on the bridge to witness the
debarkation, and Palace-yard and the Hall were also
crowded with spectators. The Court itself was filled
in every part, and amongst the auditory were several
of the fair sex.

At a quarter to two o'clock the Lord Mayor and
Sir James Duke, Bart., the late Lord Mayor, entered
the court, accompanied by the Learned Recorder,
Mr. Alderman Salomons, Mr. Alderman Challis,
Under-Sheriffs Wire and Millard, Mr. Secondary Pot-
ter, Mr. Charles Pearson, M.P., the City Solicitor ; the
Lord Chamberlain, Mr. Hughes Hughes ; Mr. Prit-
zhard, the High Bailiff of South wark, and several of the
members of the Common Council. The civic party then

took a standing position on the bench reserved for
Queen's Counsel. At this moment the Learnd Judges,
the Lord Chief Baron, Mr. Baron Parke, Mr. Baron
Alderson, and Mr. Baron Rolfe took their seats upon
the bench, each wearing a black cap, a cir-
cumstance which elicited an irrepressible burst
of laughter from the members of the bar
and the crowd in court, in which ebulli-
tion of mirth their Lordship 3 could not refrain
from joining. A great number of well-dressed ladies
occupied the jury box and every available space on
the bench beside the Learned Judges.
The Learned RECORDER then addressed the Court
as follows :—My Lord Chief Baron, I have the honour
to present to your Lordships and this Court the
Right Honourable Thomas Farncomb, elected by the
citizens of London to fill the office of Lord Mayor
for the ensuing year. The gracious approval
of her Majesty the Queen has ratified the
choice of the citizens. The Lord Mayor,
a native of Sussex, is a descendant of the
ancient family of Farncomb, several members of
which have been for many generations large proprie-
tors of land, and extensively engaged in agriculture
in that county. In evidence of the antiquity
of this family, originally situated in the
vicinity of Hastings, and to which his Lordship's
recent elevation in our ancient city attaches an
interest, the curious observer will find registered in
the inquisitions of the county, that so early as the 17th
year of the reign of Edward IV., a chantry, called
" the Farncomb Chantry," which was liberally en-
dowed with land and other means, was founded by Me-
lina, a widow of the Farncomb family, in the Church of
St. Thomas, Winchilsea. The father occupied the
station of a landowner, and was extensively engaged
in the cultivation of the soil, but observing
a superior aptitude for business in Thomas
Farncomb, his third son, he determined to
qualify him by education for a mercantile life, and
caused him to be placed in situations of trust and
management in several commercial firms in the
borough. The progress of Mr. Farncomb was rapid.
He became the proprietor of one of the largest wharfs
on the Surrey side of the river, which he has occupied
for a period of forty years, carrying on the business
of a wharfinger in that locality with eminent success.
With this extensive concern he has associated the
pursuits of a merchant and a shipowner, and of a
banker also, first at Hastings, and afterwards in
London, being one of the earliest promoters and a con-
tinuing.director of the London and Westminster Bank,
the first joint-stock bank established in this city.
Having acquired considerable property in land, both
in Sussex and Surrey, he became, and has remained,
an active magistrate for those counties for very
nearly twenty years. In 1840 he was elected one
of the sheriffs of London and Middlesex, and in the
following year he was chosen an alderman of the ward
of Bassisshaw, over which he still presides. He has
reaped the reward of assiduity, ability, and ingenuity
in his commercial career. He has won the esteem of
his friends and fellow- citizens by his blameless and ,
amiable deportment in public and private life. He
is familiar with the duties of a magistrate ;
and in cases of emergency his character and bearing
will command the cordial co operation of the members
of the Court of Aldermen, and of the great body of
the citizens who have contributed to place him in the
exalted station of chief magistrate. He enters, indeed,
on his arduous duties in the evening of life, not insen-
sible of the difficulties attaching to the high trust
committed to his charge, but steadily keeping in view
the bright example of many loyal citizens, and of his
eminent predecessor. I feel well assured he will
not be found wanting at the post of honour
or in the path of duty. The late Lord
Mayor is also in attendance on your Lord-
ships. His year of office is at an end and
all its duties are fulfilled. Happy and successful in
whatever he has undertaken from the com-
mencement to the close of his brilliant career,
the aim and object of his official life have
been the honour, the interest, and the prosperity
of London ; and he has achieved a suitable reward in
becoming one of the representatives in Parliament of
the first city in the empire. Ile has dispensed
with becoming splendour the ancient hospitality
of the Mansion-house ; he has assembled under
its roof distinguished members of every pro-
fession and of every class, of literature and of
science; he was the foremost to encourage by his
example the liberal support of the charitable insti-
tutions of the country—he earnestly employed
the means at his disposal to remove the causes of
disease, and to check the ravages of plague. Towards
the conclusion of his mayoralty he saw the comple-
tion of a great work so near his heart—the foundation
of the fortunes of many, as it is of his own—the Coal
Exchange. He has received under the dome of that
new edifice, as the guests of the Corporation of
London, the Royal Consort of her Majesty, Prince
Albert, the Royal Children, the Prince of Wales and
the Princess Royal ; and in token of her Majesty's
high approbation, and in memory of that auspicious
event her Majesty has been graciously pleased to
confer the dignity of Baronet on Sir James Duke, the
late Lord Mayor.

The LORD -CHIEF BARON—My Lord Mayor, I beg
to congratulate you on having attained that honour
upon which the learned and eloquent. Recorder has
expatiated in his address to the Court. You appear
here as the first magistrate of the greatest
city in the empire. You appear here, among
other purposes, to claim certain rights which
belong to that great city of which you are the
chief magistrate, and the ceremony which takes place
on this occasion is not to be considered as a mere idle
pageant, for in reality it is to claim on your part, and
on the part of the first city of this empire, and of the
whole world, those privileges which have existed from
time immemorial—a claim which shows you have
long possessed those immunities which attach to the
great city of London, exhibiting in itself a model of
the free institutions which prevail throughout the em-
pire, showing how loyalty and liberality may be entirely
united, and how the freest institutions are those

under which commerce will flourish, the social arts be
brought forth to public view and encouraged, charity
be everywhere observed, manifestations of hospitality
prevail, and all those arts which belong to the highest
civilized condition of man flourish in the highest degree.
I rejoice to hear the high account given by the
Learned Recorder of your past life and services, and
doubt not, during your mayoralty, you will continue
to deserve the good opinion of your fellow-citizens,
by pursuing the same career of useful merit, a cha-
racter to which you have so well-founded a claim. In
considering the course you may have to observe it is
difficult not to reflect at once upon the high example
which has recently been before you, and of the
possibility of attaining so:much excellence as has been
exhibited in the case of the late Lord
Mayor ; but of this I am quite sure,
that at the close of your year of office
you will be presented by your Learned Recorder as
having earned that approbation which is the highest
reward the citizens of London can confer upon you,
and a citizen can possibly expect. To you, the late
Lord Mayor, I beg to offer my congratulations that you
return, having undoubtedly eminently discharged all
your important duties, into comparatively private life.
You have indeed illustrated your year of office by the
display of everything that could belong to a patriotic
citizen and upright magistrate—the man ever
ready to obey every :call that could be made upon
him in every situation in which he might stand
towards his fellow•citizens. I am happy to congratu-
late you that, remembering how you have fostered
every valuable institution--how you have discharged
every public duty—how you have m€t every call
upon you, whether upon your public conduct
or private resources—l congratulate you that your
fellow • citizens have, during your mayoralty, conferred
upon you the highest honour they have at their dis-
posal, and have elected you one of their representa-
tives in Parliament, and also that her Majesty has, at
the close of your career, conferred upon you the highest
dignity which has ever been conferred upon a person
in your situation, meriting the approbation of the
Sovereign. I feel assured that, in returning into
comparative privacy, the discharge of those public
duties that remain to you will occupy the whole of
your attention, and that you will continue to deserve
that approbation and to meet that sympathy in the
discharge of them which hitherto you have always
experienced.
Sir James Duke bowed his acknowledgments.
The Lord Mayor was then sworn. The late Lord
Mayor was also sworn to render unto her Majesty a
full account of the receipts on account of the
Crown during his tnayoralty, and to " behave himself
properly," according to the old form of oath, whilst he