The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-19 00:00:00

WESTMINSTER SESSIONS, Nov. 16.

(Before Mr. WALESBY, Chairman, and a full Bench o

Alogitrates.)

APPEAL DAY-THE PARISH' OF ST. GEORGE, HANOVER,
SQUARE, V. THE PARISH OF ST. MARGARET, WEST.

MINSTER.

This was an appeal by the parish of St. George, Hanover.
square against an order of removal which had been ob.
tamed by the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster.

The case was before the Court on the 26th ult., of which
a full report appeared in our columns.
Mr. BODKIN appeared for the appellants, and Mr. PREN..
DERGAST for the respondents.

Mr. BODKIN stated, that upon the present occasion he
had to complain of his Learned Friend for a want of what
he would denominate that degree of professional courtesy
which was usually observed between those who were en-
gaged as counsel on any particular case. On the former
day when the matter was before the Court, his Learned
Friend had indulged in a most insidious, unkind, un-
fair, and false attack on the Governors and Guardians
of the poor of the parish.' of St. George, Hanover-
square. That attack had been of- so scandalous a cha-
racter, and had created such a sensation in the Court, that;.
the Learned Gentleman who on that day presided as Chair-
man-had ordered that the statement of his Learned Friend,

together with the whole of the correspondence between the
parties, should be set forth in an affidavit, so that the ac-
cused parish might have the opportunity of replying to the
charges which had been so unceremoniously brought against
it. The facts of the case were simply these :—A widow
woman of the name of Elizabeth Fryer, with six children,
had been removed by the parish of St. Alargarot, West-
minster, to the parish of St. George, Hanover-square, on
the 15th day of August, prior to which a letter, of which
he would read an extract, had been forwarded to the officers
of the latter parish. The letter was dated the IGth of
July, 1.838, and said, " I am directed to forward a copy of
the solicitor's examination of the case of Elizabeth Fryer,
and to ascertain if you will attend to the case, without re-
course
to a suspended order of removal." It then went on

to say, that the husband of the pauper had been appren-
ticed by Mrs. Windsor, of Hanover-street, to a Mr. Jud-
son, of Pimlico ; and then proceeded, " the indenture is
duly executed, stamped, and sealed, and dated the 20th
of June, 1799. I believe there is no reasonable doubt
of the settlement being in the parish of St. George
Hanover-square. The woman and one of her children
has the typhus fever . . . . They are residing at 2, New-
square, Orchard-street." Upon due inquiries being made
by the officer of the
„appellants, it turned out that the in-
denture had been truly and legally executed ; and there-
fore, after soma communications with the solicitor to the
respondents, the former wrote to them, threatening to ;ap-
peal. On the receipt of that letter, and not before, the
respondents said they had found out that the indenture was
not legally executed, and therefore they could not maintain
the order, and offered to cancel it, supersede it, or, if the
applicants preferred it, they could not object to go into
Court to have the order quashed. The appellants pre-
ferred to have the business done in Court, and accordingly
the appeal was set down for hearing at the Quarter Ses-
sions on the 27,11 of October, three days prior to which
the respondents, apprising them of the costs of maintenance,
amounting, at the rate of 3s. 6d. per week per head, from
the 15th of August to the 27th of October, to 121. 15s. 6d.
No notice of the receipt of that letter having been taken,
the usual consent brief was given to counsel to quash the
order of removal on payment of 121. 15s. 6d., the amount
of the expenses which had been incurred for maintenance.
When the application came before the Court, an objection
was taken to the charges for maintenance, and then it was
that his Learned Friend had thought proper t) indulge in
the erroneous assertions to which he had already referred.
He held in his hand an affidavit of Mr. Dyson, clerk to
Messrs. Capron and Co., and of James Ranford, an officer
of St. George's parish, which at once gave a flat de-
nial to the truth of these st atements of his Learned
Friend. From that document it appeared that on the
officer of the appellants making the inquiries of Mr.
Judson—the very person, let it be remembered, from whom
e respondents had received the indenture—he ascertained
that there had been but one part of the indenture; an
that such indenture had been delivered by the said Mr.
Judson to the respondents. The affidavit then went on to
say to the effect that the deponent, after having received
this information, applied to Mr. Charles Rogers, one of
the firm, from whom he obtained an inspection of the inden-
ture, when he discovered that that document had not been
executed by the apprentice; that he painted out the defect to
Mr. Rogers, and apprized him that the removal could not
be supported. The order of removal was nevertheless ob-
tained, and acted upon ;ar the present application for its
being quashed had been the result. With respect to that
part of the case as high referred to the question of the
charge for maintenance, he would read the denial given by
the deponent Ranford to the assertions of his Learned
Friend on the former occasion. The affidavit said, that
the charge of 121. 153. 6d. is a reasonable and proper
charge for the paupers' maintenance, at 6d. each per day, for
73 days, and that 6d. each per day is the ordinary minimum
charge charge for maintenance of paupers paid by this deponent
to other parishes ; and this deponent saith, he bath in no
instance paid to the said respondents the minimum charge
of 6d. per day for maintenance up to the date of this ap-
peal. . . Saith that the counsel fot re-
spondents stated to the Court, as a ground of resistance
(although no notice of any resistance to the pal ment of
the costs had been given), that the cost of the
.mainte-
nance of their paupers had been held out and published by
the said appellants, as averaging only Is. 30. per week ;
and this deponent saith, that this assertion could only
have been made for the purpose of prejudicing the appel-
lants' claim, end misleading the Court. This deponent
positively denies that such a statement ever was put forth
or published by the said appellants, or, to the best of
this deponent's knowledge and belief, by any person what-
ever on their behalf ; and this deponent further saith
that in consequence of such erroneous assertion and of
the desire of the Court that it should be answered, he,
this deponent, has examined carefully into the different
items of excenditure connected with the support, care,
and maintenance of the paupers in the workhouse of the
said appellants' parish, and finds that the average cost of
each pauper therein, for the last seven years, exceeds, and
still does exceed the sum of 3s. 6d. per head per week.'
There, then, the Court would see was, at once, a positive
contradiction to the statement which had been made by
his Learned Friend. He trusted, on a consideration of
all the facts of the case, that they would have no diffi-
culty in ordering the payment of the costs as applied for.

Mr. PRENGERGAST: on the part of the respomints, said
he could not have imagined that his Learned Friend could
have felt himself in any way personally hurt at the course
he had deemed it to be his duty to adopt on the former oc-
casion, unless it were that he had happened to be concerned
in putting forth the statement he had then alluded to, that
the parish of St. George, Hanover-square, maintained their
poor at an average cost of 15id. per head per week. Now
the Court would see that the question in respect to the
cost of maintenance to the appellants the matter was of
some importance, because that parish had some time /since
exposed one of the greatest abuses the various parishes
in the country had been subjected to. He alluded to that
of the medical man to the parish, who was paid by a
salary for attending the poor or such parish, being in the
the habit of remunerating himself for his labours by charges
to other parishes on the removal of paupers. He thought,
therefore, he had discovered that something very much
like another abuse had been practised in the present
case, and as soon as he saw the charge of 3s. 6d. a week
per head charged, he at once remembered that that was the
very parish by whom it had been sent forth to the world that
the average cost to themselves was only I.sid. That, then,
he had regarded as a sweeping abuse, and consequently he
was induced to make a comparison between their published
statement of the average cost and that which had been sent
in to the respondents, with the view of seeing how admirably
the one agreed with the other. Now the appellants had de-
nied
urspieor.rn sp,tßhboath,EueNti
imputation
ipnanudt
tGilaAit
teswi
oTwan
saowsafashssna
upcyh t
aso h3esa. r 6 tdh. at they were
to do so, that Mid. a week per head was the cost of their
would remove from the pargairlsavhdin
Mr. BODKIN.--Ay, and more. able
Hanover-
square,Well,then,
it turned out upon the statements in the affidavit, that the
ogt to
hfiSenti.dr George,i
pt owoars.
appellants were not guilty of circulatingd
had been that day falsified. because it
Mr. BODKIN
a beenptibsl
publication
oan publication.ha had
taken
must object to the course his Learned
Friend was taking,•
piafcteherietwoeuraehtahtnetyo ophcraouvomefetbnhetaetwnshus'ccehht
inasmuch as he assumed that there had
forTthbien
CreHspAolnnmdeAnNt'snbaaffiedr:evdit:
what had fallen from the Court on the former
occasion,
tl'iat it was in consequence of
that he himself had listened to a great deal of extraneous
matter which had been introduced into the case. How-
ever, the simple question was that relative to the costs ;
and whether the appellants had or had not put forth the
statement alluded to, he thought, especially as the subject
had not been put into the respondent's affidavit, at that

moment formed no topic for the consideration of the Court.
Mr. PRENDERGAST begged to say, that when he had
made the statement, he did so not pretending to have an
affidavit to the fact, but to show what had been passing in
the world with regard to the small expense at which the
parish in question supported their poor, founded as it was
on a printed statement which had been put forth. Why
the matter stated had been made the subject of a public
report, which had been as publicly and as widely circu-
lated, and it was in everybody's mouth that they maintained
their poor at an expense only of 151(1. per head per week.
He h al felt himself called upon to enter upon an explana-
tion of the reasons of his having made the assertion he had
on the former occasion. He had then done so from recol-
lection ; his particular attention, in common with that of
the public generally, having been occupied with the strong
assertions the document contained. The Court would
recollect, that the respondents,had had no opportunity of
answering certain parts of the affidavits which had been put
in on the other side. The removal had taken place under
the provisions of the New. Poor-law, by which it was
directed that a notice of the order of removal should be
sent to the parish to which the removal was about to be
made twenty-one days prior to such removal. The paupers
."re to be kept during that time at the expense of the
parish to which they were to be removed, and accordingly
the respondents sent in their charges at ls. 7d. per head.
Well, then, he said, if it came to a simple question of costs
as between the two parishes, it would be seen that the
respondents had not made any boast of only having charged
Is. 7d. a head, whilst the St. George's people had charged
3s. Gd. a head. The Learned Counsel then went through
the particulars of the case as already stated, and contended
that the appellants ought to have consented, in the first
instance, to quash the order of removal before the Magis-
trates by whom it had been granted.
Mr. BODKIN replied.
The COURT then consulted for a considerable time, after
which
The CHAIRMAN said, here was an order of removal,which
was granted by consent, but an objection had been taken to
the claim for the expenses of maintenance, on the ground
that they were excessive, such excess being attributed to the
appellants not having consented to sending back the paupers
to the respondents. The Court were unanimous in opinion
that the appellants had not acted in such a manner as to
shut them out for costs, and the Court did not consider
that the amount was excessive. He felt the observations
which bad fallen from the Learned Counsel on both sides.
attnHhdho
otetpowtapeoatdfsi
conceiveo otn humant
the
one of
latter
those who were not at all disposed to en-
courage a struggle between parishes with the view of as-
certaining what was the smallest quantity of meat and drink
respondents
seapitnosgnsd.(e6andtp.sa
au
stoppingpwe er)eke o ul
wasda existttot oh eiur
much.psun
g,
suggestion,
enNsdt howne didiin-
steadn
their letter to the appellants, to have the order of removal
superseded before the Magistrates, they went on and gave
itotmerincgoutroset,hatC underourt.
legal Tadhveicea,ppaesllabnetinsghthade
safer course—a course, too, which was correct, inasmuch
as it would be safer for future generations, if indeed it were
not for the present.. It could not then be said that the ap-
pellants had acted improperly.
The order of removal was then ordered to be quashed,
and the expences of 121. 15s. Gd. to be paid by the re-
spondents.
The case excited very considerable interest amongst the
officers of many of the metropolitan parishes.