The Sun.
London, England, 1824-08-17 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIG ENCK

YORK, SATURDAY, Ano. 14;
ATKINS O. DRAKE.
This Was an issue from the Court of Exchequer, to decide
whether there had been from time immemorial a modus, or
customary payment of ss. a year in each year, in lieu of all
actual payment of the tithe of hay, cut in the hamlet or vill of
Sharlston, in the parish of liVhartnfield.
Mr. NVlLLiaats, for the plaintiff, maintained the affirmative
of the issue, and called several witnesses of very advanced digs,
to prove that there never had been any taking of hay in kind by
the Vicar of Wharintield, in the township of Sharlston, within
the memory of man, andthat ss. had always been paid to the
Vicar 'when of it by the Churchwardens, who levied it by
means of an amassment on the trill. Ile also put in a written
document, which was stated .to be a discharge gives by the
Churchwardens of the township to an Earl 61 Westmoreland,
in the early part of the last century, for Is. 9d., being his contri-
bution to the ss. paid by the parishioners in lieu of tithes.
Mr. SCARLETT, for the defendant, who is the Vicar of the
perish, contended that his Learned Friend had failed to establish
the existence of the inotlus. He had not shewn this payment
of bs. to be eithericonstant,uniforin, or immemorial. He would,
however, show from documentary evidence, that there had ne-
vet- been any modus for hay in the township of Sharlston. The
Learaed'Counsel then put in evidence, the endowment of the
vicarage of ‘Vharm field with the tithe f hay in the township of
Sharlston, by the prior and convent of St. Oswald in York, in
the part of the 13th century. In this document there was no
mention of any modes. Ile next put in an inquisition made
in the reign of Henry VIII., on the dissolution of .the mo-
nasteries by the Court of Commissioners for the augmentation of
`The King's revenues, wherein the tithe of hay was valued at
three shillings, but no mention was made of a modus. He
afterwards put in a survey of ell the livings in the county made
by a Parliamentary Commission in the time of the Common-
wealth, which was equally silent on the subject of a modus.--
He then produced several terriers to prove the same fact, and
stated that it was not until the year 1727 that mention of a model'
was to be found in them. In that terrier, mention was made of
a composition of" by: for all the hay in the•CrOfts, and nothing
to be paid for the other hay, except the herbage." It was with
a view of obtaining their construction of these words that the
present issue had been sent down to a Jury. The House of
Lords had been occupied during four days In hearing saiebate
as to the meaning of the word " croft." He thought that no
man, or at least that no north country Man, ought to have doubt.
ed as to the meaning of that word ; but somehow or other, the
Lord Chancellor had doubted, and perhaps it Was no wonder,
after he had been puzzled by a four days' debate upon it, and
had called upon them for their assistance in interpreting it.
He left it to them to decide whether the silence of the early do.
cuments as to the modus was not as decisive evidence against
its existence, as the fact of its being first mentioned in so recent
a document as the terrier of 1727.
- Mr. WILLIAMS replied upon the evidence, and contended
that his case had not been at all shaken by the observations of
his Learned Friend. He likewise complained that his Learned
Friend had withheld evidence which lie ought to have pro-
duced, from a knowledge, that, if produced, it must ruin his
own case.
Mr. Justice DAYLEY summed up the evidence, and the
Jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, establishing the modus,
and therefore defeating the parson's claim.
Vila was the last case of any importance tried at these
Assiaes.

DURHAM, SATURDAY, AUG. 14. •
Mr. Baron Hum.ocK arrived at this place at seven o'clock
in the evening, and immediately proceeded to the County
Courts, to open the commission in the usual form. The calen-
dar is particularly heavy tbr this county. There are twenty-six
prisoners to be tried—of whom two arc committed fur murder,
one fur a rape, one for an unnatural crime, one for man-
slaughter, one for cutting and maiming, one for a highw:iy
robbery, one for sheep-stealinr, one for administering poison,
one for maiming and disf.guting a horse, and fifteen for minor
4,:ffences.