The Sun.
London, England, 1840-11-20 00:00:00

COMMON PLEAS.-(THIS DAY.)

The Court this day took the Special Paper.
COWAN V. BROADWOOD.
This was a demurrer to the plaintiff's replication.
The action was brought upon a judgment obtained in a
Scotch Court. The defendant pleaded that the judgment
was improperly obtained ; the replication went to justify
the proceedings, and upon hearing Mr. Ogle for the de-
fendant's demurrer thereto, the Court without `reference to
the replication held that the plea was bad, and the judg-
ment must be taken to have been rightly given.
Dernuirer disallowed, and judgment given for plaintiff.
FOWER V. ANSELL.
This was an action on a policy of an insurance.
Mr. Sergeant CIIANNELL demurred to the declaration,
and nobody appearing for the plaintiff, judgment was given
for the defendant.
ItINE (CLERK) V REYNOLDS (CLERK).
This was an action of assumpsit to recover from
the defendant the fees, &c., which he has received since 1
his induction into the living of St. James, in
the town of Bury, of which the plaintiff claims to be
the legal minister. The action is really brought to try
whether the nomination to the office in question be in the
Bishop of Ely, or in the Corporation of Bury. The case
arises from the clause in the Municipal Reform Bill, which
requires all Corporations to dispose of all rights of
nomination which they might possess at the time
of the passing of the Act, to benefices or preferments
in the Church. The clause also provides that in
the event of a vacancy occurring in any such bene-
fice or preferment, in the gift of the corporation, after the
passing of the Act, and before the sale of such right of
nomination, the Bishop of the diocese should fill up the
vacancy. But a question in this case arises—is the office
a benefice or preferment in the meaning of the Act? The facts
are these. In the Church of St. James there arc two
ministers totally independent of each other, the one called
the " Reader " or " Curate," the other the " Lecturer" cr
" Preacher," and they have been variously paid, ky fees,
by Royal endowment, and by salary from the Corporation,
in which is vested, by charter, the impropriation of
the tithes of a monastery on the site 'ot this church,
suppressed in the year 1680. , Since "1712, however,
the reader has had no other remuneration than fees and
Easter offerings, and it had been before, and has been
since that time usual, on the appointment of a new reader,
to bind him to the performance of certain duties, and to
accept certain emoluments (different in different in-
stances), but the Corporation has only in one case,
and then not without the concurrence of the Bishop,
taken upon itself to remove one of those ministers.
The issue here is whether the appointment of Mr. Rey-
nolds has not been in violation of the clause referred to in
the Municipal Corporations Act.
This case was called on at one o'clock, when Mr.
Andrews, who was for the defendant, with Mr,
Sergeant Bompas, applied to the Court to put off
the hearing, as the latter was then speaking in the
next Court, and he ( Mr. A) had not prepared himself,
being excluded from leading in a new case by the late rule
for closing the Court: He understood that Mr. Serjeant
Bompas would not have concluded his observations in the 1
other Court within two hours.—( A laugh.)
The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE—Let him know that we can-
not delay the causes in the Special paper, and must go on
without him. Perhaps-that will induce him to condense
his important observations.—(A laugh.)
Mr. Sergeant STEPHEN then proceeded to set forth the
particulars, of which we have just given an outline), and
to argue from authorities on ecclesiastical law, and from
the history of this foundation, that the offices are benc-
h ces or ecclesiastical preferments in the meaning of
the Municp al Corporations Act. He cited from
Burns and ether writers on ecclesiastical law
that a perpetual curacy is a benefice in ecclesiastical phra-
seology. A perpetual curate is a minister appointed by a
lay impropriator in a parish in which there is no rector. A
perpetual curate must be in priest's orders, and be licensed
by the bishop; and is removable wily on the same grounds
as a rector ; whereas, the assistant curate, under a spiritual
rector, who must be licensed by the bishop, need
only have rece;ved deacon's orders, and is removable
at the will of the rector. There could be no question that
a perpetual cure was a benefice ; but he believed it would
be contended on the other side, that the minister of St.
James, Bury, was not a perpetual curate, but only a sort
of chaplain to the corporation, and no more needed the
licence of the Bishop, than the chaplain of an Inn of Court,
or of a nobleman.
In rep'y to the Court, it was here stated that two
cases of interference by the Bishop were admitted.
Mr.:S(r„eant STEPHEN proceeded to argue that whatever
might have been the fact, in law the license of the bishop
was require& and the office was a perpetual cure, and the
incumbent was not removable from the incumbency. But
if the Court were not with him in this respect it was not
eaereial to his case; for the minister of St. Joints migl t
be what is ecclesiastically termed a " free curate," for he
was the only minister in his parish, and had no
spiritual superior there. If tho minister were only
the chaplain of the corperatio i, there would be no ( u e ( f
souls in this parish. But, in fact, he was. to all intents
and purposes, a parochial minister, and performed all the
offices of such a minister in his own right, 'naming, bar-
tising, burying, and administering the Sacrament. The
Learned Gentleman proceeded at length through the
authorities on this point.
(This case was not concluded when we went to press.)

STRAWBERRIES.—Fine ripe strawberries, grown
in the open air, were gathered last wee; in the garden of
Mr. Dalby, of Linton-on.Wharie, which is rather a sin-
gular circumstance at this late season of the year.