The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-16 00:00:00

MILLER V. COW AND OTHERS.

This suit was instituted by the assignees under a fiat
of bankruptcy. The object of it wa3 to obtain an order
for payment to them of a sum of 5701., now in the
hands of the defendants, being the surplus of the return
of a consignment of goods, made previously to the bank-
ruptcy, to correspondents of the defendants in the East
Indies.

The plaintiff's case occupied the whole of the latter
part of the day.
His'Honour rciae. at a quarter to four o'clock.
(Before Vice-Chancellor Wionaat.)
CLAYTON V. MEADOWS.
In this cause, which stood over from last week, his
Honour pronounced final judgment.
His HONOUR said, he had at the close of the argument
given a decided opinion that the plaintiff had established
his case against Sir Arthur Brooke, and had made a de-
cree against him accordingly. With respect to the other
defendant, Mr. Meadows, whilst he had stated his opi-
nion that he had entirely failed in his defence to the bill,
he bad .reserved his decision upon the second point,
svhether, or not the. lands were extra-parochial, -and he
had at.the same time intimated that he thought the de-
fendant would be entitled to an issue to try that ques-
tion. His reason for this reservation was, that.he was
desirous of looking more attentively than he had done,
into the cases in which the question had been raised;
whether lands within the orbit of the parish, or sur-
rounded by parish lands, were extra-parochial. He had
once done this, and had found no reason from the peru-
sal of those cases to change the opinion he had then'
expressed. The defendant's lands formed part of
Rockingham FOrest, and consisted of about 370 acres.
Now the account: given by Blackstone, Ist vol. p. 131,
of extra-parochial cases, was that some lands, either be-
cause they were in the hands -of irreligious or careless
owners, or were situate in ferests or desert places, or for
some other now unSearchable reasons, were never en-
tered to any parish, and, therefore continued to this day
extra-parochial. From the reported cases it appeared
that districts of dimensions as small as Benefield-lawn,
and having no peculiar characteristics to distinguish
them, had been admitted to be extra-parochial. In a
case reported in 2d Strange, 1,004, Southwold was held
to be an extra-porochial place, though it consisted of
two houses, and 300 acres of land. llis Honour referred
to several other cases on the same point. No special
circumstances, or evidence more stringent than refuta-
tion, had been proved, to establish the fact of Benefield-
lawn being extra-parochial. He had been of opinion
that the defendant had not so made out his case as to
I entitle him to a decree, dismissing the bill on ground of
the lands being extra-parochial; and the question WAS
whether he should at once give a decree against the de-
fendant, or give him an issue. He had hesitated to
take the lattereourse, because the defendant had not taken
proper means to prove his case, not having supported it
by the evidence of refutation. Where the case of a
party failed in equity from the neglect of the party him-
self, his opinion was that the Court would not be acting 1
ssees.evtoißdut the plaintiff himself had called many wit-
too strictly in making a decree at the hearing of the
eau
speak to
n a
wayreputation
w bio
which
leftand i t these
doubtful witnesses
wh
e theirs
their testimony was not evasive. This coupled with the
evidence given on the part of. the defendant himself,
showing the resistance uniformly made to attempts to
rate, on the liart.of-the occupiers of the land—the ab-
sence of evidence on the part of the plaintiff, to show
that the attempts of the parish had ever sue-
direct the direct testimony given by the (19-