The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1840.

ROLLS' COURT.-(THIS DAY.)

The Master of the Rolls, on coming into Court this
morning, gave judgment in the following cases :

IN RE SHARP'S PATENT.

On the Bth of October,lB36, John Sharp obtained a
r,atent for an alleged invention "for converting ropes into
tow, and the improvement of machinery for preparing hemp
or flax for spinning," and the specification of the invention
was enrolled on the Bth of April, 1837. On the 31st of
May. 1838, the petitioner, Mr. Wordsworth, obtained a
patent for an alleged invention of improvements in ma-
chinery " for heckling and dressing flax, hemp, and other
fibrous materials." After the date of tbis patent in Sep-
tember 1838, and before the specification of the peti-
tioner, Wordsworth's invention was Enrolled, Mr. Sharp
btained from the Solicitor-General an order di-
rected to the Clerk of the Patezts, whereby it was
certified that the Solicitor-General had granted leave to
Sharp to sign a certain memorandum of alterations in pur-
suance to the Statute of the Bth and 6th William IV.,
chap. 83. The specification of the petitioner's invention
was enrolled on the 30th April, 1838, before the petitioner
was informed of the memorandum of aleration filed by
Sharp, and the petitioner Wordsworth alleged that the
machinery described in Sharp's memorandum was in sub-
stance the same machinery invented by him, and therefore
prayed that such portions of the memorandum as were
descriptive of the invention of the petitioner might be ex-
punged from the memorandum of alterations, and taken off
the Rolls.

The MASTER of the ROLLS, after shortly recapitu-
lating the facts, said the question was, whether he
had authority to do what was asked, and he was
clearly of opinion he bad not. Patents of inven-
tion were granted on condition that the specifications were
enrolled la hisin a certain time. His Lordship had no
authority to make any alteration in the enrolment of the
patent or specification. The party enrolling the specifi.
cation did so at his own peril; and if, in the specification;
he stated something by which the patent was rendered
invalid, he must submit to all the legal consequences; and
those who wished to take advantage of it must do so in a
legal course. The statute of William IV. authorised dis-
claimers and memorandums of alterations to be en-
rolled with the leave of the Attorney or Solicitor..
Generals ; and if it was filed or enrolled, the
same must be deemed to be taken as part of the specifica.
tion. Considering the memorandums of alterations as now
being part of the specification, his Lordship conceived
it ought to be dealt with as such, and not otherwise. If
it e ere alleged the enrolled memorandum of alterations con-
tained clerical errors, and sufficient evidencewas given ofthe
fr. c , he should think himself authorised to make the enrol-
ment accord with the true intention of the party, but it
had never been supposed the Master of the Rolls, as
keeper of the records, had power to expunge any part of
the document. He had delayed his decision (the
case was argued on the 6th of November) for the
purpose of collecting information, and he found,
it had been usual to correct clerical errors. In a
case before Lord Gifford the word wire had been written
instead af dire, and the amendment was ordered. So also
in cases before Sir John Leach the word which had been
written int,tead of wheel, and increase instead of
inverse, and there were many similar cases, in
all of which it had been plainly intended
to do no more than to amend tie clerical errors of the
agent of the party who had made an enrolment, which was
not a true statement of that which the party intended.
Being of opinion he had no jurisdiction to make any such
order as was asked, the ',petition must be dismissed with

110I.Mfill V. THE CORPORATION OF ARUNDEL.
This was a motion to take exceptions off the file for ir-
regularity, and to discharge an order for settirg them
down to be heard.

Is Loaosnie granted the motion.
WEST V. SMITH.

In this case a motion had been made to discharge an
order made upon a petition. The objection to the order
was that the order itself and the petition on which it was
founded, were instituted in a cause which never existed.
if S LORDSHIP in giving judgment observed that the
order had appeared to him to be clearly irregular, but
it had been argued the order could not be discharged on
motion, it having been made on petition. He bad inquired
into the practice, and was of opinion that the order might
be dischartzed on motion.—Order discharged with costs.
The consent petitions and short causes having been dis-
posed of, the Court proceeded with the case of the " Attor-
nej-General v. Dulwich College," which was not con-
cluded when the Court rose.

COMMON PLEA S.-(THIS DAY.)

(Sittings in London at Nisi Prius, before the LORD
CHIEF JUCTIcH and a Special Jury.)
DE VEAUX V. DILL.
This case, which occupied the whale of yesterday, was
resumed at the sitting of the Court, when
,The ATTORNEY-GENERAL addressed the Court for the
defendant. The Bcngalee was insured in November,
1835, in the sum of 60,000 francs (2,4001.), upon her en-
suing voyage from Bordeaux, in France, to the isle of
Bourbon (not, as through mistake, appears in another part
of this paper, Mauritius) and back. The insurance was to
expire on the 17th of November following, and he would
show that the case now set up by the plaintiff was based in
fraud. The Bcngalee, on her voyage out, was somewhat
damaged by collision with another French East Indiaman,
the Aline, and her captain took her from Bourbon to
Mauritius to be repaired, having armed himself with a certi-
ficate from the Vice- Admiralty at that post against any objec-
tion on the part of the underwriters for deviation from the
course. The cost of those repairs formed part of the
present claims upon the defendant, although, in fact, the
oe ners had recovered from the captain of the Aline, by
whose fault the collision was occasioned. It was alleged
that, after terrible suffering in the seas of the Cape, on
her return voyage, by which the ship was dreadfully shat-
tered, and a large quantity of the cargo wes con-
sequently thrown overboard, the Bengalec arrived at St.
Helena. She remained three days, and resumed tier voyages
The Captain however made no protest against that part, as
to the state of the ship, the loss of the cargo, or the da-
mage she had suffered since she left Bourbon. Neither
did he take in provision to replace what he had thrown
into the sea, under pressure of the storm, and in fact did
no mere than procure the usual supply of fresh water at
that place. But, most remarkable of all, he did not make
the slightest repair of his shattered vessel. It was plain
that his statement of the previous perils and injuries were
grossly exaggerated, otherwise ho never would have
dared upon the voyage to France. His log-book wanted
that character which could enable the jury to take it even
as prima facie evidence. Instead of being as it ought to
eTa_ph teain
be a daily, minute, and scrupulous account of all material
occurrences as they took place, it was written at intervals
of weeks at a time, just as the events recurred to his recol-
lection, or his imagination chose to describe them. His
descriptions, of the hurricanes, gales, and squalls which he
encountered in such variety and constant succession, were
as imaginative as those of Telemachus, like whom
he could never have escaped all his perils without
the miraculous guidance of a disguised Minerva in his
Learned Gentleman then
er
read a))
extracts (A
from laugh.)
's description of tropical
storms. They excited very great laughter, and (as the
Attorney-General said) so poetical as to make one trem-
ble in hearing them, lest the globe was going to ruin.
Notwithstandig, all this, not a mast was sprung, nor did
the ship take in so much water as to cause any difficulty
in keeping her afloat; and this too although her seams
were all open, her copper sheathing torn off, and her
scantlings flapping in the wind If the Captain's account
were only a moderate exaggeration, she must have gone to
the bottom ; and yet, in this " hurricane of inconceivable
fury," when the masts are nine different times said to be
in danger of being carried away by the board, he carried
mainsail and top-sails I—(Great laughter.) It should be
proved that:the Captain could have entered the port of
Bordeaux on the 28th of October; but as the insurance
was to expire on the 17th of November he loitered until
that time should have passed, and went into La
Rochelle, only forty miles from the place of his
d:stination, and at the mouth of the same river.
At Rochelle there was nothing, even upon their own show-
ing, which could justify the owners in abandoning the ves-
sel, for she had never stranded, nor ever been dismasted,
The innavigability stated in the reports of the surveyors at
La Rochelle was the result of old age and internal decay,
and not of perils of the sea encountered in the voyage in-
sured. The Captain made a protest at Rochelle, within
forty miles of his port. But he had made no protest at
St. Helena, when he had the whole of the Atlantic to tra-
verse in his shattered ship, in which he did
brave new perils, after only three days' rest, and without
repairs. There could be no doubt that if he had not the
money to pay for the repairs, the English artificers and
merchants at St. Ilelena would not have allowed him to
set out upon a voyage of several thousands of miles over
the ocean, in so perilous a condition. The fact was it
would not suit his purpose to say anything about the
matter there. It was not the least suspicious part of the
case that he put into Rochelle at last, when (as it would be
proved) it was far easier for him to enter the Gironde, up
hich he could be carried by the tide, without effort,
safely into Bordeaux. The Learned Attorney produced a
chart, upon which he explained the ground of this statement.
La Rochelle was chosen because it was a more convenient
place for the completion of their scheme than Bordeaux ;
at the time of her entering that port the ship only made
an inch and a half water in four hours, and in the incon-
ceivable hurricane off the Cape of Good Hope she only
made six inches in two hours—both facts, as well as her
carrying top-sails in the said hurricane, being complete
falsifications of the pretended log. The Attorney-Gene-
ral then proceeded to show, that even according to the
French maritime law, as laid down in the extracts read at
so touch length yesterday from the Code du Commerce
(Napoleon) the insurers were only liable to three per cent.
upon the amount of the insurance, if even the statements
the plaintiff were taken to be true.

MARLI3OROUGH-STREET.

(THIS DAY.)

Two vary fashionably dressed young men, who gave
their names as John Thomas, and James Cotterell, were
charged with drunkenness and disorderly conduct, and as-
saulting police constable No. 128 of the C division in the
execution of his duty.
The complainant stated, that between two and three
o'clock this morning, while on duty in Bedford-street, he
heard a loud knocking at doors in Charles-stieet, Soho•
square, fnedn
dan t s
and hallooing, On proceed-
ing
several other
persons, all of them in a state of intoxication, altercating
quar
there
er aend
ho great
foundsh shooting ngde a
together in loud and violent language, and causing such a
disturbance as to alarm the neighbourhood. On com-
plainant directing them to go on quietly, the defendants
struck him.
The defendants most solemnly protested that they never
struck the policeman, and called two of their party who
were present at the transaction, but their testimony did
not at all invalidate the constable's statement,
Mr. Lot fined them 40s. each,