The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-01 00:00:00

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.

OLD COURT.
Louis Francois Bacent surrendered to take his trial
upon an indictment charging him with. committing
wilful and corrupt perjury.
Mr. \Vilde prosecuted; and Mr. Metcalfe appeared
for the defence.

From the statement of the Learned. Counsel for the
prosecution, and the evidence addueel, it appeared
that the prosecutor is a Frenchman named Chilman,
who kept a shop in Exeter 'Change for the sale of
foreign fancy articles, and the defena ant, who is also
a native of France, had been in the ha bit of transacting
business with him in the sale of suck articles. About
the month of September there had been some dis
puted accounts between them, and the prosecutor was
sued by Bavent npon a bill of exchange for 231., and
in the course of the legal proceedings the latter went
before the Learned Judge at chambers and made two
affidavits, in which he stated that: the prosecutor had
expressed his intention to leave the country, and
upon this he was arrested. It was upon these
affidavits that the allegation of perjury was founded,
and the prosecutor, who was the principal witness,
swore positivelir that he never had any such intention
as that imputed to him by the defendant, and never
represented se to him. Upon being cross-examined,
however, he staid that upon one occasion he did tell
the defendant 'chat he might be compelled to go to
Paris to make arrangements to get the goods he sold
in his business, if he (the defendant) would not act
as his agent, and he said that it was possible he
might have in ferred that it was his intention to go to
France. Sot ae of the other allegations made by the
defendant in liis affidavits were negatived by the par-
ties to wh(Jui they referred; but it appeared that
whereas th'. affidavits were made in English, the de-
fendant wa.•i entirely ignorant of that language, and
therefore r..ould only have been aware of their onteuts
by having them explained by other parties.
The Cos datox-SeeoeanT, at the close of the case
for the pm- .secution, inquirecbwhich of the allegations
of perjury• the Learned Counsel for the prosecution
consider( :d to be negatived by the testimony of two
witnesse s ?

Air. ..,,VILDE said, he must admit that it did appear
to him that, although the_ whole of the allegations
wen, contradicted generally by the different witnesses,
no tone oft hem was disproved by the poiitive oaths of
two witnesses.
CiJMNION-SERJHANT said, as this was the case
t,oe indictment must fall to the ground, the Act of
Parliatner ,t requiring that on charges of perjury the
evidence suf the party accused of thnt offence should
be contradicted by two witnesses at least.
The jury accordingly returned a verdict of Not
Guilty.
Mr. WILDa made an application to the Court in re-
ference to a charge of misdemeanour, preferred by the
Comrni. ssioners of Lunacy, against a surgeon, for
having i .inproperly signed a certificate of lunacy. The
bill was found by the grand jury at the last sessions,
and the Learned Counsel stated that the indictment
was a very special one, drawn under an Act of Par-
liament t hat had only very recently passed, and in re-
ference to, -which no prosecution had ever yet been
instituted. He therefore intended to move the Court
of Queen's . Bench for a writ of certiorari to remove
the indictmt •nt into that court, and his present appli-
cation was„ • that the case should stand over to give
him an opplA dimity of taking that proceeding.