The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-11 00:00:00

EX PARTE GRANT.

Mr. Tom.za stated that this case came before the Court,
praying the confirmation of the Master's Report. The Learned
Gentleman was proceeding to state the facts of the case when
he was interrupted by
His HONOUR, who said that he did not see how he could
snake the order asked, as the Master had not stated in his re-

port any of the state of facts or documents upon which he had
founded it.

Mr. TOLLED. begged to eall the attention of his Honour to
the Bth of the new orders issued in January last ; that order
stated—" That in the reports made by the Masters of the
Court no part of any state of facts, charge, affidavit, deposition,
examination, or answer, brought or used before them, should
be stated or recited."

His Horton a. had not seen the new orders till the day they
were signed, •and he could not, for the life of him, see how
such an order could have been made, because, if the docu-
ments upon shich the Master mine to his conclusions were
not to be inserted in his report, the result would be that the
Court must read the whole of them, and that would have the
effect of shutting up the Court altogether. He would not now
make any or&r, but would consult with the Lord Chancellor
on the subject.
(Before Vice-Chancellor BRUCE.)
SILLICK V. BOOTH.

This case came on before the Court on exceptions from
the Master's report. The bill was filed to establish a
will, and the sole question was, whether two sons of the
testator, who embarked in a vessel bound for Demerara,
and were never afterwards heard of, were or were not
living at the time when their father made his will.
His HONOUR, after considering the frequency of hur-
ricanes in the West Indies, and the absence of all in-
formation as to the sons after their embarkation, said
the probability was that they had died in the father's
lifetime, and he must therefore allow the exceptions to
the Master's report.
(Before Vice-Chancellor Wio RA M.)
SCOTSON V. GA waxy.
This was an application to obtain the common injunction to
stay trial.

Mr. RANDALL appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. WOOD
for the defendant.

Mr. RA NDA LL said the plaintiff, up to the month of April
last, carried on business with Mr. Russell, his copartner, as a
warehouseman in London, when, having become embarrassed.
they suspended their payments. At that time they were in-
debted to Messrs. Gawrey and Sedgwick in the sum of
2,8991. Ils. On the 19th of April they called their creditors
together, and on the 20th proposed to pay them a composition
of Iss. in the pound. All the principal creditors, except
Messrs. Gawrey and Russell, accepted this offer, and
agreed to execute a release of their demands. Mr.
Gawrey refused to accept the offered composition.
Prior to the month of April the plaintiff and Mr. Russell sent
several pieces of French merino to the defendant's of the value
of 901. to be exchanged for other goods; and on Mr. Gawrey
insisting upon more than 15s. in the pound the plaintiff pro-
posed that he should keep the merino in addition to the 15s.
At a meeting between the plaintiff and the defendant, the de-
fendant proposed that the plaintiff should accept two bills of
exchange, one for 1501. and another for 2501., in addition to the
merino. To this proposal the plaintiff reluctantly consented.
These bills having been accepted by the plaintiff, Messrs.
Gawrey and Russell, then signed the agreement to accept the
composition of 153. in the pound. The bill stated that
the other creditors were ignorant of the whole transac-
tion. The plaintiff having been advised that it was an
attempt to defraud the other creditors, treated the se-
curities as void at law, and an action was brought by
Messrs. Gawrey and Russell to recover the amount. The
object of the present application was to stay the trial.
The Learned Counsel put in an affidavit made by the solicitor
of the plaintiff, stating that the latter had quitted London for
Ireland, on the 23d of November, as the agent of Messrs.
Leith, M'Dougal, and Co., and that he would not be able to
return in less than a fortnight.
Mr. WOOD opposed the application, on two grounds ; first,
that it was made upon the eve of trial ; and, secondly, that
the plaintiff himself ought to have made an affidavit, before
leaving London.

llis liosoun, after looking at the record, said the
plaintiff must be taken to have had sufficient notice of
the trial, and for that reason he declined to grant the
injunction.

COURT OF QUERN'S BENCH, Dec. 10. .
CONSPIRACY TO CARRY THE ELECTION OF
BRIDGMASTER.
THE QUEEN V. M'NAMARA AND OTHERS.

The Court sat at half-past nine o'clock this morning,
when the proceedings in this case were resumed. The
Court was crowded as soon as the doors were opened.
Mr. JERVIS addressed the Jury on behalf of the de-
fendant Simpson, and said that he deplored as deeply,
and detested as strongly, as his Learned Friend the At-
tory- General could do, any system of bribery or trickery
of the nature alleged to have been committed in the late
election for Bridgemaster ; but the question they would
have to determine was, not v'hether perjury had been
committed, not whether bribery had been committed, not
whether personation had been committed, but whether
the defendants had conspired together to procure Gibbs'
election by the commission of those crimes—whether
this had been in their minds a foregone conclusion, not
whether they had taken advantage of circumstances
which might have arisen, but whether they had delibe-
rately concocted a system of bribery, perjury, and per-
sonation, for the purpose of procuring the election of
Gibbs. Now he begged them to look at the character
and station of his client, Mr. Simpson. He was a resi-
dent in the borough, the ruler or head of the Company of
Fellowship Porters, an office to which he had been ap-
pointed by his fellows in the Company, and this was
the gentleman accused by his Learned Friend of these
crimes on the testimony of such a witness as Mr. Miller.
He complained of the manner in which the indictment
had bean drawn up. It contained no less than eighteen
counts, but the charge resolved itself into two heads,
first, a general charge of conspiracy; second, a charge
of conspiracy for bribery of good and bad votes.
Lord DEN 31.1.7—1 apprehend the charge of attempt-
ing to bribe good votes must fall to the ground. It ap-
pears that only one good voter had received money, and
he said he did not consider he received it for his vote,
but for what he had been employed to do.
The Attorney-General bowed assent.
Lord DENMAN—I mention this now because it is ex-
ceedingly desirable to simplify this most monstrous in-
dictment before it goes to the Jury.
Mr. JERVIS continued—He was surprised that not
more than 150 bad votes had been polled, considering
the loose and careless system adopted in the City of
London in taking these votes, and they had good reason
for concluding that quite as many had been ,polled
on the other side, for if that had not been the case,
why had not the prosecution produced Mr. Croucher or
Mr. Thompson ? Mr. Simpson had long been a friend
of Mr. Gibbs, and he had taken the room at the Bell,
which was used as a Committee-room, and which was
always crowded by Mr. Gibbs' friends. Because a man
was sitting in a room as one of a Committee, was he to
be held responsible for every thing that any one else
might be doing, and to be charged with conspiring to
procure the ideation by bribery, perjury, and personation.
This was a new'reading of the doctrine of agency. Was
it probable that a man, sitting openly as a Com-
mittee man, having taken the room himself,
would be ghilty openly of such practices ?
And on what testimony was it sought to convict him ?
On that of a man who; as one of the Jury had justly
observed, had so disgraced and degraded himself in the
of the public, that it was useless to question him ;
an.' yet except upon the testimony of defendants tere was no
and not that
evidence toe con any one of the of con-
'PiracY ; and that w the charge they had then to try,
work, which
that
facpersnosnation or perjury ; and he could well believe
was
the system of paying for the day's
ashanl not illegal in the present in-
stance, might
men, some of whom induced these unfortunate
have induced
had wives and families
in destitution, to have
which had been pursued, an
the system of personation
avbeybewehnidche
ehiev
ed. could
Wouldwell
believe the Committee miellitnti,,
the testimony of a man
they convict the defendants
timeses deliberately per-
who acknowledged he had founrtim
as a rogue and vagabond—
himself—who had four been committed on
suspicion of theft, and once
in the face open
Court, that he had lived upon the prostitution ofn htishe
who shamelessly acknowledged,
and whose conduct had excited such disc-LTA, that not evene—
and the Court could
restrain the expression of deep and general
the respect due to his Lordship
indignation
with which he was greeted at the conclusion of his evi
dence? and that was the witness brought forward by the
City of London. Was he. not justified in considering
this the prosecution of Mr. Ledger and not of the City or
London, when he saw the testimony by which it Was
supported? He could not believe that the City of Lon-
don would insult the Court and disgust the public
by putting such a witness into the box, and with the ex-
ception of his testimony what was there to prove con-
spiracy ? They had even attempted to_
min,i out
the charge, by showing that one Simpson and Nmara
were seen speaking together in the
the witness Harker
Why, if that
were the case, he wondered that
had not been included in the indictment, for he had
spoken in the Hall to the defendant Shervill. In all
the other cases the persons had been introduced to Mr.
Simpson by the names by which they had voted, and by
their Companies, and how was he to suspect that these per •
sons were not voting in their real names ? Then as to the
payment of these persons ; he denied that it was bribery ;
i t might be treating, but it was legal in the present instance.
It was merely what took place at all elections of this
sort, the paying of the men their daily pay for the loss
of their day's work. 13ut there was not even evidence of