The Sun.
London, England, 1833-04-01 00:00:00

FOWLER V. FORTH.

This was a qui tam action, brought to recover penalties
for usury.
The declaration consisted of 112 counts and the penal-
ties sought to be recovered amounted to 28,0001
The defendant is a very respectable and extensive com-
mission agent at Manchester, and had been employed as
such by a manufacturer named Everall. The de endant
had hen in the habit of receiving his goods, making him
advances upon them, selling them, and then paying over
the balance of the proceeds. On the advances he charged
fi per cent. interest, and it was alleged that he also de-
ducted a discount of 1 per cent. upon the money pro-
duced by the sale of the goods, as a discount for three
months, making 6 per cent. per annum.
On cross examination it came out that this witness bad
stopped payment, been bankrupt, and taken the benefit of
the Insolvent Debtors Act, in the whole about half-a•
zen times; that while in the King's Bench prison he
met with Mr. Dunbar, who advised him to proceed
against the defendant, and that the plaintiff is his son-
in-law.

Mr. Poi.Locx, on the part of the defendant, would not
take any legal objections to the bad and vicious declaration
by which the plaintiff had attempted to fix the defendant
with this usury, hut he would at once justify his character
as a man of honour and a British merchant by going into
the whole of the transaction. He then read some letters,
from which it pretty evidently appeared that if the de-
fendant would have corn own with a good handsome
sum, the action never w d have been heard of.
The Jury instantly found a verdict for the defendant.
As a question among commercial men the case excited
considerable interest.

CHESTER, MARCH 28.

LIABILITY OF H V SBA N DDOCICS V. HARVEY.

This was an action brought by Mr. John Maddocks,
who formerly kept a spirit vault at Manchester, but who
now resides at B•,otle, near Liverpool, to recover a sum of
Si. for money lent to the defendant's wife, on the 25th of
February in this year, in compliance with her written re-
quest, soliciting a loan to that amount, to settle for her
lod.ings at Manchester, from whence her letter was dated.
As the plaintiff had previously lent Mrs. Harvey small
.sums which were repaid, he sent the money in pursuance
of her note.

The defendant pleaded the general issue, and resisted
the payment, contending that he was not liable under the
following circumstances :—He had formerly been a clerk
at Liverpool, but afterwards took a farm at Wrexham, and
subsequently at Chorlton, near Alalpas, in this county.
In 1820, while he resided at Liverpool, the defendant
married a servant girl, in the name of Margaret Shail,
who represented herself to be a single woman. They
lived together as man and wife at Wrexham, Chorlton,
and other places, where the defendant resided until some
time in 1830, when the lady thought proper to leave him,
and went to reside in Manchester, where she still con-
tinues. About eight months ago the defendant discovered
that when he married Margaret Shail, in 1820, she had
then a husband alive, named Peter Kennedy, a cork cutter
at Liverpool, to whom she was married both by a Catholic
priest and a Protestant clergyman, at Liverpool, in 1815.
Kennedy died in August, 1825. As soon as the defen-
dant ascertained the fact of Kennedy being the first hus-
band of Shail, and that he was alive at the time of his
(defendant's) marriage with her, he caused a notice to
that effect to be advertised in the Chester and Liverpool
papers, cautioning the public not to trust her on his
account. Copies of these papers were sent tit several per-
sons, and to the present plaintiff among the rest.
Verdict for the defendant.

I remember many years back, in passing over
Westminster Bridge, to have seen, on the opposite side to
which I was walking, that fine old soldier Puitir ASTLEY,
whose name the theatre at the foot of the said bridge stilt
retains. He siw me, and with his stentorian voice hal-
looed across the way—" I say, Mr. FAWCETT, what do
call
_legitimate actors ?" I, of course, tried to pass on,
and avoid him, but he made the bridge resound by con-
tinuing—" I say, do you call JOHN KEMBLE and Mrs*
SWOONS legitimate actors? If you do, I can tell you I
never engage them at my theatre, nor, what's more, I never
will ; now your proprietors have engaged my legitimate
horses, and this I call —.- ungemeel."—Fuweett, s
Fund Address.