The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-23 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST 23, 1858.

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE,

NORTHERN CIRCUIT.—LivEItrooL, AUG. 21.
(Before Mr. Baron Martin.)
PARIt V. LIESKETII.—SEDUCTION.

of certain notices which were tequired to be given under

the act of Parliament, &c.
Mr. Collier, in:opening the case, said theplaintiff,,, Messrs.
Garton and gtone, were the well-known public carriers, and
they had brought the pnient action against the Great
We ?tern Railway Company, for a number of overcharzes
made by them in contravention of the act of Parliament
under the power of which they fnade their charges. He should
be able to show beyond queotion that the charges were ille-
gal, and more than that, that the company knew them to
be illegal, and that every one of the pleas which his learned
friend had read were false. The Great Western Railway

Company had set itself systematically to work to ruin the
carriers, in order ; hat it might get all the carrying business
into its own hands. Messrs. Garton and Stone and other

.
earners had often been driven to bring actions against them,

but they paid money into court, managed to get the ques-
tions driven over ti a reference, and then wore out the
plaintiffs with costs upon the principle of letting the longest
purse prevail; and the amount of illegal profit which the
company managed to exact from the carriers was actually
more than enough to recompense It all the costs of litiga-
tion. So far as the Great Westcrn Railway Company, there-
ftre, was concerned, the case was an exceedingly bad one,
while as it affec!ed the plan:lift it was most wicked, for
although able and willing to devote all their energies to
their business, they were nreveated from carrying it on un-
less at a loss, which, unless the law protected them, must
prove utterly ruinous to them. The railway company was
authorised to make its charges by an act of Parliament, the
10th and 11th Vic., c. 226, 5.49, which empowered them to
make certain charges, and it was by that act that the whole
case must be governed. This section fixed the maximum
rate foethe conveyance of goods, and the'plaintiffs complained
that the company had gone greatly in excess of those charges.
By the section of the act in question, the company was em-
powered to make a reasonable charge for " loading, unload-
ing, covering, and other incidental expenses," and that was
the only
_charge which was not specifically fixed. For the
description of goods which the plaintiffs had sent over the
line, the company was only entitled to charge 21d., or at
most 3d.' per ton per mile, excepting for loading, unloading
&c., but had charged in excess of that sum considerably.
The learned counsel made a schedule of the goods in respect
of which the action had been brought, and explained the
legal charges, which he compared with those made in orde
to show the overcharge. The third item in the plaintiffs'
particulars was a package weighing over 5001b5., for which
£1 3s. was demanded, the proper charge being 123. The
amount demanded was refused and the goods were detained,
which constitute the detinue complained of. He (Mr. Col-
lier) would tell the jury why the company did all this. The
packages contained what were known as packed parcels and
parcels addressed to different consignees. Although the
parcels might be numerous, they did not give the railway
company any additional trouble, and there was no reason
why any extra charge should be made in respect of them.
But it was only through being able, to pack several parcels
in one crate that the carriers realised their profits, and it
was to do away with that profit of the carriers—in fact, to
ruin them—that the company charged so high. The courts
of law had, however, decided that the companies had no
tight to charge for packed parcels when exceeding 5001bs.
In weight more than for any other parcels; so that there was
nothing to justify the overcharges. The company chose,
however, to go on charging till the November term, and the
amount they would by that time net would tno.e than
reimburse them for the present action. Mr. Collier then
directed the attention of the court to the case of " Croud
v. The Great Northern Railway Company," and went
on to say that in estimating the overcharges, the plain-
tiffs had allowed the company at the rate of 2s. per ton
for loading, unloading, covering, &c., although, in point
of fact, the company only paid Bd. per ton for loading, and
Messrs. Garton and Stone collected and delivered their own
packages. He hoped that he should so establish the facts as
to justify a verdict for the plaintiff's, and also to ask his lord-
ship to grant, under the powers of a n cent:very salutary act
of Parliament, an injunction to restrain the company from
continuing in its course of illegal exaction.
Mr. Baron Channell did not apprehend that a judge on
circuit had power to issue an injunction.
Mr. M. Smith—Certainly not, my lord. There is ne power
here.