The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-15 00:00:00

POLICE INTELLIGENCE'--Aug. 12.

MANSION-HOUSE.—Mr. Wm. Ray, owner of
the ship Justin, was summoned for refusing
7s. to pay
to Mr. Charles OPpenheim the sum of
claimed'hy him for wages due as master of the said
ship.
Mt. Hobier appeared for the complainant; Mr.
Sleigh for the defendant.
The case was one to Which the Lord Mayor de-
voted a considerable amount of time and attention;
the proCeedingS, which Were now finally brought
to a close, having twice previously occupied the
Court.
On the 31st of March last the complainant was
get en-
a Iby the defendant asrmaste.tr of the Justin for a
oyage from London g
T. to ..iNewpm , where the vessel
v
was to take in coals on Government account, and
thence to Hones a.nd back to England—the
g K.
agreement, however, being merely verbal—at £l4
per month.
The vessel sailed from Gravesend, in
Lil, for Newport, but was compelled to put into
nouth by stress of weather, and owing to the
state of the ship during the voyage complainant
came to the conclusion that it would be dangerous
to attempt to reach Newport unless he had more •
ballast.. In this opinion he was confirmed.by the
piiot as well as by a surveyor whom he called in to
inspect the ship, and he therefore telegraphed to
the defendant that he must send money or credit
for ballast, or otherwise the ship must be detained
until the weather was moderate and the wind quite
fair. In reply to this he received a telegram stating
that no more ballast would be allowed, and that he
ii~ast proceed to Nes\ port forthwith. A second
telegram which he sent met with the same response,
and then he sent a third, peremptorily demanding
more ballast., and concluding., " if dissatisfied, send
another captain." Defendant, taking him at his
word, did send another captain, but upon hfs
arrival at .-Pa lmout h complainant refused to give up
the .11(i 1,
and, as the wind then. became quite fair,
took the ship round to Newport, leaving the new
captain behind. At Newport the owner himself
went on board, the.vesselonade several payments to
comp!ainant.upon behalf of the vessel, and finally
installed the new captain on the Ist of June, when
comphainant quietly' gave
.up possession and re-
turned to London without, according to his own
account, having received one farthing as wages, or
anything like a regular discharge. The amount
of his claim he made up by charging wages for
about 10 weeks, board wages ,for a period during.
which the:vessel was lying in dock without having
provisions on board, and, some smaller items of a
similar description.

•
In bar to his claim, Mr. Sleigh first argued that
as he had entered upon a contract to take the ship
to Hong Kong and bring her back, and had broken

that contract by discharging himself at Falmouth,
he could not, according to the ordinary law of con-
tract, recover any portion of his demand, but
The Lord Mayor objected to this as being essen-
tially unjust in such a case, and
Mr. Oke (acting as chief clerk in the absence of
Mr. Goodman) put before the court a recent case, in
which it was decided that the captain of a merchant
vessel engaged at monthly wages was entitled to
recover month by month ; and that no after breach
of contract on his part could invalidate his claim
for months already expired. With this authority
before him his lordship overruled Mr. Sleigh's ob-
jection, and that gentleman then endeavoured to
show that complainant could only claim to have
been captain up to the date of his telegram from
Falmouth, "If dissatisfied, send, another captain,"
and the immediate arrival of a captain to supersede
him. The Lord Mayor, however, decided that
complainant was, both de facto and de jure, captain
until the moment when his successor was instilled
and he gave'up his possession of the ship at New-
port; and Mr. Sleigh then endeavoured to oust the
jurisdiction of the .Court by pleading that com-
plainant, on the general account of the ship, had
received a larger sum from defendant than his
claim for wages amounted to, and therefore he
(Mr. Sleigh) was entitled to make the whole case a
mere question of account, into which the Court had
no power to enter, as the power to sue before a
magistrate given by the act was restricted to wages
only.

Both parties were prepared with statements of
account, but the Lord Mayor declined to go into
matters which did not touch the question of wages ;
and as Mr. Sleigh was not in a position to prove
by positive evidence that complainant, either speci-
fically or generally, had received an amount to
cover his claim for wages as well as his disburse-
ments for ship's charges, his lOrdship ordered im-
med3ate payment to complainant of £2B 9s. 4d. for
wages (being two months and a day) and £3 ss.
costs, leaving the claim for board wages and
other items to be settled by arbitration, or in an-
other court, as the parties might decide.
Mr. Philip Carsting, poulterer and dealer in
game, Leadenhall-market, was summoned, upon the
information of Mark Loome, for having, on the 4th
of August, unlawfully in his possession six live
pheasants and six live partridges after the expira-
tion of ten days from the Ist of February.
Mr. Orridge, in opening the case, said he ap-
peared on behalf of the Association for the Preven-
tion of the Sale of Game out of Season, as it had
been established for the purpose of putting an end
to the offence with which the defendant was charged,
and for which under the Ist and 2d William IV.,
chap. 32, he was liable to a penalty of £1 for each
:bird found in his possession. The learned gentle-
man then read the 3d and 4th sections of the Act,
which recite that any person who shall knowingly
have in his possession or contract any game out of
season, except in a mews or breeding place, should
be liable to the penalty; and he the ei called Mark
Loome, a superannuated detective, who deposed
that he was now in the employment of the society,
and that on the 4th inst. he went into the de-
fendant's shop on pvetence of looking at some fowls,
and saw there a basket containing six live phea-
sants and six live partridges, the basket being then
addressed to the defendant. Afterwards ,he saw
the basket covered with calico and conveyed by a
porter to the South-Eastern Railway station, where
he again inspected it, and found that it still con-
tained the pheasants and partridges. The original
address had then been removed, and a new one put
upon it, "-- Gurney, Esq., Nuffield, Redhill."
Mr. Butt, for the defence, contended that his
client, being a licensed dealer in game, was entitled
to sell live birds, which had been kept for that pur-
pose, and that there was no difference, legally, be-
tween a " basket" such as that in which the birds
were seen by the witnesses, and a " mews" as ex-
cepted ,by the Act. At the same time the case was
the first of the kind which had been brought for-
ward in the city, and it was important that the
question should be decided as a point of law, as a
guide to tradesmen who had for years been in the
habit of selling live game.

The Lord Mayor said he had no doubt the de-
fendant had rendered himself liable to the p..nalties
of the Act, and ordered him to pay 125., being ls.
for each bird, and 2s. for the summons.