The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-28 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

CAN A SECRETARY VOTE AS A DIRECTOR I—This point
was settled in a case that was before the Court of Common
Pleas, called the Iron Ship-coating Company (Limited) v.
Blunt. This was an action by the company against a
shareholder to recover £2OB for amount of calls unpaid.
It was tried before the Lord Chief Justice, when a verdict
was given for the plaintiff, but subsequently a rule nisi
was obtained. When the case came on for argument,
the objection raised by the defendant was that by the
articles of association three directors were to be a quorum,
and they had power to make calls. By the Joint-Stock
Companies Act, 25 and 26 Victoria, cap. 89, sec. 72, any
director elected to an office other than manager was dis-
qualified from acting as such director. In the present case
one of the three directors had been elected and acted as
secretary, and it was contended that his holding of this
office disqualified him from acting as a director under the
statute ; the call had, therefore, been made by two direc-
t .3 only, and was not duly made, as a quorum of three
directors only could make a call. To this it was answered
that a resolution had been passed by the quorum that two
of their body might manage the business of the company ;
to which it was replied that a quorum, as delegates
of the whole body of directors, had no power to
alter their delegated authority and delegate it to two
directors or to one, and that the call, therefore, was
not properly made. In giving judgment the Lord Chief
Justice said a resolution had been passed appointing two
directors to act as managers, and Mr. Grabham had been
appointed one of them, with a salary. It seemed to him
that on the passing of that resolution Mr. Grabham ceased
to be the secretary, and became on its passing a director,
and one of two appointed to manage the affairs of the
company, and as such competent to act as secretary.
Under these circumstances the objection failed. He was
a director, and the call was regularly made. The rule
must, therefore, be discharged.

Cuaxous ACTION FOR DAMAGES.—In the Nisi Prins
Court of Common Pleas an action was brought
by a gardener, named Denyer, for damages against a
brickmaker named Burchett. It was an action for damages
sustained by the plaintiff by reason of the fumes and
vapours proceeding from the defendant's brick-kiln having
injured his crop of fruit and trees in 1864. The defendant
said that his brick clams had nothing to do with the state
of the plaintiff's trees and fruit. The jury found a verdict
for the plaintiff ; damages, £lOO.
THE TiERNE BAY OYSTER COMPANY.—III Vice Chan-
cellor Stuart's court the case of Downs v. the Herne
Bay, Hampton, and Reculver Oyster Fishery Company
was disposed of. The plaintiff is a fisherman, inhabiting a
cottage near Hampton Point, on the north coast of Kent;
of this cottage as well as that of a weir and of the adjoin-
ing foreshore (or the land between high and low water
mark), in the estuary of the River Thames, he claimed the
absolute ownership, subject to a quit rent of ss. a year to
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Herne Bay
Fishery Company were incorporated in 1864 by an Act of
Parliament, the 31st section of which expressly provided
that the company should not take or use otherwise than
by agreement any weir, land, or fishery belonging
to Joseph Downs, the plaintiff ; this clause being
inserted in consequence of the plaintiffs opposition to the
bill in Parliament. Soon after the passing of the
Act the defendants commenced their works by the erection
of a pier within a fei.V yards of the plaintiff's property, and
in so doing they removed a quantity of shingle that was
of great value to him, forming as it did a natural barrier
to his house and land from the sea. The shingle, notwith-
standing his complaints, continued to he removed, and
the plaintiff brought a suit to restrain the defendants from
so doing. The Vice-Chancellor, in giving judgment, said
that the defendants had no right to take away the shingle,
and the plaintiff was entitled to compensation.

A public park has been formally presented to
the people of Paisley by Mr. T. Coats, of Ferguslie, at a
cost of 220,000.

An idiot young woman has been burnt to death
near Stafford. She had been left alone but a few minutes,
when her clothes caught fire, and she died in a few hours.

A young gentleman, 19 years of age, the son of
Sir Richard Gethen, Bart., has been committed for trial
by tho Birkenhead magistrates on a charge of arson.

According to the Wiltshire papers, the Earl of
Cavan has been preaching to large congregations in the
Congregational chapels in Warminster.

The pearl fishery grounds recently discovered at
Western Australia extend along the coast for 1,000 miles.
Upwards of sixty tons of pearl oysters were fished up in
December last, and sold for £lOO per ton.

As the Scotch express train was within half a
mile of Usworth station, on the North-Eastern line, a day
nr two ago, an old woman, named Maria Hand, who b.a.p.
puled to be walking on the line, was knocked down ,and
killed.

Up to the 22nd instant 5,297 petitions, contain-
ing 537,385 signatures, had been presented to the House
of Commons against the disendowment of the Irish
Church, while 2,132 petitions, signed by 558,138 persons,
had been deposited in favour of Mr. Gladstone's mea.