The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-12 00:00:00

7IIE ASII7ON RIOTS.

Au important action, arising out of the recent
religious disturbances, was tried on Mondiy, before
the Lord Chief alroll, at the Salford Assizes. It
was an action against the inhabitants of the Salford
Hundred to recover dainage3 for the injuries done
to St. Mary's Roman Catholic Chapel and priest's
house, in the borough of Ash!on-under-Lyue,
during the riots on the 10th and 11th of May.
Mr. Hopwood appeared for the plaintiff ; and Mr.
Higgin, Q.C., and Mr. Addison ftir the defendants.
The Lord Chief Baron, in summing up, sail
there was no doubt that the plaintiff was not en-
titled to recover, unless he made out that the
chapel had been feloniously demolished, pulled
down, or destroyed, wholly or in *part, by persons
riotously and tumultuously assembled together. It
would not be a demolition in whole or in part, un-
less there was an intention on the part of those who
were engaged in that undoubtedly riotous and tu-
multuous assemblage to destroy the chapel as a
chapel. Tie pulling out of a single brick of a house,
it it was intended by thote who did it, if unin-
terrupted, to pull down the whole edifice, would
amount. to a demolition in part; but if there was
an absence of that intention, then the mere doing
of mischief to the chapel or house would not be a
demolition, pulling down, or destruction in part,
any more than a mischievous boy throwing a stone
through a window would be a demolition or pull.
iug down in part. It might be the first step
towards it, but it must depend on the intention of
the persons whether the act done, injurious in itself,
was a partial demolition, pulling down, or destruc-
tion. He did not think, however, that Mr. Higgins
was correct in the view which he took—namely,
that there must be a destruction of the body, the
carcass, so to speak, of the chapel, in order to con-
stitute the offence. No doubt there was great diffi-
culty in defining exactly what was meant by demo-
' lition. His meaning would be better expressed by
au illustration. If the rioters, having got
inside the chapel, had set fire to it,
they would h„ve shown au intention to
destroy it utterly ; so, on the other hand, if men
had taken into the chapel crowbars, and begun.to
demolish the solid woodwork and brickwork of the
place, that would have been an act from which the
inference would almost irresistibly have been drawn
that they did intend to destroy the chapel as a
chapel. If, however, the rioters had no other in-
tention but to do mischief, to commit such acts as
would evidence their hatred and scorn of the
worship carried on there, or their hatred of the
Irish party who were personified or represented, as
it were, by the building they came to attack ; if
their intention was to pull down the figure sacred
in the eye of the Roman Catholics, and to trample
upon it and destroy it, and that only—that would
not be an invention to demolish the chapel. 'There
was undoubtedly evidence upon which the jury
might adopt either of those views. The crowd
seamed to have uttered cries which, if they were to
be taken as exactly expressing their intention,
would indicate an intention to destroy the place—
" Let's pull down. the chapel," and so on. But, as
they must all unfortunately know, language in the
mouths of low ruffians like those rioters did not
always express the idea which was, prima fixie,
contained in the words. They were the in:ails of
expressing merely a high-wrought state of fury. if
the jury came to the conclusion that they really
expressed the intention of those who uaered them,
then the rioters would have fulfilled the language
of the act. The jury must use their own judgment,
and say what was their (the rioters') intention.
The jury found a verdict for the defendants.