The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-10 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE

ACTION FOR INJURIES SUSTAINED.—In the Bail Court
the case of Storey v. Ashton has been heard. It was an
action brought by the father of a child to recover compen-
sation for injuries sustained. The plaintiff is a letter-
sorter, and the defendant a wine merchant, and it seems
that the cart of the latter, when being driven by one of
his men, ran over a child of the plaintiff, as it was playing
with some others in the City-read. From the evidence
given on behalf of the plaintiff, the driver, in the language
of one of the witnesses, was " too jolly to care about what
he was doing." After the accident the vehicle was driven
at a very rapid pace, and would not have been stopped
but for a gentleman driving after and overtaking it. For
the defence it was contended that the servant was using
the cart for his own business, and, consequently, the
defendant was not liable. The judge reserved this ques-
tion of law, and the jury found £BO damages.

FICTITIOUS CLAIMS TO PROPERTY.—In the Court of
Exchequer, Mr. Jones, Q.C., moved, on behalf of Mr.
Alfred Leigh, a solicitor, for a rule calling upon the
Incorporated Law Society to chew cause why his
name should not be restored to the rolls of the
court. Mr. Leigh was struck off in 1864 for
inducing certain persons to commence and carry
on a suit for the recovery of some property in the
North to which they had no title. The Court refused
the application on the formal ground that the affidavits
were in the Queen's Bench, whereas the matter properly
belonged to this court.—Baron Martin observed that,
particularly in the North, claims of a fictitious character
were constantly being put forward to property ; such
proceedings ought to be stopped if possible.

POST-OFFICE ROBBERY.—At the Central Criminal
Court, Benjamin Spall was indicted for stealing a post
letter containing a£s note. It appeared that on the very
same day the letter was missed the prisoner changed the
stolen note at a public-house in Pentonville, and he wrote
his name upon it, and when he was questioned he said
that his uncle had given him the note to get changed,
which was proved not to be true. Subsequently the
accused said that another deliverer on an adjoining round
had given him the note to change ; but this also was proved
to be a false statement. Having been found guilty, the
prisoner was sentenced to six years' penal servitude.

ASSAULTING AND INTIMIDATING WITNESSES. —Cases of
this description having been so frequently before the
magistrate at the Marylebone Police-court, he has given
notice that in future all persons charged with offences of a
like character, either against witnesses or the police, will
be committed for trial.

THE LONDON, CHATHAM, AND DOVER RAILWAY.—Be-
fore the Lords Justices the directors of this company ap-
pealed from a decision of Vice-Chancellor Stuart, where
his Honour overruled the demurrer to the bill in this
suit. The bill, which was one of immense length, in-
volving very complicated transactions between the railway
company and their contractors, Messrs. Peto and Co., was
filed for the purpose of setting aside Some securities upon
alleged surplus lands of the company, which were given
early in the year 1866 to secure £135,000 to the Imperial
Company, and two sums of £lOO,OOO and £llO,OOO to the
General Credit Company; and also to have the accounts
between the railway company and Peto and Co. taken.
The General Credit Company put in a demurrer to the
bill on the ground of multifariousness—that is to say, that
the suit related to a great many transactions with which
they had no concern, and that they ought not, therefore,
to have been made parties to such a suit. The Vice-
Chancellor overruled this demurrer, and the General
Credit Company appealed. The appeal was dismissed.
MORTGAGES ON A COMPANY'S TOLLS.—Before Vice-
Chancellor Giffard, the case of Hopkins v. the Proprietors
of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal Navigation Com-
pany was heard. The plaintiff, a mortgagee of the above-
named company, instituted this suit to compel them to
pay his mortgage money. The company insisted that so
long as they paid the plaintiff's interest they could not,
according to their Act of Parliament, be compelled to pay
the principal. The Vice-Chancellor directed accounts to
be taken, and appointed a receiver.

In the Isle of Wight wheat has been in ear for
the last forthight, and harvest there will, it is expected,
commence in the middle of July. This will be unusually
early. In Dorsetshire the hay harvest is now at full
swing, the crop of meadow grass will be light, but the
clover crop will be a good one. The late barley wants
rain. The early and wall-fruit crops in the south of
England are failures. The apples have suffered, but owing
to the quantity of blossom there will, it is believed, be a
fair crop.
- - - -

The surplus of the Indian collection, exhibited
at Paris last year, has, during the last six days, been dis-
posed of at the rooms of Messrs. Christie, Manson, and
Woods, in King-street, St. James's-square, by order of
the agent for the Government of India. Subjoined are
the most important objects :—Four splendid square Cash-
mere shawls, of various colours, produced 165 guineas,
and six others, 385 guineas ; a magnificent Cashmere ball
carpet, of large dimensions, made at Srinuggur, of the
finest Caslimere wool, with exquisite border, brought 150
-

ME "TIMES" AND THE CECUMENICAL
COUNCIL.

The Times, of Tuesday, contains a won-
derful article• concerning General Councils,
wonderful for the rare ignorance it displays
of the chronological facts of Church history.
We are not unaccustomed to see in the pages
even of the leading journal blunders of the
most extraordinary character concerning
Catholic doctrines, or even about contem-
porary events, in which the Catholic Church,
the Pope, or Catholic Archbishops are con-
cerned ; but when a writer in the Times
ventures to lecture the Pope, and to remind
him warningly of events in Church history,
he ought at least to be correct in his historical
facts, or, to borrow the words which he applies
to the Pope, "he ought to know what he is
about." "He (the Pope)," says the Times,
"should consider that more than three centuries
have elapsed since the last General Council was
closed at Trent ; he cannot forget that one
must go back three years further for the date
of that fifth Lateran Synod, after which no
other reunion of the same nature held in Rome
was deemed to be of undisputed authority

throughout the States of Catholic Christendom-.
Why is it that Councils have been so long out
of date ?" According to the chronology of the
Times, then, no General Councils were held
for three hundred years prior to the Council
of Trent, at which date it puts the fifth Lateran
Council, but in reality, as every one except
this heedless writer knows, the Lateran Council
was held not three hundred years, but only fifty
years, before the Council of Trent. Moreover,
in the three hundred years preceding the
Council of Trent, there were, besides the fifth
Lateran Council in 1512, various other General
Councils, such as, for instance, the Council of
Lyons, under Pope Innocent IV., in 1245,
when the Emperor Frederick 11. was deposed
—as that of Lyons under Gregory

1274, of Vienne under Clement V., in 1312,
and of Florence in 1439. The Pope, therefore,
has not, as the Times asserts, to go back three
hundred years further than the Council of
Trent for the date of another Council enjoying
undisputed authority throughout the States
of Catholic Christendom. If we cannot depend
even on the historical accuracy of the Times,
we are not likely to feel in any way compelled
to place reliance on its guesses as to the Pope's
purpose in convoking a General Council, or in
its predictions as to the results likely to be
attained.
The (Ecumenical Council to be assembled
on the eighth of December, 1869, is naturally
a matter of speculation, and we are not in the
least surprised that it should engage the atten-
tion of a journal to which every Englishman
looks for early and sufficient information con-
cerning important events. The Times, in no
unfriendly spirit, naturally turns to Archbishop
Manning to see what he has to say on a
subject peculiarly within the sphere of his
knowledge, and seems surprised at his pre-
dicting that " the Council would make an
epoch in the way of reaction against the anti-
Christian revolution in Europe." It is not,
however, as the Times suggests, a new or
sudden idea in Archbishop Manning to attri-
bute to the coming Council a political import-
ance. On the contrary, in a Pastoral letter,
published last year, entitled " The Centenary
of St. Peter and the General Council," from
which, in another page, we extract the passages
alluded to, he points out, among other things,
the probable effects of the Council on the poli-
tical state of Europe.
The Times, it is evident, has not as yet
given its mind to the consideration of the
political importance of the gathering together
under the headship of the Pope of the leaders
and representatives of the Catholic world.
Such an assemblage of men of one mind, with
one purpose in their hearts, whose zeal and
love of their Church is, as even their enemies
concede, beyond every other aim or object,
cannot meet together in council at Rome under
Pius IX., without being inspired with a new
and indomitable energy, and a united deter-
mination, as the representatives and leaders of
two million Catholics, to put down, wherever
it is to be met with, that small but intensely
active and, for the moment, dominant party
which usurps in too many countries of Europe
leadership over the peoples, which arrogates
to itself the right to speak in the name of
the age in which we live, which, in violation
of eternal justice, has set up a new standard
of right and wrong, imposing its own will
as law over the vast majority who are quiescent
only because they have not as yet fully realized
that they have but to speak out with the,
determined voice of men, who will take no
denial, in order to see this tyrannical anti-
Christian Revolution—which now rides
roughshod over their rights and over their
religion—fall like the walls of Jericho before
the trumpet. Both for good and evil this is
an age when ideas are spread with marvellous
rapidity. Great changes are now-a-days sudden.
The (Ecumenical Council, before its results even
are forecast, may give an impetus to the minds
of the vast majority of the peoples, may re-
kindle in many countries the slumbering embers
of religious zeal, until on a sudden Europe may
again witness a new crusade arise to rescue
religion, justice, liberty, and the Holy See of
Peter from the tyranny of the modern enemies
of the Cross. Under the actual circumstances
of the peoples of Europe, tyrannized over for
the most part by the Revolution in possession
of the Governments, it is sheer folly in the
Times to speak of the vast majority of the
people of Italy or Austria "as almost hopelessly
estranged from the creed of their fathers." The

Times is not more happy in this reckless asser-
tion than in its ecclesiastical chronology. The
very reverse is the case. The vast majority
of the people in either country is deeply
attached to the creed of their fathers. Apathy
and fear are not to be reckoned on for ever.
Apathy may vanish on a sudden, fear may
change into courage at the dictates of faith;
and what more likely than the approaching
General Council to bring about, as Archbishop
Manning predicts, a " reaction against the
anti-Christian Revolution in Europe ?"
Westminster Gazette.