The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-08 00:00:00

SHAW ET AL. V. GOULD ET AL.

This was an appeal from the Court of Chancery.
The case was heard some time since, when their
lordships deferred judgment:
Lord Cranworth this morning, in giving judg-
ment, said that the question to be decided in this
case was one of a class which not unfrequently gave
rise to great difficulty—the question, namely, how
far the status of legitimacy or illegitimacy undoubt-
edly existing according to the laws of this country
might or ought to be modified by the laws of an-
other country. There was no dispute as to the
facts of the case, which were these :—On the 18th

of June, 182 S, a marriage was solemnized at Man-
chester between Elizabeth Hickson, a girl under 17
years of age, and a man named Buxton. The mar-

riage was brought about by Buxton by means of a
fraudulentcouspiracy, for which he was afterwards
prosecuted.and convicted and seutenced to threeyears'
imprisonment. The parents and friends of the

young lady succeeded in getting possession of her
person before the marriage had been consumma-
ted, and she and her husband never lived together
even for a day. Attempts were made to get rid of
the marriage by an Act of Parliament, but without
success, and in the month of December, 1838, Bux-
ton and his wife joined in a deed of separation,
under which certain pecuniary benefits were secured
to Buxton, in consideration of which he covenanted
that his wife, who was described by her maiden
name of ElizAbeth Dickson, should be at liberty to
live separate and apart from him, as if she were sole
and unmarried. The parties continued to live
separate from each other, and Buxton, from the
time of the separation, if not before it, lived in

adultery with a woman named Sarah Lant. In or
about the year 1845 a gentleman living at Derby,
named John Shaw, then studying for the English

bar, formed an attachment for Mrs. Buxton, who
was always designated by her maiden name, and he

proposed to marry her. In order to accomplish this
object he seemed to have altered his intention of
becoming a member of the English Bar, and he re-

solved Co take the necessary steps towards being
called to the Scotch Bar. In March, 1845, both
Mr. Shaw and Elizabeth Hickson went to Edin-

burgh, and for ever afterwards they were resident
in Scotland. In the month of September following
Buxton also went to Scotland, and when he had
been there above 40 days an action of divorce was

raised against him by his wife before the Court of
Session by a summons dated the 13th of November,
1845, and duly served upon him, which was founded
upon the undisputed fact that he was living in
adultery with Sarah Lant. The action was duly
prosecuted, and the decree of divorce thereon was
pronounced by the Court of Session on the 20th of
March, 1846. In the following month of June a
marriage valid by the laws of Scotland was duly
celebrated in Edinburgh between Mr. Shaw and
Elizabeth Ilickson, add there were issue of that mar-
riage three children. Buxton died in January,
1852, and Mr. Shaw in the following September,
Elizabeth Hickson, or Shaw, dying in 1863. The
question to be decided was whether those three
children were entitled to certain money bequeathed
by John Wilson, the great uncle of Elizabeth
Hickson, whose will was dated in 1832, and who
died in 1835. By that he will he left, inter alia,
the sum of £2,000 to trustees, upon certain trusts'
for the benefit of his great niece, Elizabeth Hick-
son, for her life and after her death, subject to a
power of appointment, which was never exercised,

in trust for all and every children of his said great
niece, who, being the son or sons, should attain the
age of 21, or being a daughter or daughters should
attain that age or marry, to be equally divided
among them as tenants in common. The trustees,
after the death of Elizabeth Hickson, paid the
money into the Court of Chancery, under the Trus-
tees' Relief Act ; and the question to be decided
was whether the children of Elizabeth Hickson
by John Shaw were entitled to the fund as
children of the testator's great niece. Vice-Chan-
cellor Kiu Ictsley decided that they were not so en-
titled, and they had appealed against that decision
to their lordships' house. If the law of Scotland
on the subject of marriage and divorce were the
same as that of England, the case would not have
admitted of any doubt whatever. According to the
law of this country the three children must either
be those of Buxton or bastards. The former con-
clusion is that which, in bye-gone days, would pos-
sibly have been arrived at, so reluctant were the
Courts to receive any evidence of non-access by the
husband while he was infra patio- maria. Adopting,
however, the more reasonable views on this subject
by which the Courts of this country are now guided,
the house might safely act upon the hypothesis,
adopted by all the parties in the argument of the
case, that the children of Elizabeth Hickson were
either her lawful issue by Mr. Shaw or were
illegitimate. The house had therefore to con-
sider whether, in order to assist them in decid-
ing this question, they were warranted in looking
at any other law than that of England, and whether
they might be guided to any extent by the law
of Scotland. Had the parties been Scotch instead
of English, and bad it occurred in Scotland and not
in England, no question upon the point at issue
could have arisen. The children in that case would
certainly have been legitimate. The whole ques-
tion turned upon the validity of the Scotch divorce
between Buxton and his wife. The law of Scotland
seemed clear that a residence in Scotland for 40
days made that country the domicilium Joni of any
person so residing in that country in which for the
purposes of litigation he was to be treated as being
domiciled. The question for their Lordships was,
was that principle of the Scotch law one which the
law of this country was bound to recognize? He
thought not. The important differences which existed
on the subject of the law of marriage and divorce in
the different parts of the United Kingdom often gave
rise to perplexing difficulties, and exhibited a state
of our law which was little creditable to us.
These difficulties, however, made it more than
usually incumbent upon those who had the adminis-
tration of the law to take care that whenever a
clear line had been drawn by judicial decisions, the
course so marked out should be rigidly followed.
Now, whatever the difficulties in such cases as the
present might be, the doctrine that no divorce in
Scotland, merely on a fol urn domicilii had, at all
events, before the passing of the English Divorce
Act of 1857, any effect in England on the validity
of an English marriage, had been established by
the highest authority. It was impossible to have
a stronger authority upon that point than that
furnished by Solley's case, in which it was decided
by the twelve judges that by the second marriage
he was guilty of bigamy, although on general prin-
ciples every leaning would be made in favour of the
accused. Again in " Conway v. Beazley," 3 Hag.
Ecc. Rep., 639, the second marriage was had in
Scotland, not as in Solley's case in England, and it
was attempted on that ground to distinguish between
the two casts, but Dr. Lushington held that the prin-
ciple was the same wherever the second marriage was
solemnized, for there, as neither of the parties to the
first marriage were at any time bona fide domiciled
in Scotland, the principle of Solley's case must pre-
vail. The same question was raised in the case of
" Dolphin v. Robins," 3 _ll'Queen, 563. The con-
elusion at which their lordships arrived in that case
was that the Scotch Courts had no power to dis-
solve an English marriage where the parties were
not really domiciled in Scotland. Those cases
clearly decided that now before the House, for if
the first marriage here was not dissolved, there could
not have been a second valid marriage. The view
he took of this case absolved him from the necessity
of considering whether the resort to Scotland for the
purposes of the divorce and the arrangements made
among the parties for bringing it about were or
were not of such a character as to taint the whole
of the proceedings with fraud. He did not wish
to express any opinieu as to what might have been
the effect of the divorce so obtained, considered
merely as a Scotch question. In the anomalous
state of our laws relating to marriage and divorce
it might be that such a proceeding might be valid
north of the Tweed, while it was invalid on the

south of that river. lie was Painfully E( Lsible 0
the inconvenience which might result from such a
state of the law, but it was for the Legislature to
set it right. The authorities appeared to him to
show clearly that whatever might be the decision of
the Scotch courts upon this subject of divorce ac-
cording to the Scotch law, the English courts could
not admit any right in them to interfere with the
inviolability of an English marriage nor with any
of its incidents. To do so would be to attain a
prejtuEce to English law, to be created by the deci-
sion of what for this purpose must be called a fo-
reign law, and would be going beyond what Huber
said any country was called upon to do. Upon
these grounds he was of opinion that there was no
ground for this appeal, and he, therefore, moved
to their lordships that the appeal should be dismissed
with costs.

Lord Westbury, Lord Chelmsford, and Lord
Colonsay having concurred, the appeal was dis-
;uissed with costs accordingly.

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

THE HUMBOLDT SILVER MINLVG COMPANY
(NEVADA, U.S. OF AMERICA) LIMITED.
The prospectus has appeared of the Humboldt
Alining Company, and the terms on which the pro-
perty is offered to the public, show, at least, that
there is no " wild-cat" element in the bargain. The
vendors receive no portion of the purchase money, the
funds supplied by the public being wholly expended
in developing the mine. Half the property will
belong to the purchasers, the other half to the sellers,
with this proviso, that the vendors get nothing for
their half till the entire amount paid by the pur-
chasers be refunded to the purchasers. The point
for the public who desire to invest in the mines of
the Pacific States is mainly the price paid for the
property. They may take it as an axiom that any
undeveloped property in Nevada, or in any of the
other Pacific States, is not worth much, and if
much is asked for it, they may rest assured that the
" wild-cat" element enters into the transaction. What
they have to consider is the way in which the money
is to be appropriated. If wholly on tunnelling,
mills, and other machinery, roads and other im-
provements, and they are satisfied that the mine is
worth the expenditure, and the money will be
honestly thus expended, then they may be certain
that in the purchase they are securing a good
thing. But, alas ! how can these essentials be
guaranteed? The Tullulah range we know
to be good ; the lodes of the Humboldt
to be excellent ; the situation admirable ; and
the proposal on which the property is offered
in the highest degree liberal, therefore it ought to
succeed if one other qualification be added, and that
is a trustworthy and energetic manager. We be-
lieve that the company has its hand on the mall
most interested, to whom success is fortune, and
failure ruin, who knows Nevada well, and has
made mining his profession. At the same time that
we have great confidence in this company, we re-
gret to notice that one lately brought out in the
London market has been spoken of contemptuously
in one or two of the newspapers of the Pacific
States. We believe that the public can, if they
please, without setting aside as not to be touched
such profitable investments, guard themselves from
imposition. What is it that gives value to a lode
in Nevada ? It is not like a mine in Cornwall or
Devonshire, where the right to work it is the great
element of value, for we doubt not there are magi
undiscovered lodes in the State equal to the Com'
stock. In the Pacific States, supposing that the loie
be rich, and what is almost of greater consequence,
" come-stable," still so extensive is the wealth of
ore that the mere right to the claim cannot be of
any great value, and unless the property is
offered on some such terms as that cf the
Humboldt mine, the public should regard it
with suspicion. There is, however, another
class of Nevada property which, we regret to sat,
has not yet been offered in the London market,
for a reason we can easily explain. The properties
paying a large dividend are those of course in
working order, with their tunnelling completed,
their mills in operation, their roads formed. Such
mines will command prices in proportion to the
profit realized, as they cease to be in the nature
of speculations, only requiring conscientious ma-
nageinent. These are the mines that have a right
to command high prices, but when people come to
London and propose to sell cl dins to undeveloped
lodes at the rate asked for properties in workihg
order, and to delude the purchasers by discussing
their claims as developed properties, then we main'
taro that the " wild-cat" element is there. The
reason why the mines in working order have not
been offered for sale in the London market is, that
the owners have accomplished their objects with
their own means, and have no need of foreign aid.
But the capital of a new country like California,
however rapidly increasing, is still comparatively
limited, and those who can command money have
such fine opportunities for investment that they
part with it only on the most onerous terms. It is
natural, under such circumstances, that the owner
of a good lode, if he thought he COulth
succeed in getting the necessary capital in
London to work it, should endeavour to do
so. But• here he is met with the distruAt or"
cited by " wild-cat" schemes—swindles, which in-
jure the mining States even more than the comma"
nity cheated. The Humboldt, we believe, to be well
worth the consideration of those who can afford to
risk a small sum in hopes of a very large return."'
the risk being small, and the probable retw
73
immense. The mining authority latest from Ne"
vada, and the best in London, remarked to tis
that the only mistake about the prospectus IM
that it offered the property on terms so ridiculously
cheap to the public that they would not believe
n it.

(From the Wall-street Journal.)
LATEST PRICES OP SILVER MINING STOCO
AT
SAN FRANCISCO.—By telegram from San Frauciso/
dated April 15, 1868, we have the following quota'
tions :
Gould and Curry
Savage
3,163 ~
Chollar-Potosi 272 ~
Ophir 2OO ~
Hale and Norcross
Crown Point 2,200
Yellow Jacket 1,500
Belcher
Alpha 75 ~
450
Bullion
Overman
Empire Mill •• .
Imperial 237 per share

Confidence
Atli ador
Exchequer

Quartz Hill

Lady Byron

60 11

Births.
• of
MANN —On the 7th inst., at Lee, Mrs. C. S. Mall'
daughter. rih-61 114
newtLs-On the 6th inst., at Redhill, the wife a v
Nichols, Esq., of a son. v(001
RUSSELL—On the 4th inst., at Sheerness, the wifo of
Vernon Russell, .R.N., of a daughter.
Marriages. A
a_ ,'
HILL -Eomosns—On the 7th inst., at St. George'"' oarP'
over-square Thomas Rowland Hill, of HighburYLcle,
North, to Matilda, daughter of the late Mr. H. 8c1133-
of Devonshire-place, Paddington. j ras?
SUMMERS-MORRIS-On the 7th iust , at St• 8 f 1,1
Church, Paddington, George Henry Summerg of
Stanhope-terrace, Bayswater, to Plimbe Matilda, tot.
daughter of the late Mr. David Morris, of 3, f3t
street, Sussex-square.

Deaths.•
John cede
BUTT - Oa the sth inst , at LittlehamPton,
Butt, Esq., aged 69. , 11461
Cass—Ou the 4th inst., at Fleetwood, Capt. O's-'
Artlllery, aged 71. rt 11.
iiif.
IlmtNE -On the i=th inst., at Bushey Grangf) l', e-n-1, e-cl
Burchell-Herne, of the Middle Temple, J 21., "-• "
in 1817 High Sheriff for Hurts, aged 73. ~ VP{
Rouses—On the sth inst., at 25, Brompton-sclu3i4or C-
don, William F. Robson, Esq., many years b"c
the Admiralty, aged 61. r g6Pr
113-
USBORNE —On the 7th inst., at 35, Russell-sqe,
her
lisborne, Esq., aged 60. v jive--
WINCH—On the 6th inst., at St. Margaret's Daub'
ter, Richard Winch Esq., aged 78.
-------- f 4,
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London : Printed and Published by WILLIA:SI A N 1
No 1- s
of. No. 112, Strand, Printer, at THB SUN 000',00t/ °
in tile
Strand, in the Precinct of the Sr Oh
Middlesex.—Friday, May 8, 1868.