The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-06 00:00:00

ROLLS' COURT.-(THIS DAY.)

LORD NELSON v. LORD BRIDPORT.

This was an appeal from the decision of the Master, with
respect to the right of succession and disposition of the
estates of Lord Nelson at Bronti, in Sicily, and involved the
question of the distribution of feuds according to the laws of
Sicily. Some of the leading features of this case have already
been made public.
Mr. TINNEY (for the appellant) contended that according
to the law of Sicily the decision of the Master could
not be sustained. To understand the subject it was
necessary to call the attention of his Lordship to
the laws that existed in the country where the
property was situated.. There was a general law ie-
specting real property in Sicily, except when it was altered
by local acts or judicial decisions. In the absence of these,
the Roman or civil law obtained. There were different laws
for the regulation of succession to becidal estates. One of
these was aceording to the jus francorum, which gave a mo-
dified power of primogeniture. The succession was given to
the heirs of the body, or lineal descendants of the grantee,
but in the event of a failure of these it went to the collaterals.
There was a preference of males to females, and of the elder
to the younger branches, and there was an important rule, that
there could be no retrograde succession ; therefore male issue
would take preference except when there were female issue by
the elder male branches. Lord Nelson left one daughter; and
in failure of her succession the estate was to go to the Crown,
in conformity with the law. Feuds, noble or ignoble, and a
noble feud could not be alienated to an ignoble person. The
owner of a hereditary feud was, however, in full and perfect
power. The next distinction was of feuds into pure or into
degenerating, which last was where there was a' power
of alienation given by the grant itself. Feuds were further
divided into old or new, or as it was expressed, feudum
novtun et feudum antiquum. The former of these could not
be alienated without the consent of the Crown and of the
successor also. By the local law of Sicily the consent of
the Crown was taken away, but still the consent of the suc-
cessor was indispensably necessary. By a further law, a
feudum novum could be alienated by the quesitor or pur-
chaser, previded he had a successor, and in the failure of
that it was to go to the Crown, but if he
left successors the alienation would be complete It
might be laid down as a general law, that when
the feud was alienable there was nothing particular in
law respecting its disposal. It could be disposed of as a tes-
.

. . .
tamentary act, which the lawyers of the country were merely
to investigate. It was not necessary that the alienation
should be immediate, but it might be delegated. There was
some obscurity in the Sicilian law as to whether two persons
could be joint successors, and also whether a person taking

possession of a feud was not bound under the terms of inves:
titure. This investiture was like the law of copyhold in this
country, it recognised a right, but conferred none. Therefore
if Lord Wm. Nelson deprived himself •f power he recovered
again by the law of Sicily. If the successor of a feudatory
were his heir in the feuds, be was bound, in the case of
disposing of the same, to confirm the will of the possessor of
the feud to whom he had succeeded. These were the general
propositions he had to lay before the Court, and which would,
he hoped, when established, prove that the decision of
the Master had been erroneous. (The Learned Counsel
here read the testimony of two eminent lawyers of Sicily
in support of his proposition, which were most volumnious,
and with other documents occupied the remainder of the
day. )

QUEEN'S BENCH.-(THIS DAY.)
(Before Mr. Justice VVIGirrmAN.)
PAGE V. HATCHET.

This case occupied the Court until its rising last evening,
and was renewed this morning. Several witnesses for the
defendant were examined to prove that the wharf which the
plaintiff alleged was his private property, had been used by
the public and by watermen for a number of years. One of
the witnesses created a good deal of laughter by the answers
he gave to some of the questions put to him ; for instance,
" How long have you worked at this wharf ?" "I have,
Sir." "How long?" "All my existence, and before that—
well, since I was bound 'prentice, and before that I was a
child."

EXCHEQUER.-(THIS DAY.)
(Sittings after Term, before the LORD CHIEF BARON and a
Special Jury.)

LIBEL ON A CLERGYMAN OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.

JAMES V. BOSTON.

This was an action on the case brought to recover damages
for an lible alleged on the character of the plaintiff, to which
the defendant had pleaded that he was not guilty, and a jus-
tification.

Mr. Chambers, with whom was Mr. Bradley, appeared
for the plaintiff, and Mr. Jervis and Mr. Stammers for the
defendant.

Mr. M. CHAMBERS stated the plaintiff's case. The plain-
tiff was the incumbent of the parish -of St. James, Bethnal
green, and the defendant the churchwarden of the adjoining
parish. The libel complained of was contained in a letter
sent on the Bth of January last to the Bishop of London.
The letter in question was as follows :—" My Lord Bishop—
A report is current in the parish *of Bethnal-green and in
this neighbourhood, of a most disgraceful scene which oc-
curred in the school-room of St. James-the-Great, between
the Rev. Mr. James, the incumbent, and the schoolmaster,
during school hours. Report says that the schoolmaster
asked the rev. gentleman for his salary; words arose—the
rev. gentleman collared the schoolmaster, a stand-up fight
ensued, a cry of murder was heard from the school, which
brought persons to the spot, and after ineffectual attempts of
others, the churchwarden parted them. I have troubled
your Lordship with these reported particulars that your Lord-
ship may institute inquiry. If the transaction is true, it is
most shameful, and such examples in the clergy, especially
among a population like Bethnal-green, are calculated to
bring religion into contempt, and the church and its minis-
ters into disrepute, instead of implanting right principles
into the minds of the rising generation of that long-neg-
lected parish ; and it is on this account I deem it my duty
as a churchman, to make my information known to your
Lordship, if the sultject is not so already. The Bishop for-
warded a copy of this letter to the plaintiff, who subsequently
waited upon the defendant, and denied that there was any
foundation for the report, and demanded the defendant's in-
formant. The defendant replied that his informant was Mr.
Goodwin, a parishioner of the plaintiff, but he refused to re-
tract his statement, or make an apology, and the conse-
quence was the plaintiff brought the present action for the
injury it had done to his character and reputation.
The Bishop of London was the first witness called. His
Lordship merely proved the receipt of the letter containing
the libel, and the forwarding of a copy to the plaintiff.
Mr. Bull, curate of St. James, Bethnal-green, stated that
he accompanied the plaintiff on the occasion of his seeing the
defendant on the subject of his letter to the Bishop. The
plaintiff asked the defendant if he was the author of the
letter, a copy of which the Bishop had forwarded to the
plaintiff. The defendant replied that he was, and added that
lie would do the same thing again if reports came to his ear
justifying such a course. The plaintiff retorted that he ought
to be ashamed of himself to write such a letter. The de-
fendant said he was not, but, to satisfy the plaintiff, he would
mention the name of his informant. It was Mr. Goodwin, of
the Bethnal-green-road.
The letter to the Bishop having been put in, the case for
the plaintiff closed.
Mr. JERVIS then addressed the jury for. the defendant. In
the first place, he had to submit to his Lordship that this
letter was a privileged communication, and the action could
not lie, for by the Church Discipline Act, which was the
3 and 4 Vic. cap. 5, sec. 3, it was enacted that when any
person was Charged with any offence against the laws
ecclesiastical it was lawful for the Bishop of the diocese, on
the application of any party, to order an inquiry to be in-
stituted into the matter. The defendant had,made the com-
munication to the Bishop in accordance with the provisions
of this Act, and for the public good, and it was therefore
privileged.
The CHIEF BARON said that depended on circumstances.
He was of opinion that this was not such a communication
as could be considered in the light of a privileged matter.
Mr. JERVIS said it did not mucb matter, and proceeded to
address the jury on the merits of the case. The history of
the case could be very shortly stated. Upon the appoint-
ment of the plaintiff to his present living he found the
office of schoolmaster and schoolmistress of the parish filled
by a gentleman named Rolphe and his wife. He wished
these two persons to be discharged to enable him to appoint
a person named Mull and his wife to the situation, and cer-
tainly he could not help stopping to remark that the reverend
plaintiff had made a pretty mull of it.—(Laughter.) But
to return to his narrative. The plaintiff gave Rolphe
and his wife notice to quit these situations at
Christmas, but on the 20th of December he went
with his scripture reader and the sexton to turn
them out. He collared Rolphe, and threatened to turn him
out, upon which the schoolmaster's wife called out " murder,"
which drew a crowd to the spot, and eventually a policeman
was sent for by the plaintiff, and Rolphe was quietly re-
moved. Mr. Boston, the defendant, did not witness the
occurrence, but the report of the fracas was current in the
parish from the 20th of December to the Bth of January,
when the defendant felt it to be his duty to communicate the
matter to the Lord Bishop. The plaintiff, however, because
there had been no such stand-up fight alleged by the letter,
felt him'self justified in retorting a species of special pleadings
by no means becoming a gentleman in the plaintiff's situa-
tion, and declared that there was no foundation for the
report. But he (the Learned Counsel) should call witnesses
to prove that there, was foundation for the report, and it
would be for the jury to say, after hearing this evidence,
whether the defendant was not justified in communicating
what be had to the Bishop.
Mr. Rolphe, the schoolmaster. was the first witness called.
He stated that the plaintiff wished to remove him and his
wife to make way for some of his friends in the country. He
begged the plaintiff to allow him to stay, because neither he
nor his wife bad any other means of living, nor had they any
other situation to go to. The plaintiff replied that he did not
care Rho they were, what they were, or what they wanted,
nor where they went to ; but if they did not go on the
morrow, he would come and turn them out. This occurred
on the 19th of December. On the 20th he gave the boys a
half-holiday, in order that they might not be present to wit-
ness the disgrace threatened by the plaintiff. Between three
and four o'clock on the same day he and his wife met the
plaintiff, accompanied by one or two persons going to take
possession of the school. They followed them to the school-
room door, when the plaintiff seized him by the collar, and
shook him most violently, which induced him and his wife to
call out murder. After that the plaintiff let him go, when
he asked the plaintiff what he meant by treating him
in that way, but the plaintiff only replied by calling
to the sexton to turn him out. During the scuffle a
.crowd had collected round the door, and some of them
called out, " Here's a fighting parson ;" while others said,
" We are at liberty to fight each other now, having such an
example before our eyes ;" and some of the men from a
neighbouring factory asked the plaintiff " what he intended
to stand, after being such a naughty boy in school."
The witness was cross-examined at some length by Mr.
CHAMBERS, with the view of eliciting that he had been dis-
charged from the office of schoolmaster for severity to the
boys, and incompetency to perform the duties of the office.
The witness, however, protested that such was not the case.
He admitted that he was one of those who advocated the
application of the cane, and always should do while he was
a schoolmaster.

Mrs. Rolphe, the wife, corroborated her husband's evidence,
and added that she called out murder because she thought the
plaintiff was ill-using her husband and behaving himself in a
manner that ill became a clergyman. She heard the crowd
call out, "Go it my cripples." " Here's a fighting clergy-
man." " What will you stand, old boy ?" " Won't you stand
something handsome, old boy ?"

Other witnesses corroborated this testimony; after which
a number of witnesses were called to rebut this evidence,
some of whom declared that the plaintiff simply placed his
hands upon Rolphe's shoulders, and said, "My goad man,
don't make a disturbance ;" upon which Rolphe and his wife
roared out with extraordinary vigour, " Murder, murder."
Mr. JERVIS replied, remarking that the plaintiff's latter
evidence had only served to substantiate his case, and to
establish that a scene of a disgraceful nature had taken place
between the plaintiff and the schoolmaster.
Mr. M. CHAMBERS also replied, contending that the de-
fendant had not written the letter with the bona fide inten-

tion of procuring an inquiry, because he had exaggerated
the facts and circumstances of the case, and, as he would
have it, with the express view of injuring the character and
damaging the reputation of the plaintiff as a clergyman of
the Church of England.
(The case had not concluded when our report left.)