The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-23 00:00:00

e.O trIT Wbition

SUN OFFICE, Stun o'Cloelt.

DEBNEY V. BERCONZI.

HOW To GET UP A JURY.—On this cause being
called on,
_ _

Mr. HUMFREY rose and said this was a special jury
case, but the jury had only been struck, and not sum-
moned. He was, therefore, willing to try the case with
a common jury.
Mr. MARTIN said, at that advanced hour of the day
he should certainly object to such a course.
The summoning officer intimated, with the view no
doubt of saving time, that there was not a common jury
present.

Mr. HUMFREY said he would get rid of that difficulty
by praying a tales, and moving that the Sheriff do mike
an immediate return of jurors,
Whereupon a long discussion ensued as to the legality
of such course, but his Lordship ultimately decided that
it was legal, and the sheriffs' representative immediately
made up a jury by insisting upon the twelve indi-
duals in the body of the Court who were nearest to
him entering the box, whether it was agreeable to
themselves or not.

Mr. MARTIN, being still anxious that the case should
not be disposed of at that period of the day, offered to
ullow the venue to be changed, so that the case might be
tried on the first day of next term.
Mr. HUNFREY declined to acceed to this without the
defendant paid the costs of the day.
Mr. MARTIN said he would consent to no such pro-
posal, but, if the case were proceeded with, he should
throw every obstacle in its way, and take every possible
objection to the proceedings. In the first place, he
would have the jury sworn individually, and he should
object to those who were not qualified to serve-.
Several of the gentlemen who had been so precipi-
tately hurried into the box were found not to possess a
single qualification for jurymen, and now the Sheriff's
representative evinced as much eagerness to drag them
out as he had proviously done to push them in, and,
H ith unblushing effrontery, told them they ought to have
known better than enter the box without any qualifica-
tions. After a good deal of bustle this courteous func-
tionary succeeded in scraping together a jury, and the
case was opened nearly three-quarters of an hour after it
had been first called on.

THE ALLEGED MURDERS ON
THE HIGH SEAS.

COMMITTAL OF CAPTAIN JOHNSTONE.
(THIS DAY.)
(Continued from our Afternoon Edition.)
William Dunn gave evidence to the same effect, that
he signed three or four papers, but it was through in-
timidation. It was after the death of Mars and Reason
they were signed, and in consequence of the captain say-
ing, if they did not, "He would cut their hearts out, and
make them sign them with their hearts' blood."
Some of the witnesses not being present to complete
the foregoing evidence,
John Lavis, surgeon of the Westminster House of Cor-
rection, was called to give evidence as to the state of the
crew when the Tory arrived. He said he examined,
on the night of the men being committed to
prison, Nelson, Gair, and Barton. This was on the
evening of the 17th. The others, of which he had the
names in a paper before him, he examined next day. The
three first men appeared scarcely human, their wounds
had not been dressed or washed for several days, their hair
was dishevelled, and they very were dirty. By his orders
they were put into the infirmary. The next morning he
nude a particular examination of all the men. The
witness then read a paper which he drew up at the time
and signed. It stated that Nelson had an incised wound
on the scalp, and another on the collar bone and
back of the neck. The side of the neck and face
was burned and disfigured as if by gunpowder. There
were several wounds on other parts of the body. Gair
was the worst wounded, having his head scared in seve-
ral directions with wounds. His face was much dis-
figured with gurpowder, and he had several wounds
on the body. There were about twelve other of the
men who were wounded, some of them very extensively,
bin the two named were the severest cases. Allison
had a severe wound by which his ear was almost
separated. The wounds had, however, healed very
readily, and might be considered more extensive than
sevcre. This was the substance of the written paper. The
witness continued, and said he examined the captain after
he ivas taken into custody. Witness found a punctured
wound on the back of the leg. Since then it had been
atteaided with severe erysipelas inflammation. The
captain was much depressed when he was taken, and in
a bad state of body, which might have been the cause
of the inflammation. The prisoner had no symptoms of
recent drinking. The wound named was the only one.
William Clapp, second surgeon at the Seaman's Hos-
pital, was next called, and examined respecting Morris,
who had been taken into that hospital. He corroborated,
as far as that party was concerned, the statement of Mr.
Levis.

Alexander Sinclair, the carpenter, next called, was
examined respecting the origin of the transactions on
board the ship and relating to the death of Rambert.
The ship was quiet until they passed the Island of As-
cension, about the 23d of September. They were short
of provisions and water then. The quantity had been
limited for six or seven days to a pint of water per man.
A gallon a day is reckoned the allowance. Several of ,

VICE-CHANCERY.-(THIS DAY.)
(Before the VICE-CHANCELLOR Of ENGLAND.)
His HONOUR heard cause petitions to-day, taking the
unopposed first. None of the causes that came before
the Court possessed any points of interest except to
the parties concerned.

HANnATE V. G 4.BCOIGNE.
In this petition the arguments were concluded, and
His Hosoua gave judgment, giving the parties liberty
to file a bill of review on the payment of the costs.
The Court rose at three o'clock.
His Honour will not sit again till the 12th of January,
1846, the first clay of Hil•:ry Term. The Court sits On
that day at Westminster, at ten o'eloAc.

EXCHEQUER.—(THIS DAY.)
(Sittings at Nisi ?rills in London, before the LORD CHIEF
BARON and a special jury.)
LANERTE HEATH.
This was an action on the case brought to recover hack
a sum of money paid in respect of certain shares which
subsequently turned out to be fictitious, to which the de-
fendant had pleaded, denying his liability, and upon this
plea issue Ras joined.
Mr. Jervis, Mr. M. Chambers, and Mr. Woodstock
appeared fin- the plaintiff; and Mr. Martin and Mr. Mills
for the defendant.
The plaintiff was the well-known dentist, and an ex-
tensive share speculator, and the defendant a share-
broker and a member of the Stock Exchange. The ac-
tion was instituted to recover 432/. 10s., which the plain-
tiff had paid to the defendant for 280 shares in the Kent-
ish Coast Railway, but the scrip certificates for which
shares subsequently turns d out not to be genuine, It
would appear from the evidence, that the Kentish Coast
Railway first originated in 1844, with Mr. Curling,
a solicitor, who induced Sir John Ayre, Mr.
Daniel, the chairman of the Blackwell Rail-
way Company, and several other gentlemen well
known in :he City, and of unimpeachable character, to
allow themselves to be published to the world as the
provisional committee of the undertaking, and it na-
.urally ensued 'that the application for allotment of
shares in the project were exceedingly numerous. The
shares were allotted in due course, but only a few of
them were paid upon—indeed, only seine 800/. upon
603 shares—and the result was, that a meeting of the
Directors was convened, aid a resolution come to, that
the scrip should not be issued ; but, at the re-
quest of Mr. Curling, the originator of the
project the Directors abstained from dissolving the
Company, or rather agreed to rest upon their oars till
the Board of Trade reported upon the line, the plans
having been made and deposited as previously agreed
upon, at the expense of Mr. Curling himself. In the
meanwhile, however, some of the Directors learned, to
their great astonishment, that the scrip of the Company,
which ought to have been signed by two of the acting
committee, had been issued by Mr. Curling and Mr.
Richardson, the secretary, signed only by the latter, and
was actually being largely dealt in upon the Stock Ex-
change. This circumstance, conjointly with an adverse
report of the Board of Trade, led to a second
meeting of the Directors, and at this meeting it was
resolved to repudiate the scrip issued by Mr. Curling,
upon which the deposits had been paid directly to the
Secretary without passing through the hands of the
Company's bankers, to refund the 800/. paid in the usual
and proper course upon the 603 shares befere alluded to,
and to put an end to the Company altogether. Now,
the plaintiff had purchased shares of the defendant in
this Kentish Coast Railway, but it afterwards turned
out that the scrip certificates delivered by the defendant
fbr these shares were portions of those repudiated by the
Directors, which, becoming worthless upon the formal
dissolution of the Company, the :plaintiff determitsed to
bring the present action to recover back the amount he
had paid to the defendant for the shares, as money had
and received.
Mr. MARTIN, in his address to the jury for the de-
fence said, the case involved a question of considerable
importance, which had never yet been before the Courts,
namely, what was the extent of responsibility a jobber
non the Stock Exchange incurred in selling scrip
certificates for railway shares. He apprehended and con-
tended that he incurred no responsibility at all, because
the certificate itself contained no contract, and the
broker warranted nothing beyond the signature to
the certificate. With respect to the solvency or likeli-
hood of the scheme being carried out, he had nothing
whatever to do, for the purchaser had the same means
as the broker himself of ascertaining the prudence or
imprudence of a purchase. The question was one of
law, send for the Court to decide; but there was a second
question in the case, which the jury would have to de-
cide, namely, had not Mr. Curling, in issuing these cer-
tificates, acted as the servant of the Directors, and were
they not bound by them, and liable to refund the plain-
tiff the money he had paid for them?
The LORD CHIEF BARON, in summing up, said a stock-
jobber was liable in the same way as other parties who
bought and sold. There was no mystery in dealing in
shares any more than there was in dealing in cotton. A
man bargained to buy cotton, the vendor was bound to
deliver the same, and that was the case with shares.
For instance, if a man bargained to buy a cask
of brandy, which had passed through many hands,
and it subsequently turned out to be water, it was no
defence to say, " The dock company delivered it as
brandy, and you must recover from them." All the
cases in the books supported this view, and the only
question the jury had to decide was, whether the shares
delivered by the defendant to the plaintiff were the shares
of the Kentish Coast Railway or not.
The jury retired to consider their verdict, and had no
come to any decision when our reporter left the Cour