The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-24 00:00:00

on Tuesday to this- Company, and whether they intended
to bring the subject before the Board of Directors of the
Eastern Counties Railway ?
The SECRETARY said the subject had not been men-
tioned on Tuesday, but that the Eastern Counties Railway
tiok the most lively interest in the affairs of the Thames
Haven Company ; and the subject, he felt assured, would
receive their early consideration. The Secretary then
moved a resolution, to the effect that those Shareholders,
wishing to leave the Company, should transfer their
shares to the office, first paying up the calls upon them,
• which resolution was carried.
A resolution was then passed, that all the forfeited
shares sold from this date should be sold at 2/. 10s. less
than the original cost, that sum havinc, been paid upon
them by the original holders.
A vote of thanks was then passed to the Chairman,
and the Meeting separated.

STATE OF TRADE.
(From the Manchester Guardian.)
We are sorry to say that we cannot repo:t the slightest
improvement in business this week. On the centrary,
although the production both of goods and yarn has bee❑
very greatly diminished, it still exceeds the demand,
even at the wretched prices now prevalent. Many
articles_ have been sold this week at lower prices than
were ever before known ; and all this, we re-
gret to add, is without the slightest prospect of
amendment from any quarter, until a decline in th 3
price of -jihad shall enable the working classes of this
country to consume the natal amount of manufactured
cOmmodities. We believe, indeed, that some little
impravement has been experienced in some branches
uf the country trade ; but it retaains generally in a
state of depression perfectly unexampled at this periol
Of the Year.

ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKEL, MONDAY, FEB.- 21.
The market to-day has been quite as dull as that of the
preceding Monday. Those who have been obliged to.
sell, have obtained extremely low prices for their gooli.
In the wool market there has been very little. doing ;
but prices remain firm.
HUDDERSFIELD MARKET, FEB. 24.—This was cer-
tainly-. the most discouraging market-day ever known in
this town, bad as they have been of late. Buyers were
few and spiritless, and the purchases few even at ruinous
prices. In the warehouses, perhaps, business is not quite
so wretched ; but even there the symptoms are those of
stagnation and ruin. As to prices, they are nominal and
accidental; on the average ruinous to the manufacturers

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, Feb. 23.
(Sittings at Nisi Prius at Guildhall.)
BREEZE V. JARDINE AND OTHERS.
This was an action brought by the plaintiff, a solicitor re-
siding in Wales, to recover damages from the defendants, Mr.
Jardine, a wine merchant, and Beaumont and Bradley, two
officers in the City police, for an assault and false imprison-
ment, and for detaining certain property.
Mr. Jervis and Mr. Ogle appeared for the plaintiff.
From the evidence for the prosecution it appeared that the
plaintiff and his friend Mr. Williams, the High Sheriff of Me-
rionethshire, had been down to Blackwall on the 27th of May
last to eat white-bait, and returned to town in the evening by
the railway. The defendant Jardine was in the same car-
riage with them, arid plaintiff accused him of smoking a cigar.
Mr. Jardine denie 1 that he had been smoking; an altercation
ensued, which ended in Mr. Jardine's being taken into cus-
tody, oim the complaint of the plaintiff. On their arrival at
the station in the Minories, Mr. Jardine was taken to the
Tower police station, and charged with smoking. The charge
was taken, and tile plaintiff was called upon as usual to give
his name and address to appear, to support the charge. He
refused to state either his name or address, although re-
peatedly required to do so, and Mr. Jardine desired that he
should be detained until he had done so. The other de-
fendants said that plaintiff had placed them in a most awk-
ward situation, and urged him to give his name and address.
Plaintiff still refused to do, although, according to the testi-
mony of one of the witnesses, he said he said he objefved to
give his name as a prosecutor, but would do so as a witness.
He was then detained, but refusing when offered, to give bail,
was ultimately conveyed to the Compter, and locked up for the
n'ght. When taken before the Lord Mayor the next day,
Breeze was discharged, and after hearing the charge against
Mr. Jardine the Lord Mayor discharged him also, as he had no
jurisdiction in the case..
Before the defence was gone into, Lord DENMAN said that
certainly there was some case to go to the Jury, although he
thought it was not a case fur heavy damages, for the plaintiff
had, in a great measure, brought what had happened to him on
himself by his own absurd conduct. If the Jury took that
view of the case, perhaps if they were to state their opinion, it
might save some time.

ihe Foreman of the Jury, after the lapse of not more than
a minute, said, We find for the plaintiff, damages 201.
Lord DEN3fAX-Oh ! if that is the case, gentlemen, we
must hear the Learned Counsel for the defence.
itlr. JERVIS protested against the counsel for the defence
being heard. they had chosen to take the chance of a ver-
dict, and it was exceedingly irregular to let them enter into
the defence now.

Lord Detimart..--The irregularity was mine. I thought if
the jury agreed with me in opinion we might have saved time.
As it is, the case for the defence must be gone into.
Mr. Hill, on the part of the defendant Bradley, Mr. P 1 att.
on the part of the defendant Jardine, and %Ir. Kelley on the
part of the defendant Beaumont, respectively addressed the
jury.
For the defendant, Jardine, witnesses were examined, from
whose testimony it appeared that Mr. Jardine had no cigars
with him, and was not smoking previous to his entering the
carriage in which plaintiff and Mr. Williams were ; that on his
arrival in the Alinories, when accused of having been smok-
ing, he denied it, and that plaintiff insisted on Jardine's being
taken in charge. :fliat the carriage was examined by the rail-
way officers, and that it did not smell of tobacco. That de-
fendant, Beaumont, was sent for, and that at his request they
all went to the station-house together, and that neither the dress
nor the breath of Jardine smelled of tobacco. That when Jar-
! dine was brought to the st9tion-house, plaintiff refused to
give his name and address, although repeatedly urged
to do so, because he had given a person in charge;
! that plaintiff was very much excited, and kn-cked the pen on:
of the policeman's,hani while the policeman was in the act of
writing Mr. Williams's name as plaintiff's bail ; that plaintiff
refused to allow Mr. Williams to give his name and address,
and that ultimately Beaumont gave Breeze in charge for re-
fusing to give his name and widress, after having given Jar-
dine into castody. It further appeased, that when, on the
next morning, the policeman' tendered to plaintiff his watch
and money which had previously been taken from him, and
requested him to sign the book, he refused to do so, saying
the entry therein was not true, and he would not sign it,
and that as the policeman refused to restore the property with-
out his signing the book, Breeze replied, " Very well ; you
have brought a pretty hornet's nest about your ears."
Air. JERVIS replied.
Lord DeNAIAN summed up, and observed that he consi-
dered the plaintiff acted a most obstinate and strange part, in "
refusing to give his name and address after having made a
charge, but no doubt he had suffered considerable injury from
having been shut up. for the night, and if they could in any way
make out that the infliction of that imprisonment was a joint
proceeding, he would be entitled to recover compensatioa for
it. With regard to character, although there had been con-
siderable obstinacy on all sides, he did not consider that any
imputation rested on the characters of any of the parties
concerned.

Verdict for the plaintiff, damages 151., and that the three
defendants were joint trespassers during a portion of the time
in question.
Mr. D. W. Harvey was present in Court during the greater
part of the trial, which lasted neatly six hours.

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, Feb. 23.

SOMES V. BLISS,

This was an :iction to recover an amount for salvage, for
services rendered to the ship Harriet, while in danger of being
wrecked at Wahoo, in the Pacific Ocean.
_ _

Mr. Thesiger appeared for the plaintiff, and Sergeant Wilde
for the defendant.

The arguments on both sides occupied the Court for t.everal
hours; Sergeant Sir T. Wilde concluded hit address shortly after
two o'clock, and then pc oceeded to call witnesses in support of
his case ; the examination of witnesses occupied the remainder
of the day.

CONSISTOR,Y COURT, Feb 23.

THE DRAINTItiE CASE.-VELEY AND JOSLIN, CHURCH-

WARDENS, C. GOSLING.

The present case came before the Court on the admission to
prove the libel, and the facts connected with it originated in
the decision of the Court of Exchequer Chamber, on
the well known case of the Churchwardens of Braintree
v. Burden. In that case the parishioners of the pa-
rish of Braintree, in Essex, having refused to make
a rate to repair the parish church, a suit for substraetion of
Church-rates was instituted against Mr. Burder, one of the
parishioners of the said parish, by. the churchwardens ; but a
writ of prohibition . having been obtained from the
Court of Queen's Bench, which was subsequently
confirmed by the Court of Exchequer Chamber,
the proceedings of the churchwardens were declared to be in-
valid. The churchwardens thereupon called a vestry for the
pith of May 1841, when a rate to repair the church was again
sought to be made, but which was again refused by amajority
of the inhabitants. The vicar of the parish, the Rev.
Bernard Scale, in consequence of that report, sought
and obtained a decree under the seal of the
Court, calling upon the churchwardens and parishioners
to show cause why a Monition should not issue against them,
to compel them to take steps to repair the church. The pa-
rishioners not having appeared, the monition accordingly
issued, and the churchwardens, in obedience to it, convened a
vestry on the 15th of July, 1841, at which it was pro-
pose to impose a church-rate of two shillings in the pound.
fo the proposition so made an amendment was proposed, and
carried by a majority of the parishioners, to, the effect that the
tax was unjust, and an interference with the religious freedom
of the subject. The churchwardens then, of their own autho-
rity, made a rate of 2s. ; and Mr. Gosling, a party refusing,
being cited to appear for his refusal to pay his assessment on
231., a libel on his behalf was prayed for, and the arguments
for its admission were now heard by the Court.
Dr. ADDAMS, for the defendant, entered at great length
on the judgment in the case of the Churchwardens against
;'order, delivered by Chief Justice Tindal in the Court of
Exels. ~-,?,uer Chamber. He contended that the rate made was
bad, becati>e a majority of the parishioners had voted against
the rate, and that the votes of the majority were not lost, be-
cause they refused to submit to a rating. The case
was quite distinct from that of a Corporation met to el&t
an officer, and some of them refusing to proceed to the election,
in which case the votes would be void. The argument from
analogy thrown out by the Learned Chief Justice was fanciful,
because the one was a case of obligation, and the other one of
privilege. As to how far the present was a Common Law obliga-
tion he would say one word ; hecontended that that was not the
Court in which the rase ought tube enforced it it were a common
law obligation. It was the custom of England for the
parishioners to repair the nave of the church, anti not the
chancel, which the parson was bound to repair. The Learned
Advocate cited numerous eases, to show that the parishioners
were not bound to repair the whole of the church, and that
therefore titivate must be bad. He allowed that in one sense the
making of the rate was one of Common Law obligation, but
not in the sense in which it was assumed to be so in the judg-
ment of Lord Chief Justice.Tindal. It was half civil and half
eccles'astical, and the present was not the proper juris-
diction to apply to to enforce the proper rate. He objected
to the proceeding, because it was a mongrel proceeding.
If the rate was legal, the proper mode of proceeding would
be by distress ; and he had no doubt, if that mode of proceeding
was adopted, the present defendant would allow his goods to be
taken, and there would be an end of the ease. They had no
right to take the present mode of proceeding, to impose on
Englishmen, contrary to the Bill of Rights, what they considered
to be a violation of their rights, and against their consent. The
present case did not concern the Church generally, for he sup-
posed that 99 out of every 100 parishes would have no difficulty
to repairimrtheir churches.. There was another reason who
the Court. would not. sanction the rate, which would in Popish
countries be considered almost miraeulous, and which he
supposed the Puseyites would' also consider somewhat of a
marvel now that they were approaching to P.pery. That