The Sun.
London, England, 1829-11-02 00:00:00

defend the action; and they having found that he
had retained them to defend the action, a verdict
was taken by consent fur 771. 10s., subject to the
opinion of the Court above upon the main question.
In reply to an observation from the defendant's
Counsel, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE expressed his
opinion that no blame whatever attached to Mr.
Dalton. The whole case resolved itself into a mere
point of law.

PALACE COURT, OCT. 30.
CLEMENTS V. HOMAN.
This was an action brought by the plaintiff, who
keeps an academy called Prospect-house, Stoke
Newington, to recover from the defendant the sum
of 29/. 65., being for two quarters board and educa-
tion of his two sons, Isaac and John. As the de-

fendant acknowledged that he owed the plaintiff
for one quarter, and had tendered the amount, that
was not the subject of dispute ; and as he had given
notice of a set-off to the amount- of 9/. odd for
goods sold and delivered to the plaintiff, he had
paid into Court the difference which was .5/. 2s.
There was a written agreement between the
parties, which was to the following purport—" That
the plaintiff was to hoard and educate the defend-
ant's two sons according to the terms of a pro-

spectus circulated by plaintiff; that they were to
have washing, books, stationery, a seat in the
church, and haberdashery, but not to be taught]
music, dancing, or drawing, for 501. a year, and
that in case either party was dissatisfied, one quar-
ter's notice should be given. It appeared that at
the end of the first year, or January, 1829, the de-
fendant again took his sons to the plaintiff's school,
and left them with him, and that shortly after, or
about the beginning of February, one of the defend-
ant's sons (Isaac) was, for some alleged miscon-
duct, together with another boy of the name of
Arthur Owen, flogged with a cane in the public
school by the plaintiff, in consequence of which
they both, together with Owen's brother, ran home
to their parents' house. The defendant finding his
son strongly marked by the weapon of infliction, kept
him at home for some days, and then sent for his
son John, who brought home with him a pieceof pud-
ding to show his parents what kind of food they had at
school. A few days afterwards it appeared that the de-
fendant returned with his two sons to the plaintiff's

school, and there, in the presence of a witness, gave
positive directions that his boys shouid not receive cor-
poral punishment either for what they had done or
what they might do, that he objected to it entirely,
but to increased lessons, or confinement, &c. he

would by no means object, and in consequence of
some information communicated to him, on his leav-

ing the school he gave to one of his sons a note for
the plaintiff, in case he attempted to resume the cor-
poral punishment against which he had protested.—
When the defendant retired, however, the plaintiff,

the boy's coming into the Fchool, ordered him to
stand on the form, and was about to inflict corporal

punishment, when the boy produced the fa•Ler's
note to the plaintiff, with directions not to do so.
This was read aloud ; when the plaintiff said that as
defendant desired him not tl beat him with a cane,
he would comply with that, but that he would birch
him. One of the scholars was then desired to bring
a birch and some brine, which last was brought in
a dish, and the birch lay steeped in the brine for an
hcur. Both the defendant's son and Arthur Owen

had then their clothes stripped off, and they were
flogged with the birch steeped in the brine upon
their bare backs. The defendant hearing of this
went to the school and there learned that his other
son, John, had about five minutes before his a-tival
been flogged with a cane by the plaintiff in the pub-
lic school, for some other alleged misconduct, upon
which the defendant took both his boys away, from
the school; and it was for the board and education
of this quarter, as the defendant had not given a
quarter's notice, that the plaintiff now brought his
action.
Mr. FLANAGAN (for the defendant) proceeded to
detail the facts and"circumstances as they had been
generally stated on the outline of the case, and then
observed to the Jury that they would perceive that
this was a demand, not for board and education ac-

tually furnished by the plaintiff to the defendant's
sons,—not for any actual value which he had given,
—not for any real loss which he had suffered,—but
for a supposed breach of a certain agreement, and a
mere suppositious loss of pupils, whom in his decla-
ration he says he might have had if he had received
timely notice of the boys being to be removed from
his school. Whether the plaintiff had, by his con-
duct to the defendant's children, entitled him to
presume that he has suffered a loss by his supposi-
tion of an influx of new pupils, which has not taken
place, Mr. Flanagan observed that the gentlemen of
the jury would that day decide by their verdict ;
for undoubtedly, if the subjecting of his pupils to
ignominious punishment on the most trivial pre-
tences,—if the application of the most cruel, brutal,
unmanly, and ignominious torture for an offence, or
rather an act, which to x man conscious of not hav-
ing given any just grounds for its commission would
rather have excited laughter than revenge,—if such
an unnatural, wanton, and peevish exercise of autho-
rity, can recommend a schoolmaster or the keeper of
an academy to the protection and support of the
English public,—if fathers and mothers will be in-
duced to replenish the plaintiff's school, and give
him an increased supply of scholars upon those
grounds,—then certainly Mr. CleMents, the plaintiff,
had a right to make this supposed claim for the
probable loss which he says he has encountered.
I think, said Mr. Flanagan, that I have the good
fortune of addressing some fathers of families, and
without making a more forcible appeal to their pa-
rental feelings than the bare repetit►on of the facts
warrant me, what is the exchange ? Let any parent,
even of the most blunted feelings, however attached
to the old saw " of spare the rod and spoil the
child,"—let even such a father fancy himself open-
ing the plaintiff's school room-door, and see a lad of
12 or 13 years of age, stripped naked, (I may say in
a public school-room), where, perhaps, near a hun-
dred youths are collected, the miserable spectators
of this diabolical scene—let him stop but a moment
to see the horrible apparatus of a rod just after being
steeped in the brine purposely prepared for the occa-
sion, and this plaintiff-executioner, deaf to the cries
and bewailings of the unhappy sufferer, belabouring
him with this cruel scourge. I ask, is not this uns
seemly spectacle of itself sufficient to arouse the in-
dignation of any humane mind, were the sufferer not
in the slightest degree known to or con-
nected to you—nay, the child of the greatest
enemy you had in the world ? But advance ano-
ther step, and suddenly discover that your own son
is the disgraced victim of the executioner's bruta-
lity ! The law says, that if you find a man in the
act of adultery ssith your wife, and that you draw
your sword and plunge it into his body, it is
but mere manslaughter ; and Mr. Flanagan
emphatically put it to the jury, if any feel-
ing parent under the circumstances he had
descr►bed, was to find his child under such
an inhuman monster's hands, and had instantly
despatched him with a club or a pistol, whether lie
would not have the sympathies of all good men
upon his side. Gentlemen, after this, 1 shall not
harrow up your feelings by dwelling longer upon
this most disgusting and appalling scene. But can
you imagine impudence more hardened, effi outcry
more unblushing, than for this man to come into a
Court of Justice to demand retribution for his acts
of cruelty ? "My astonishment is, Mr. Flannagan
added, " how it has happened that the defendant
has not either indicted him for this cruel assault, or
brought his action. Ido believe that there are no
damages, however large, which the defendant might
demand that would not be promptly and cheerfully
given by a jury in such a case." Mr. Flanagan then
shortly recapitulated the grounds upon which he
trusted he bad maintained, not the propriety, but
the indispensable necessity which the defendant felt
himself under of immediately removing his children
from the plaintiff's school without giving the three
months' notice, which, under ordinary circumstances,
he was bound to give.
The Judge summed up the case with great im-