The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-29 00:00:00

SHEPHERD V. PYBUS.

This was an action upon a guarantee for the soundness
of a barge, which was alleged to have been leaky at the
time of the sale. The Jury found for the plaintiff: Sub-
sequently a rule nisi was obtained for a new trial ; and,
upon the argument, their Lordships took time to consider
judgment, and this day they made the rule absolute.

PADDOCK P. FORESTER.

The circumstances of this case have been already
fully reported. It was an action against the repre-
sentative of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the pos-
session of coal mines in Staifordt,hire, for tres-
pass in entering upon the lands of a copy-
holder on the ducal manor to dig for coal. The ver-
dict was for the defendant, and their Lordships this day
gave judgment upon the rule nisi since obtained to set
that aside.— They discharged the rule.

COURT OF REVIEW, Jan. 28.
IN RE NASH.
Mr. M'CintisTlE applied, on behalf of the petitioner,
for an order in this matter, under these circumstances :
He stated that his client had issued a fiat against Jona-
than Nash and Robert Nash, as the supposed names of
the partners constituting the firm of Jonathan Nash and
Son, brew'ers at Bristol ; that the commission was duly
opened under which the petitionine• creditor's debt, the act
of trading, and the act of bankruptcy, were proved ;
that the parties were then adjudicated to be bankrupts,
and that they had surrendered. That subsequently it
was discovered that the name of one of the partners was
not Robert Nash, but Robert Lucas Nash, upon which.
the Commissioners not only refused to proceed. but can-
celled the adjudication. In this state of things the
Learned Counsel prayed that the Court would have the
goodness to order that the fiat should be amended by the
insertion of the name Lucas.
The COURT observed that it was not usual to order
that a fiat should be amended after the adjudication had
been made.
Mr. WCHRISTIE said that by obtaining the order he
now asked fur no injury could result to any one, whereas
if his client were put to the alternative of having to issue
a new fiat, not only considerable extra costs would be
incurred, but much inconvenience occasioned by con-
veying witnesses from afar to prove de novo all that
had already been proved, and which appeared upon the
proceedings under the commission then in Court before
his Honour.
The COURT said it was induced to think ithat in this
case the order might be made.
Mr. WO:mum then said the time for makini the

r adjudication would expire to-days, and, therefore, it was •
necessary for him, as the Court had been pleased to grant
the indulgence prayed for, then to trouble his Honour
by asking that he would have the goodness to enlarge
the time for making the adjudication for a fortnight.
His HONOUR inquired if the petition prayed for that ?
Mr. M'CHRISTIE was sorry to say there was an omis-
sion in the prayer of the petition to that effect, but he
trusted the Court would allow the petition to be amended
in that respect, and that the enlargement should be di-
rected upon the petition when so amended.
His HONOUR ordered it to be so.

CONSISTORY COUI?T,Jan. 27.
DILLON V. DILLON.

This was a suit for divorce by reason of adultery by
the Rev. R. C. Dillon, D.D., against Frances Charlotte,
his wife. The libel pleaded that the parties were mar-
ried on the 26th of November, 1839; that on the 29th of
flecember, 1840, Mrs. Dillon, with the permission of her
husband, proceeded in a Gravesend steamer on a visit to
her mother, Mrs. Drury, who resided in the neighbour-
hcod of Gravesend; that, instead of going thither, she was
met on her arrival at Gravesend by a man unknown t:;,
Dr. Dillon, with whom she proceeded to the-Sir. John
Falstaff, a road-side inn, midway between
and Chatham, where they passed th^., night, slept to-
gether, and left the next mornie.-6 ; -t.T.'ravesend
ignorant of this fact till 11,17.•
y
to the inn, and, inthat Dr. Dillon was
1841, when he proceeded
_ order to ascertain the identity of
casion, he
his wife with t/' d female who slept at the inn on that oc-
.
-arranged with the landlord that he should
eete:-to the Polytechnic Institution on the 10th of May,
whither Dr. Dillon would take his wife ; and that the
landlord there recognised her to be the same person. The
defensive allegation on the part of Mrs. Dillon denied the
imputed adultery, and pleaded that, in fact, she had
passed the night of the 29th of December at her mo-
ther's house ; and further, that Dr. Dillon was barred
by his own conduct, after he had, as he alleged, reason-
able ground for suspecting his wife's infidelity, and even
after the, suit had commenced, from the remedy he
sought. In his answer to his wife's allegation, Dr. Dillon
admitted that, on the night of the day on which he had
been informed of his wife's misconduct, he had slept with
her and conducted himself towards her cordially and af-
fectionately, in order not to excite her suspicions till he
had established her identity with the person who had
slept at Gad's-hill, by means of the recognition on the
10th of May.
Dr. ADDAMS, for Dr. Dillon, began by observing that
the marriage of the parties had notbeen celebrated under
very happy auspices, and had not led to very happy re-
sults. The defensive allegation attempted to set up that
.the affections of Dr. Dillon having become alienated
-from his wife, he had by his language and behaviour
evinced an anxiety to get rid of his wife, and said he
would get rid of her. In the teeth of this it was also
pleaded, that he had barred himself of that remedy by
a condonation. The two witnesses brought to prove
the terms on which they lived differed from each
other. Both agreed that they lived very unhap-
pily ; but one of them imputed declarations to Dr.
Dillon to this effect : " I wish to God I could get
rid- of you, and I'll see if I can't do it." The other
witness declares she never heard him say he was
anxious to get rid of his wife, or that he would get
rid of her; but only that "he would not bear it
any longer, and would leave immediately." Now, one
of Dr.
_Dillon's witnesses, Mr. Wingate, had been in
terrogated as to whether he did pot kick his wife, and
whether his conduct was not disgraceful, unmanly, and
brutal. The witness denied this expressly, as well as
that Dr. Dillon declared his wish to get rid of his wife ;
but Mr. Wingate said he had beard Dr. Dillon declare
thati' UT was impossible they could live together much
hinger,", owing to her violent conduct towards him, and
to her frequently absenting herself from his house. The
libel charged Mrs. Dillon with adultery with a person
who is unknown to Dr. Dillon.

Dr. LUSHINGTON—IS he ? One of the interrogatories
would lead us to suppose the contrary.
1)r. ADDAMS—Whatever suspicion Dr. Dillon may
have had, I presume it was not confirmed. The charge
of adultery was proved by Wilson, the landlord of the
inn at Gad's-hill, his wife, and the chambermaid, who
stated that a lady and gentleman came to their house on
the evening of the '29th of December, 1840, slept there,
and departed after breakfast the next morning. These
witnesses had identified Mrs. Dillon as the same
lady. They could not have been mistaken, nor could
it be contended that they were not credible. On
what ground could it be suggested that they came for-
ward to support a false story ? Not to gratify any pur-
pose of malignity, and no money could bribe such per
sons to be guilty of perjury for such an object, nor was
there reason to suppose that if Dr. Dillon had the incli-
nation he had the means of bribing them. The witnesses
had ample opportunity to notice the lady's person, which
was in one respect remarkable, she having had the mis-
fortune to lose an eye. The landlord waited upon them;
the chambermaid undressed the lady, who told her that
she was going to see her mother at Gravesend, whom
she had not seen for eight or nine years. Was it pos-
sible that on the 29th of December, 1840, about six or
seven o'clock in the evening, another lady, having lost
one eye, and so like Mrs. Dillon that three witnesses
swore she was her, should come with a gentleman to
that identical inn, and pass the night, and that no dili-
gence could discover who she was, if not Mrs. Dillon ?
It was much more probable that the witnesses who sup
ported the alibi should be mistaken.
Dr. LUSHINGTON—The great difficulty in this case is
to know how the information of his wife's infidelity came
to the knowledge of Dr. Dillon. The Court is left
wholly in the dark in this respect.
1)r. ADDAMS—By an anonymous letter,
Dr. LUSHINGTON—Where is the letter ?
Dr. ADDAMS—It is not in existence.

Dr. LIISIIINGTON—I remember that Lord Stowell re-
fused to pronounce for a divorce on the sole ground
that it was not pleaded how the suspicions first came
into the husband's mind.

Dr. ADDAMS-It is not the practice, as far as I know,
to plead precisely how the information came to the hus-
band. Dr. Dillon has used all diligence to ascertain
with whom his wife passed the night. Nothing could
be more proper than his proceedings in order to
trace out the facts. When he first heard of the charge
he thought it a mistake. After he had seen the people
at the inn he was shocked ; but what was he to
do? To excite this lady's violence, or hurt her
feelings by mentioning it ? He took a more prudent
course, and brought up the landlord of the inn to iden-
tify her at the Polytechnic Institution,, telling him un-
less he was certain it was the same person not to address
her, but if he had no doubt to speak to her. The land-
lord was certain of her identity, and, addressing her,
said, " Good morning ; I hope you are better ;" telling
her that her " good gentleman" had said she would
come to the inn again. Mrs. Dillon looked confused,
and observed that he had mistaken the person ; but in
the course of the conversation she whispered to him,
" Say it was not me; say you are mistaken in the
person." The Old Bailey defence of alibi was sup-
ported by Mrs. Drury, the mother of Mrs. Dillon,
Miss Rumbold, Mrs. Dillon's sister, Elizabeth Lloyd,
a dressmaker, and Emily Dix, the servant. The evi-
dence of the first two and the last was nothing more
nor less than wilful perjury. As to the alleged con-
donation, Dr. Dillon, till he had ascertained his wife's
guilt, was compelled to put
.on his best face, and not
alarm her suspicions and provoke her violence. It was
true., that whilst the suit was depending on two occasions
he had most imprudently had some conversation with his
wife in the public road, at Bayswater, where she resided;
but this was only a proof of the simplicity of his cha-
racter. He had no doubt been decoyed into these inter-
views, and the witnesses had made the most of them.
Upon the whole he could not conceive a grosser case
of adultery, and Dr. Dillon was fully entitled to a sen-
tence of divorce.

Mr. HAGGARD, for Mrs. Dillon, called the Court's at-
tention, in the first place, to the circumstance, that the
libel did not plead the marriage in the usual form; there
was a total omission of any previous courtship. The
witness examined in support of the marriage, Mr.
William Wingate, who was present at it, states that
he had known Dr. Dillon for fifteen years, from the
time he was curate of Willesden, consequently he was
at the time of the marriage not less than forty; whereas
Mrs. Dillon was at the time under twenty. Mr. Wingate
further said, that he had heard from Dr. Dillon that
she had been seduced, and had had a child by him,
which was born when she was only 18. This having
been the manner in which Dr. Dillon had conducted
himself towards his wife before marriage, it was not to
be wondered at that they should not have lived happily
together. As to the terms on which they, lived, declara-
tions had been proved to have come from Dr. Dillon of
his anxiety to get rid of his wife ; but it was not till
May, 1841, that there was the slightest suggestion by
Dr. Dillon of the remotest idea being entertained by him
of her infidelity ; nothing had occurred to excite sus-
picion, no rumour, not a single instance of levity, fa-
miliarity, or proximate act leading up to the charge ;
there was merely a single isolated imputation. The
evidence of the witnesses in support of the charge was
full of improbabilities and inconsistencies. The descrip-
tion of the female supposed to be Mrs. Dillon was
meagre ; there was no account of her dress, her height,
or even which eye was defective. Nothing, in fact, was
'Jutted by the witnesses as the ground of their belief of
her identity with Mrs. Dillon but the loss of the eye. Mrs.
Dillon might justly say, without any silly joke, that it
was " all my eye." The same defect - might attach to
half the persons who visited the inn in December. Dr.
Dillon did not make any inquiries as to the man by
ivhom the female was accompanied. Mrs. Wilson, the
landlady of the inn, said that when Dr. Dillon came
there to make inquiries he told them that he had been
repeatedly written to about his wife, and advised to
watch her movements. Where were those letters ?
Did they suggest a probable cause of inquiry, or the
propriety of ceasing cohabitation? He stated that he
paid no attention to these intimations till he received
a letter from the friend of the gentleman who had
been with his wife at the inn. Where, then, was the
difficulty of
ye
f findingt
Dr. D himoiultl,ona, thoughndofbe inquisitive:ngi ngaaction
against hi
re-
specting his wife, askedno questions, as to the person
who was with her. On the part of the wife the case
was, that she had gone down to visit her mother on the
29th of December, and had slept at her house on that
night arid every subsequent night -till Sunday, when she
returned home; and -the witnesses deposed positively
supporting their recollection of the day by facts and cir-
cumstances, that it was Tm?sday, the 29th, and Mrs.
Drury had made a reemorandtun of the day when her
daughter came. On the other hand, one of the wit-
nesses, Dix, stated that a person, whom she believed to
be Dr. Dillon, had endelvo r. d to persuade her to say
that it was Wednesday. Supposing, however, that the
Court thought that the evidence in support of the libel
preponderated, the question rmained, whether Dr.
Dillon was not barred from remedy by his own conduct.
He bad admitted that at lrist for one night after he had
been informed of her gui:t, he had cohabited with his
wife, having been, by his own account, frequently
warned of her conduct. What difficulty could
Dr. Dillon have found in vrithdrawing him
self for one night, till. he hid .cwipleo ai