Star.
London, England, 1822-07-01 00:00:00

some irregularity on their part
ducting their business, or the i
wrappers would not have heen
where they were. The COurt,
st.inces, would be lenient in tht.
were bound to convict, because
port of the piosecution had
though it was wished the Cour)
discharged servant had place(
they were seized.—The judgment of the Court was,
that the penalty should be mitigated from L:200 to
Forty Shillings.
THE KING R. HODGKINS.
Mr. Thomas Hodgkins, the proprietor of an oyster
and shell-fish warehouse, in Brydges-street, Covent-
garden, was charged.on information with retailing
porter in his rooms without being regularly licensed.
Mr. Hodgkins pleaded not guilty, but admitted
the porter having been sold and drank in his rooms,
but that it was fetched from the adjoining public-house.
The COURT inquired if he received any profit on
the beer purchased at the public-house, and sold in
his rooms? Mr. Hodgkins said, he certainly did
receive a penny profit on each pot.
The COURT said, that was quite enough, and he
was ordered to pay a mitigated penalty of E. 5.

- -
WESTMINSTER SESSIONS.
Saturday, James Ward, Patrick Leeson, Thomas
Kelly, Jeremiah Langham, and Peter Langham, were
indicted, with tea other persons, not in custody, with
creating a disturbance and riot at the house of Mr.
Oakland, the City of London public-house, in Ber-
wick•street, Soho, in the parith of St. James, on Sun-
day evening, the 2d of June.
There were seven counts in the indictment, five of
them for violently assaulting the officers, and one on
the landlady of the house.
The Jury found all the prisoners—Guilty.
The COURT sentenced Ward and Leeson to three
months, Kelly and J. Langham to one month, and
Peter Langham to fourteen days imprisonment, in the
House of Correction, and to be kept to hard labour.
The persons in custody for the disturbance and riot
in Great Peter-street,'Westminster, on Whit Monday,
the 27th of May last, during which dreadful affray a
man named Ralph Welsh was accidentally shot, and
who died of his wounds on Wednesday last, in the
Infirmary, were placed at the Bar ; they consisted of
sixteen men and one woman. The prisoners severally
pleaded Not Guilty. The charge of riot was clearly
made out against eight of them, who were found
guilty, and sentenced by the Court to various terms
of imprisonment in the house of Correction, and to
be ke;A to hard labour. The others, after a severe
admonition from the Learned Chairman, were or-
dered to be discharged.—The Sessions ended.

CONSISTORY COURT, JUNE 8.

BLYTII T. SODEN', FALSELY CALLED BLYTII.

This was a proceeding at the instance of Mr. Samuel Blyth,
of the parish of St. Videst, Foster-lane, London, to obtain a sen-
tence of the Court declaratory of the inv:::idity of a marriage,
which appeared to have taken place between his son, Augustus
Frederick Blyth, a minor of the age of eighteen years, and Sarah
Soden, a servant in the family.
The facts of the case, as they appeared in evidence, were
these:—Mr. Blyth has been for some time resident at Paris,
with his family. Sarah Soden, who is about twelve years older
than the minor, lived as lady's maid in his family for about three
years. In September last (1821), she obtained leave to go to
England on some businesi, as she represented, of her own;
and Mr. Augustus Frederick Myth, at the same time, had per-
mission from his lather to leave home for a few days on an ex-
cursion to Chantilly ; but instead of going thither, he proceeded
unknown to his lather ith Sarah Soden to Dover, where they
arrived on the Bth of September. A Mr. Minimal, an old
neighbour of Sarah Soden, and a Miss Sixty, a friend of his,
ware applied to, to be present at the ceremony, and a marriage
accordingly took place between the parties the next morning
(September 9th, 1821), in the Parish Church of St. Mary-the-
Virgin, Dover, by virtue of a license obtained upon the usual
affidavit that both the parties were of age. It appeared that
Sarah Soden, in conversation with Mr. lierrl,on after the mar-
riage, acknoveledged to him that it war a runaway match, un-
known to any of Mr. Illy th's family, and that Mr. Augustus
Frederick Blyth was only eighteen years of age. " But, she
added, " you don't blame me, do you ?—There's plenty of
money ;" and on Mr. Harrison asking her how they got over
the oath to the affidavit as to his being of age ? she replied—
" Oli ! I told him se lien he came to that part to mumble it over."
None of Mr. Blyth's children, it appeared, had ever been bap-
tised, conse9tience of sonic objections entertained by Mr.
Itlyth to the ceremony of infant baptism; but the birth of Mr.
Augustus Myth was fully proved by Dr. Ridout, the medical
gentleman who attended Mrs. Myth, and by another person
who was in the house at the time, to have taken place on the
31. t Of August, 1803, and they were confirmed by the testimony
of the brother and sister of the minor. The marriage was fully
proved by Mr. Harrison and Miss Salty, by the usual documen-
tary evidence. Miss Blyth, the sister of the minor, having be-
come acquainted with the 'Darr:age, after sonic hesitation, made
it known to her father in February lust. He was very much
distressed and agitated by the intelligence, and his whole con-
duct spewed that that was the first knowledge he had or it. Ile
came immediat: ly to England, where Sarah Soden was, and in-
stituted the present suit.
Dr. JENNER submitted, that as the facts of the marriage, mi-
nority, and non-consent of parents, together with identity of the
parties were clearly proved, the Court would proceed to pro-
nounce for nullity.
Dr. LUSHINGTON said, that as Counsel for the party proceeded
against, he did not mean to oppose the suit on the ground of
proof of the facts; but this being a case under the old Marriage
Act, he should reserve the privilege of an appeal, as soon as it
might be ascertained what the new Marriage-Law would be,
JUD9MINT.—The Court observed, that the case came fully
within thr provisions of the Act, and within the principle which
bad been held in different forms in all countries, requiring the
consent of the. parent to the marriage of minor children. The
beneficial effects of such a restriction had never been doubted in
individual cases, though there was much diversity a f opinion as
to the means by which it should be obtained, whether by pre-
ventive measures merely, or by the consequence of nullity which
had been established in the 3larriage Act. There could be no
doubt that preventive measures would be preferable, if they
could be relied upon as effectual. But the Law has hitherto
thought, that they could not; and future experience may per-
haps confirm that apprehension. In the present case, the mino-
rity and the identity of the parties, and the want of the consent
of the father of the miner, are fully established. The parties
acted in privity and concert in endeavouring to defeat the pro-
visions of the law, by a false oath that the minor was of age, and
with some expressions as to the manner in which that oath was
to be got over, that mark strongly the fraudulent object of the
parties. It is the case of a minor son, induced by an artful and
experienced woman, who was a servant in the family, to elope
from his father's house, and come to England, where the mar-
riage was celebrated under this false representation. There can
hardly be a case more strictly within the beneficial application
of the law as it now stands. Whether any projected change (of
which the party has declared his intention of taking the advantage
by appeal) will affect this case,the Court cannot presume to judge.
It the alteration is to be retrospective, it is reasonable to suppose
that the nature of cases to which it may apply will have been
considered by an accurate reference to the circumstances of cases
that have actually occurred in the experience of these Courts, or
may now be depending. In that form the present case and the
class of cases that may exist under similar circumstances may not
be out of the contemplation of the legislature; and it may be pre-
! , snmed that parties in such a situation will not be precluded from
, ! the benefit of the existing law, so peculiarly applicable to such
cases, by any alteration of the general law that may be necessary
or expedient on other grounds. The Court has, however, only to
' I pronounce on the law as it now stands; and to express that there
has been no case that has come before it on which it has decided

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r,CI"C!

sad/fiction than n declacinithilikrial as celebrated
and in this case, to be nun and void.
marriNe was accordingly pronounced null and void, and
Sarah Soden asserted an appeal.
CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
ARDSNSOF THE PARISH OF GREAT WAL-
N ESSEX, v. THE REV. DR. CLARKE.

of the Court ea Friday morning, Dr. CLadars
_ . attendance, the articles were read, charging him with a
series ofirregularities in the discharge of his dudes ; among the
principal were :—after appointing a certain time for baptising
the infant children of several of his parishioners, refusing to do
so ; his altering the form of the Church Service, by reading the
Burial instead of the regular Service ; his neglecting to perform
Morning Service ; and finally, stopping up the keyhole of the
church door with a wooden plug, so that neither himself. Church-
wardens, nor parishioners, could gain admittance ; in conse-
quence of which it became necessary to break it open by force.
When the articles had been read, Dr. Ceases offered to ad-
dress the Court, bat was interrupted by the Judge, who pointed
out the regular course of proceeding. In acting u Counsel fur
himself, he might inadvertently admit what would turn out to
be disadvantageous to himself ; whilst, from his denial, he could
take no benefit, but serious inconvenience, from admission of
facts. Then, with regard to these articles being frivolous and
♦exatious, if be meant to take that objection, the Court was
bound to hear him patiently. Defendant would, however, take
notice, that these were serious and grave charges, as regarded the
due performance of his clerical duties, and which the country
required very strictly from a Gentleman in his situation. If he
meant to contend that these articles were so frivolous and so ab-
surd as to carry no legal inference, the Court would hear him.
Dr. Ccaatic said he had to observe, with respect to their
being frivolous and vexatious, he remembered Sir William Scott
(now Lord Stowell) to have said, that a party coming into a
Court of Justice should come with clean hands. How could
this be said of the Churchwarden, who borrowed from him the
key of the Cifiirch door for improper purposes? Finding he did
not return it, and that he was about to introduce some certain
fixtures, to which he (Dr. Clarke) objected, he bad recourse to
stopping up the lock, in hopes that when the Archdeacon next
visited he would order a new lock with three keys to be made,
and which was very much wanted. He (Dr. Clarke) had done
as much Church sorvice a 3 he was able. He had done the duties
of the door, •opener, beil-ringer, and cluck•winder, as well as that of
Clergyman, for these last twenty years. He bad prepared an
Address in Latin, out of delicacy to the Archdeacon (whose
hands, he would say, were no more clean than those of the
Churchwarden); the Court, however, had objected to his Latin
Address on a former occasion.

Sir C. RODINSO2I.—.I have much pleasure in reading your
Latin in my Chambers, but in'this Court we must proceed in
the language of the country, which is English.
Dr. CLansit proceeded—This suit was promoted by the
Tufrnell family, by whom he and Mrs. Clarke had been great
losers. When he first came there he lost by them £l2OO in law,
besides £2O a year, which he was to have had for preaching
twice on Sundays, and which was 20 years in arrear to him.
The COWIT intimated, that on the next Court day it would
proceed to admit these articles, unless found liable to legal objec-
tions : in the meantime the defendant would consider what issue
he meant to give in.
1)r. CLARNZ observed, he had the misfortune to have lost his
hearing in one ear, and was besides aged and infirm.
The Cocaz.admonished him to attend next Friday.

UNI VERSIT I INTELLIGENCE.

.
irt in the roodetof con-1 with mimedel
two pairs of uncancelled 1 or rafn dill
een found by the
.officers I Alm muriallfi
the Proctor for &
rt, under all.the circum-
their judgment, for they
nil CHU/WHY/4
case the evidence in sup-
d not been impeached, TRAM, IN
being in
oust should inter that a On the
attendant
sitting t
iced the wrappers where
series of irregular