The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-08-26 00:00:00

THURSDAY,

In the adjourned case of Hollins v. Cross, Mr. Sergeant
WILKINS addressed the juryfor the defence, and de.

signated the plaintiff's case a dishonest attempt to obtain
money from Mr. Cross, the stains in question being caused
in the grey by the carelessness of the plaintiff himself.
The jury consulted for an hour, and returned a verdict for
the plaintiff, damages £2OO.

BROOKS V. THE BIRKENHEAD, LANCASHIRE, AND

CHESHIRE JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANY

The plaintiff was employed in the paving department of
the town of Manchester, and privately practised as a sur.
veyor. The action was brought for compensation for
persoial injury sustained by the railway accident in the
tunnel near Frodsl

am, on the occasion of the last Chester
races. After the crash. the plaintiff, with others. was
found lying under a 'carriage, with his face to the ground,
apparently crushed to death. Sixteen weeks had now
elapsed since the accident took place. The plaintiff was
placed upon his back in his own room, and in that position
up to this moment it had been necessary to keep him, it
not being deemed safe to raise him up even for the pur-
pose of making a better examination of the injuries he

had received. One of his legs had both bones broken—
not an ordinary fracture—the bones were protruding some
five inches from the skin, and it was mashed rather
than fractured. His left arm was broken, and his
breast bone was supposed to have received serious injury.
Surgical attendance alone up to the present would come to
nearly £3OO ; and for a long time to come those expenses
would have to be continued.—The damages were laid at
£5,000 —Mr. Sergeant Wilkins, for the defence, con-
tended that the company had been guilty of no negligence;
but even if the jury thought they had, then, in assessing
damages, he asked them would not £l,OOO be sufficient
to compensate the plaintiff for the injuries he had re-
ceived ? His lordship expressed his opinion that sufficient
care had not been exercised by the company to guard
against accidents when such a large increase of traffic- was
likely to take place, but left the question of damages
entirely to the jury. Without leaving the box, the jury
found a verdict for the plaintiff, damages £1,500.

FRIDAY.
ILLEGAL ABSTRACTION OF CANAL WATER.

ROCHDALE CANAL COMPANY V. RADCLIFFE.—Mr.
Attorney-General Knowles, Mr. Cowling, and Mr. Tom-
linson, for the plain iffs ; and Mr. Watson, Mr. Cromp-
ton, and Mr. Spinks, for the defence. The action was
brought by the company to vindicate their right to the
water of the canal, and to recover damages from the de-
fendant for the use of the water in a manner not autho-
rised by the act of parliament passed in the 34th year of
the reign of George 111., and which provided, in the 113th
section, that each manufacturer, whose land was within
twenty yards of the canal, had a right to lay down pipes
to draw the water off for the purpose of condensation, and
that only. Subsequent acts of parliament had recognised
thiS provision, and, in order to prevent abuse, the propri-
etors of the canal, or their agents, were empowered to go
upon the mill at seasonable times to inspect the engines,
&c. The defendant in the present action was Mr. Joshua
Radcliffe, a manufacturer, near Rochdale; and the first
count of the charge against him was that he had used
the canal water for the purpose of supplying the
boilers and generating the steam for working the
engine, for heating the mill, cleaning the boilers, sup-
.g a cistern, and for other purposes, at one of
ms mills, called the Moss-hall Mill, on the banks of the
Rochdale Canal, and near the Oldham-road—whereas,
according to the act, he ought only to have used the wa-
ter for condensing. The defendant did not deny that he
had thus used the water at the Moss-hall Mill, but he had
pleaded a user as a justification. The second count
charged the defendant with drawing from a drain (con-
necting another mill with the canal) a larger quantity of
water than was sufficient for the sole purpose of condensing
the steam and working the engines, and also that he had
drawn water for other purposes than that of condensing.
To this the defendant pleaded that the water so used had
not been obtained from the canal; and, secondly, that he
was possessed of certain lands for a term of years under a
lease, and that for twenty years he had had a use of the
water for the particular purpose of working the engines,
heating the mill, cleaning the boilers, and supplying the
cistern and engine-house with water. Evidence having
been adduced on the part of the plaintiff, Mr. WATSON,
for the defence, urged that an unfair advantage had been
taken of the literal wording of the act of parliament, for it
was an unprecedented thing to use one water for the en-
gines and another for the condensing. Besides, there
was no appreciable loss to the Canal Company, as the bulk
of the water was returned to the canal. Mr. Radcliffe, an
uncle of the defendant, built the mill in question in 1823,
when the drain to supply the mill with water was made,
openly and in the presence of an engineer named Mat-
thews ; and though the making of a drain was against the
act, yet, if under the assumption of right such a drain
had been made, and the water obtained through it had
been openly used for the purposes described for a period
of twenty years, the law recognised an acquired right to
its use. In 1829 a new mill was erected, or a new portion
added to the old one; and the defendant, supposing that
he had a right to use the water in the new mill for all the
purposes that he used it in the old premises, extended the
drain by twenty yards,

His LORDSHIP, in summing up, said that some intricate
pleadings had given rise to certain points of law which
would be reserved. Upon two questions of fact, however,
it was necessary for the jury to decide, first, whether
there were two mills ; and, secondly, whether the enjoy-
ment which had been proved for twenty years of the use
of the water for purposes other than condensing the steam
was of right or not ; and he explained that, in his view, it
must be an enjoyment that had taken place openly, and in
a manner that a person rightfully entitled would use.
The jury expressed their opinion that there was one mill,
and that the enjoyment had been as of right. A verdict
was then entered for the plaintiff, with leave for the de•
fendant to move for a verdict for himself, or enter a non-
suit upon any points which he could make. Damages ls.
on each count.