way. It appeared to him that the law and the justice of the case required that he should reverse the judgment of the Court below. His opinion was in favour of the law as stated by Sir William Wynne, and that the rejection of the libel would be contrary to law and Justice. Possibly, in this case, as in the former, the Court might be prohibited by the Court of Queen's Bench; and this case might travel by writ of error to the Exchequer Chamber, and possibly the result might be, that the law had not been truly laid down by this Court, though he had no right to anticipate such a result; or possibly the case might be appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. If the case did go up there, the whole question would be then set at rest; and if this rate was pronounced invalid, it would be for the Legislature to interfere, and devise some means of compelling parties to discharge their legal obligation. He was of opinion that the judgment of the Court below was erroneous; he pronounced for the appeal, retained the principal cause, and admitted the libel, reserving the question of costs.

OXFORD CIRCUIT.

GLOUCESTER, April 13. NISI PRIUS COURT.-SEDUCTION. GRINNELL V. WELLS.

In this case, which was an action for the seduction of the plaintiff's daughter, Mr. Godson and Mr. Gray conducted the plaintiff's case, and Mr. Serjeant Talfourd and Mr. Greaves that of the defendant.

cally termed " of the first impression," the declaration alleging as the foundation of the action, not, as usual in such cases, the loss which the plaintiff had sustained by being deprived of his daughter's services, but that owing to the gross misconduct of the defendant, the plaintiff's daughter had become pregnant, and that the child of which she had been delivered had become a burthen to the plaintiff. The defendant is a farmer, occupying about 200 acres of land near Broadway, and is also possessed of some freehold property; and he is moreover a Poor Law guardian of the union in which he resides. He is a widower, and in the vigour of life, being thirty-three years of age. The plaintiff is now a miller, and was in 1841 the master of the national school at Prestwich, near Manchester, and he had previously kept a small general dealer's shop at Broadway. His family consists of six daugh. ters, the eldest of whom, Alice, was fourteen years of age on the 11th of March, 1841. It appear ed that Mrs. Grinnell and the late Mrs. Wells had been schoolfellows, and intimate friends, and, as the plaintiff's means were very limited, Mrs. Wells offered to take Alice into her family as a nursery governess to her children, of which she had four, at a salary of 81. per annum. The offer was thankfully accepted, and Alice Grinnel entered the defendant's service in that capacity on the 15th of February, 1841. On the 9th of April following, which was Good Friday, Mrs. Wells died in childbed, and it was but a few weeks after this heavy affliction had fallen upon

was a misapprehension on the part of Dr. Lushington to suppose that the Judge (Sir W. Wynne) in deciding that case, never thought he was deciding the point whether the churchwardens and the minority could make a valid rate. The fact that the rate was made not by the majority had been brought distinctly to his notice, and it could not be supposed that a Judge with the knowledge and experience of Sir W. Wynne should have been ignorant of the law with respect to church-rates. The allegation, which stated that the rate had not been made by the majority, was signed by Sir W. Scott, and on his advancement to the Chair of the Admiralty Court, Dr. Arnold, a learned and able advocate, took his brief, and no opposition was made on that ground, nor was the point argued. As to the anomalies and irregularities in the proceedings in that case, they did not originate in the Court of Arches, nor did they prevent that Court from adjudicating the case upon its merits. Sir W. Wynne, who was the last person to be suspected of making law, must, therefore, be considered to have decided that a rate by the churchwardens and a minority was a good and valid rate, and might be enforced; that decision was acquiesced in, and was consequently a precedent absolutely in point, and he considered it an authority of very considerable weight. It had been repudiated by the Court of Queen's Bench, as cited in that Court, as an authority for a rate made by the churchwardens alone, and not in vestry; but did the Court of Exchequer Chamber consider it as of no authority whatever?

selves so. They considered it no authority for a rate made by the churchwardens alone, and not in vestry, but Lord Chief Justice Tindal expressly said that the case of "Gaudern v. Selby" was distinguished in a most important particular from the former Braintree case, and added-" We do not enter into the discussion whether a rate so made by the churchwardens at the parish meeting where the parishioners are met, would be valid or not, or how far such case may be analogous to that of the members of a corporation aggregate, who being assembled together for the purpose of choosing an officer of the corporation, the majority protest against and refuse altogether to proceed to any election, in which case they have been held to throw away their votes, and the minority, who have performed their duty by voting, have been held to represent the whole number." It had been said, that the case of "Gaudern v. Selby" had taken the profession by surprise; that they were not aware of such a case, which had not been noticed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. He (Sir H. J. Fust) had not recollected the case, but from his earliest experience at the bar he had always understood that the law was as stated in that case; he had always understood that when a rate for necessary repairs was refused by the majority of the parishioners, a rate made by the churchwardens and the minority was good. His recollection, from the earliest period of his experience at the bar, served him as to that point, and he was equally aware that the opinion of the learned Judge of the

guilty-if Alice Grinnell's statement was to be believed-of conduct for which he ought to have answered at the bar of a criminal court of justice. She deposed that he had never taken any improper liberties with her till the night of the 27th of May, 1841, when he came home from a party at twelve o'clock, a good deal elated with liquor. She inquired if he would take any supper, and upon his answering in the negative, she lighted her candle, and was about to proceed to her own room, when the defendant extinguished her light, and also another which was in the room, threw her upon the sofa, and placing both her hands upon her mouth, kept them down with his forehead, while he forcibly violated her person. He succeeded, how ever, in inducing her to promise that she would say nothing about it, and she made no complaint to any one on the subject; and still continued in his service, taking her meals with him as usual. He did not repeat his misconduct towards her till the 24th of August, when, at eleven o'clock in the day, she being then in her bed-room, he came in and perpetrated the alleged offence, in exactly the same manner as he had done on the former occasion. She denied most positively having had any intercourse with the defendant except upon these two occasions; but she stated that in the interval between the 27th of May and the 24th of August, he had repeatedly tried her bedroom door at night, which she had secured after the 24th of May with a chisel. It did not appear, however, why the defendant neglected to avail himself of the

must have presented themselves in the course of every day, nor why so slight a barrier as a chisel placed over the latch of the door proved an insurmountable obstacle to the gratification of a brutal passion, unless, as was suggested by the learned counsel for the plaintiff, his expe rience as a Poor Law guardian bad taught him the policy of excluding all the chances of "corroborating circumstances." On the 6th of September Miss Grinnel left the defendant's service, having expressed to her aunt a wish to do so, but not upon the ground of the defendant's illtreatment of her, but because she had so much to do. Unconscious that she was in the family way, she entered the service of a respectable clergyman at Prestwich; but she had not been there many months, before her situation became so evident, that she was obliged to go home to her mother's house, where she was delivered of a boy, on the 6th of May, 1842. She and her father both wrote to the defendant, but he denied the misconduct imputed to him, and the present action was brought. The manner in which Miss Grinnel gave her evidence created a strong impression in her favour; her deportment in the box was that of modest self-possession. Her story was sought to be corroborated by the evidence of a surgeon and a nurse, who attended her in June, 1841, while she was in the defendant's service, She was then suffering from a bowel complaint, attended with fever, and during part of the time she was insensible. These symptoms, it was contended, indicated that her account of what

the defendant on the 27th of May was well-founded, but the surgeon had not examined her person, and the case for the plaintiff rested almost exclusively upon her testimony.

Mr. Serjeant Talfourd for the defendant addressed the jury with great eloquence and feeling, stating his instructions to be, that the charge made against him by the plaintiff was one wholly destitute of truth, and that he should be able to prove the conduct of the prosecutrix to have been most shameless and abandoned with other men. He besought the jury to pause, before they consented to affix so foul a charge upon the defendant, upon the uncorroborated testimony of Miss Grinnel. In order to contradict her, and show that her evidence was not entitled to credit, no fewer than five witnesses were called, who were either guilty of a most diabolical conspiracy, or else proved beyond a doubt conduct so shameless on the part of this young girl of fourteen, as would have disgraced a cyprian in the metropolis. They swore most positively that she was in the habit, after the death of Mrs. Wells, of romping with the carter and the shepherd, two young men in the defendant's employ, and that they would frequently "almost strip her," and would then fasten up her dress behind, and lace her shoes. Davis, the carter, it was said, often used to run up the best stairs after her to her bed room, and on the day of Mrs. Wells's funeral she was seen siting upon his knee. Two of the witnesses, one of them a butcher living at Evesham, whose brother had married a sister of the de

herd, at that time in his employ, swore that they had on several occasions had connexion with her at her own invitation while she was in the defendant's service, and that under circumstances, which made their statement, if true, almost as disgraceful to themselves as to her.

Mr. Justice Erskine summed up the evidence with great care, and the jury retired to consider their verdict. After a short interval, they returned into Court, and found a verdict for the plaintiff, with 300%. damages.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER,
GUILDHALL.
July 7.

Extraordinary and Interesting Case. THE LATE BARONESS DE FEUCHERES. PINNIGER AND ANOTHER v. CLARK.

This case, which excited the most intense interest in a particular circle, from its connexion with the estate of the late Baroness de Feucheres, came on for trial to-day. The Court was greatly crowded during the time the cause lasted, and amongst the assemblage were many of the most eminent attorneys in the metropolis, who seemed to feel a particular interest in the proceedings.

The plaintiff's case, as stated by Mr. Thesiger, afforded the following very singular details of the history and circumstances of the Baroness de Feucheres and her family, and of the litigation which had taken place respecting the large estate here and in France which that lady left behind her. The action itself was brought by Messrs. Pinniger and Westmacot,