Reports of Cases

DECIDED IN ALL THE

COURTS OF EQUITY AND COMMON LAW IN IRELAND,

AND IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

Rolls Court.

Reported by Oliver J. Burke, Esq., Barrister-at-Law

lands.] Even if the company are liable to the cost of a new order, the notice of motion asks too much, as it in addition seeks such payment of all costs to be

EX PARTE GORDON v. BELFAST AND CO. DOWN RAIL- incurred by the petitioner consequent upon it, which

WAY COMPANY.-Nov. 30, 1865.

Under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, s. 80, Railway Companies are liable to the cost of orders obtained by successive tenants for life for payment to them of the dividends accruing on stock purchased with the price of land taken by the company, and by them paid into Court, but not to any costs incurred consequent on the order.

W. D. Andrews moved that the Accountant-General should draw in favour of the petitioner (who was tenant for life of the lands taken by the company),

would include the costs of drawing out the dividends from time to time, to which the company are not liable upon the authority of Ex parte Althorpe (3 Young & Coll. 396); and see Hodges on Railways, 4th edit. p. 334. [Andrews.-The notice of motion merely asks costs "pursuant to the provisions of the Lands Clauses Act," which the taxing master will be guided by.] In the case of The Westminster Bridge Acts (33 Law Jour. N. S. 372), Lord Westbury obcosts according to the Act, which he describes as jected to an order being so drawn up, giving the being in truth to give the costs according to a mere

labyrinth of words.

for the cash dividends then in bank, and which should from time to time accrue due on the stock standing matters have been heretofore drawn up in this geTHE MASTER OF THE ROLLS.-As my orders in these to the credit of the matter, and that the company neral form, I do not like to alter it on the present should be ordered to pay to petitioner the costs of the occasion further than by inserting the words "if any" petition, and all the costs consequent to the order of into it, but if the taxing master, under it, tax any the Court thereon, which may be properly and necessarily incurred by the petitioner pursuant to the pro-tition and order thereon, it appears to me that I will, costs to the petitioner than the mere costs of the pevisions of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. Under a previous order, the dividends had been paid them on the authority of Ex parte Althorpe. on appeal from his taxation, be obliged to disallow to a former tenant for life, and in consequence of her death the new order now sought for became necessary.

Lowry, Q.C., on behalf of the company, had no objection to the order for payment of the dividends to the new tenant for life being made, but doubted whether the new order ought to be made at the expense of the company. [Master of the Rolls. I have gone so far to ease companies of the expense of such orders, as to make same for payment of dividends to clergymen and their successors; but in the case of successive tenants for life, it was necessary to make a new order, the expense of which should be borne by the company which required the

Court of Queen's Bench.

Reported by William Woodlock, Esq. Barrister-at-Law.

THE QUEEN V. GRAY.-Nov. 9, 11. Criminal information—Newspaper-Privilege. Where certain parties were charged with treason felony, and, pending the preliminary investigation at the police office, certain publications appeared in a

The same newspaper published a report of the proceedceedings against the prisoners at the preliminary investigation at the police office, which investigation terminated in the committal of the prisoners. Part of these proceedings consisted of statements of counsel which were calculated to prejudice the public mind against the prisoners. There was no suggestion that this publication was more than a fair and bona fide report of what actually took place. Held (Hayes, J., dissentiente), that such publication was privileged, and did not form a ground for granting a conditional order for a criminal infor

mation.

as

newspaper commenting upon the conduct of the pri- pared state of the case no time should be lost in laysoners, and calculated to prejudice the public minding the evidence before the public, so as to enable the against them-Held (per totam Curiam), that a public to judge from the authentic source of evidence conditional order for a criminal information against used in a court of justice the real nature and extent the proprietor of the newspaper should be granted of the Fenian conspiracy, undiminished by incredulity on account of those articles. and not exaggerated by panic. The design, manifested in their writings, public and private, as will be proved in evidence upon the trial; the design took the form, not as on former occasions of a somewhat similar character, not of a more revolutionary theory, not some theoretical scheme of regeneration by substituting one government for another, but it partook of the character of socialism in its most pernicious and most wicked phase. The lower classes were taught to believe that they might expect a redistribution of the property, real and personal, of the country. They were taught to believe that the law by which any man possessed more property than another was unjust and wicked, and the plan of operation found to have been suggested was horTHIS was a motion on behalf of John O'Leary, now a rible to conceive. The operations of this revoluprisoner in Richmond Bridewell, on a charge of be- tion, as it is called, were to be commenced by longing to the Fenian Brotherhood, an alleged treasou- an indiscriminate massacre-by the assassination of able society, for a conditional order, for a criminal all those above the lower classes, including the information against Sir John Gray, the registered Roman Catholic clergy, against whom their animosity proprietor of the Freeman's Journal, for certain pub- appears, from their writings, to be especially directed lications which had appeared in that paper. The by reason of the opposition which these clergymen motion was grounded upon the joint affidavit of John thought it right, as Christian ministers, as Irishmen, O'Leary, Thomas Clarke Luby, and Jeremiah and as men of peace and honour, to give to the proO'Donovan (Rossa), from which it appeared that they jects in question to the utmost of their power." The had been concerned in the publication of a newspaper comment upon this statement was in these terms:— called the Irish People; that on the night of the 16th "The statement by which Mr. Barry opened the September, the office of the newspaper had been bro- prosecution of the Fenian prisoners on Saturday canken into by the police, and they themselves and not fail to produce the most intense alarm in the mind several others been arrested; that on the 1st October, of every thinking man. If a tithe of the statement after several remands, the case against them had been be capable of being proved, we must feel thankful at stated by Mr. Barry, Q.C., and, evidence gone into the escape society has had; and the honest sons of before the police magistrate; and that finally on the toil who were in danger of being made the instru2nd October, they had been committed for trial. ments of the Fenian movement, ought to feel doubly The affidavit also set out the publications complained thankful that the projects were discovered before they of. The first was in the number of the Freeman's had committed themselves to so hopeless and so terJournal, of the 18th September, two days after the rible an enterprise. Even now we are unwilling to arrest of the prisoners, and was as follows:-"The believe that Mr. Barry's statement of Fenianism can seizure of some thirty-five men, the capture of a print- be true. Yet it is hard to imagine that a man of Mr. ing press and types, and the suppression of a publi- Barry's antecedents and position, representing the cation, are no ordinary events iu a country which crown, and acting in the name of the crown, would boasts of a free press and a free constitution. No venture to make such a statement if he did not feel governmeut would have gone such lengths save upon satisfied that he could sustain the leading parts of it very strong and very reliable information. It is true by evidence sufficiently conclusive to satisfy the most that the Irish People has been quite as outspoken and conscientious that it was not made for effect, or for quite as mad as either John Mitchell's United Irish- the dishonest purpose of creating a prejudice against man or the Nation of 1848. If evidence of intended the accused, but as a part of his duty representrevolution, of premeditated rebellion, of a desire to ing that power and authority which are entrusted get rid of the present dynasty and substitute an with the peace of society, and with the protection of elective Republic were wanted, the madmen who life and property. The first and most daring object conducted the Irish People have themselves furnished of the organizers of this movement is openly stated proofs that they said they intended what, no doubt, by Mr. Barry to have been to get rid of the Catholic they never contemplated." The next publication priesthood. The Catholic priests in Ireland and in complained of was contained in the number of the 2nd America have proved the most potential obstacles to October, and consisted partly of a report of Mr. Barry's the spread of the organization, and, therefore, the statement at the police office, and partly of comments most bitter enmity exists against that sacred and upon it in the editorial part of the paper. The parts self-sacrificing order. We wish that we could, with-of the report of Mr. Barry's statement relied upon ont an abandonment of duty, refrain from reprinting were as follows:-"But it has been deemed expedient, the statement that any body of Irishmen, no matter how and I think wisely, that notwithstanding the unpre-excited, or how mad, could contemplate the mode of