or state its contents to the prisoner at the earliest practicable moment after the arrest; but is not bound to do so before securing the prisoner, if he resists. E. W. Bond, for the defendant. J. H. Clifford, (Attorney General,) for the Commonwealth. COMMONWEALTH V. ADAMS. Consent of prosecutor to admission of defendant under St. 1855, c. 215. Section 35 of St. 1855, c. 215, concerning the manufacture and sale of spirituous and intoxicating liquors, provides that "in all cases arising under this act, before a justice of the peace or police court, no admission of the defendant made in court shall be received on the trial, without the consent of the prosecutor, except a plea of guilty." Held, that such consent must appear of record; and that when a plea of nolo contendere was filed, without such consent being entered of record, a judgment thereon was erroneous, and the defendant on appealing to the court of common pleas, had the right to plead anew. G. M. Stearns, for the defendant. J. H. Clifford, (Attorney General,) for the Commonwealth. INHABITANTS OF MONSON v. WILLIAMS. Action against husband by town for support of wife. A town, who support a wife neglected by her husband and standing in need of relief, may recover of her husband the amount expended by them necessary to support as a pauper, but no additional amount for supplies suitable to her condition in life. W. G. Bates and C. A. Winchester, for the plaintiffs. Worcester County. September Term, 1856. Present: SHAW, C. J., DEWEY, METCALF, THOMAS, and MERRICK, JJ. COMMONWEALTH v. WINGATE. Evidence-Certificate of oath to complaint. On the trial in the court of common pleas, of a criminal complaint on which the defendant had been convicted before a police court, the court allowed the complaint with the record of the police court thereon, to go to the jury, but instructed them that the record should not be considered as evidence in the case. Held, that the defendant had no ground of exception. The certificate of the clerk of the police court of Worcester, that the complainant, in a criminal case, made oath to the com plaint before said court, is sufficient evidence that the complaint was duly sworn to, although it does not state whether it was before the standing justice, or one of the special justices. C. E. Pratt, for the defendant. J. H. Clifford, (Attorney General,) for the Commonwealth. COMMONWEALTH v. SULLIVAN. Indictment ·Omission of "then and there." An indictment for the abuse of "one Bridget Collins, a female child under the age of ten years, to wit, of the age of eight years,' is not fatally defective, by reason of the omission of the words, "she then and there being," or other like words, after the name of the child. W. F. Slocum, for the defendant. J. H. Clifford, (Attorney General,) for the Commonwealth. COMMONWEALTH v. CUMMINGS. Complaint-Description of place. A complaint, which alleges that J. S., " of New Braintree in the county of Worcester," ""at New Braintree," (without saying "said New Braintree," or adding the name of the county,) did sell intoxicating liquor, &c., sufficiently states the place where the offence was committed. C. K. Wetherell, for the defendant. J. H. Clifford, (Attorney General,) for the Commonwealth. COMMONWEALTH v. BARNARD. Complaint-Description of place. A complaint made to a justice of the peace for the county of Worcester, charging an unlawful sale of intoxicating liquor, "at West Brookfield," without saying "at the town of West Brookfield," or alleging it to be in the county of Worcester, is fatally defective. P. C. Bacon, for the defendant. J. H. Clifford, (Attorney General,) for the Commonwealth. AMESBURY V. BOWDITCH MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE Co. Insurance company — By-law · Limitation of time and place of action. A stipulation contained in a by-law of a mutual fire insurance company, which provides that in case of loss, the action on the policy, (in terms made subject to the by-laws of the company,) shall be brought within three months, at a particular court in the county in which the place of business of the insurance company is established, is binding on the assured, so far as concerns the limitation of time, though void so far as it undertakes to affect the jurisdiction of courts. P. C. Bacon and D. Foster, for the plaintiff. TURNER v. COMER. Contract to be signed by all creditors. An agreement by which creditors agree to release their debtor, on payment of fifty per cent. of their several debts, but which expressly stipulates that it shall not be binding unless all the creditors become parties thereto, is ineffectual, if the claim of one creditor is paid in full, and he does not sign the agreement, although such payment be made within the time allowed for signing. E. Washburn and G. F. Hoar, for the appellees. C. Devens, Jr., and G. F. Verry, for the appellants. Practice Act BRADFORD v. TINKHAM. - Answer: Must set up illegality of consideration. Under the Practice Act of 1852, c. 312, §§ 14, 15, 18, illegality of consideration cannot be given in evidence in an action on a check, unless specified in the answer. F. H. Dewey, for the plaintiff. P. E. Aldrich, for the defendants. VERRY v. MCCLELLAN. License to sell real estate. A license granted by the judge of probate to sell "the whole of the real estate of the intestate," for the payment of his debts, does not follow a petition which describes a portion of the intestate's real estate, alleged to have been conveyed by the intestate with interest to defraud his creditors, and prays for leave to sell the whole of said real estate;" and will not authorize an action by the administrator, under Revised Statutes, c. 71, § 11, to recover any portion of the estate. 66 P. C. Bacon and G. F. Verry, for the defendant. [To be continued.] Entelligence and Miscellany. THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE IN COURT.-We see by the newspapers that members of the Vigilance Committee of San Francisco, who are visiting New York, have been held to bail in large sums at the suit of persons whom that body had banished from California. The trials will no doubt be ably conducted, and will certainly be very interesting. In California, whether from the justice of their cause, or a dread of their power, political or personal, or for whatever other cause, the trial of one of the members, who, by order of the committee, forcibly took the arms of the State from the sloop in which they were being conveyed to Governor Johnson, resulted in a verdict of acquittal, to the satisfaction, apparently, of all concerned. The trial was for piracy, and took place in the United States Court, on the 18th September last. The District Attorney, in opening the case, is reported to have begun by saying that the jury must find a felonious intent or acquit the prisoners. And this seems to have given the cue to the whole proceeding. Judge McAllister in his charge, which was cheered by the bystanders, reviewed, certainly with much ability, the English authorities on the subject of robbery, and concluded that to constitute this offence there must be an animus furandi. His final summing up was as follows: I. If you believe, from the evidence, that the prisoner took the arms with the intent to appropriate them, or any portion thereof, to his own use, or permanently deprive the owner of the same, then, in the opinion of the court, he is guilty. II. But if you believe that he did not take the arms for the purpose of appropriating them, or any part thereof, to his own use, and only for the purpose of preventing them being used on himself or his associates, then he is not guilty. We The jury, after an absence of five minutes, returned a verdict of not guilty. And we daresay this was the best way to settle the matter. sincerely hope they may fare as well in New York, for if we have any doubts about the propriety of their course, it does not arise from sympathy with the present plaintiffs, or lead to a wish that the result should be lucrative to them. SENTENCE OF ARRISON. -- Arrison, whose case we noticed in the September Number, was at the end of that month brought up for sentence; and Judge Parker, before whom he had been tried, very properly took occasion to comment on the extraordinary verdict of manslaughter which the jury had rendered, and after an able review of the circumstances tending to show the deliberation and cruelty of the deed, condemned the prisoner to ten years hard labor in the penitentiary, the longest time awarded to the offence of which he had been convicted. RIGHTS OF FOREIGNERS IN FRANCE. We perceive, by a recent decision of the Imperial Court of Paris, that a debt contracted in his own country by a foreigner cannot be recovered against him in France, unless on a bill of exchange held by the creditor himself, or properly indorsed by him to another in the regular course of business, and before the bill becomes due. The following is the case to which we refer : — "Mr. Lamie Murray, an English gentleman, obtained in London, in March, 1839, a loan of £1000 sterling from Dr. Elliotson, and gave him a bill for it. Subsequently Mr. Murray took up his residence in Paris, and he paid some portions of the amount, together with the interest on the whole sum up to 1848, since which time he has paid nothing. On the 8th of June, 1855, a French gentleman, named Josseaume, notified to Mr. Murray that the bill had been formally transferred to him by Dr. Elliotson, and he obtained from one of the courts authorization to make a provisional seizure of Mr. Murray's furniture as security for the payment. Mr. Murray took proceedings to have the seizure set aside, and the tribunal, after hearing what he and Josseaume had to say, decided that as the debt owned by Murray had been contracted in England and to an Englishman, and as the bill in question had not been indorsed to Josseaume in the regular course of business, but transferred to him long after it had become due, he could not, according to French law, proceed against Mr. Murray before a French court, and that, consequently, the seizure of the furniture was void. M. Josseaume appealed to the Imperial Court against this decision, but it was confirmed."-[N. Y. Herald.] THE POISONING EPIDEMIC.-Since the trial of Palmer, of which we gave an account in our July number, there have been at least three trials in one circuit in England for alleged poisoning. William Dove was tried and convicted towards the end of July for killing his wife by strychnine. The case is chiefly remarkable when considered in connection with that of Palmer. Dove heard of the murder of Cook, and that strychnine could not be detected, and he spoke of this to several persons; he bought the drug and gave it to his wife in several doses. Before her death attention was at once turned to the detection of strychnine, and it was readily discovered by chemists of no very extraordinary skill, the dose having been apparently a good deal too large, and the search for this particular poison having been begun immediately. The defence chiefly relied on was insanity, and proof was given of repeated acts of cruelty, stupidity, and folly, committed by the prisoner from his earliest years; it was an attempt to prescribe for the commission of crime, by showing it to have been his custom from the beginning to commit it. The jury found him guilty, with a recommendation to mercy, which, however, was disregarded by the government. His execution was attended by a vast crowd, many persons coming from a long distance by rail as they would to a fair or cattle show. The other two trials which have come under our notice were both of them of wives for poisoning or attempting to poison their husbands. There is nothing of especial interest to note in them, excepting that the evidence showed a great carelessness on the part of apothecaries and their apprentices in the care and sale of poisonous drugs, and the learned judges hoped that Parliament would interpose some restrictions. -- LIBEL. A gentleman of Edinburgh being a candidate for a public office, one of the newspapers, opposed to him in politics, made some remarks on his public conduct upon a former occasion in a tone which we should regard in this country as highly mild and gentleman-like, considering. A jury, however, has rebuked the editor with a fine of £400. The press are very indignant, and declare that they are about to be destroyed, and that England will fall with them; some of the leading gentlemen of the party have also generously subscribed and helped the editor out with his fine. For our part we don't see why the defeated candidates should not have some indemnity, and we recommend it to the serious consideration of disappointed politicians, of whom there will be a great many this fall, as every elective office is to be filled, and there are at least three candidates |