1834.

SLOWMAN

V.

DUTTON.

have been clear if the word rob had been, as in this case, connected with a chattel: and it is absurd to say, that the word bricks implies parcel of a freehold. When parcel of the freehold, they constitute a wall.

BOSANQUET J. I am of the same opinion. The imputation, which is naturally conveyed by the word rob, is confirmed by the specification of the article, bricks.

ALDERSON J.

Bricks are chattels, and the learned

Serjeant's wall has no foundation.

Judgment for the Plaintiff.

Jan. 21.

Where an act

BEAUMONT, Chairman of the County Fire
Office, v. MOUNTAIN.

for conducting THIS action was brought by the Plaintiff as chairman and director of the County Fire Insurance Com

a private concern is de

clared to be a

public act, and is required to be judicially taken notice

of as such by all judges, without being specially

pleaded, it is

unnecessary at a trial to prove it by an ex

amined copy

pany.

By an act of parliament, passed for regulating the affairs of that company, the chairman is authorized to sue alone on behalf of the company, after the enrolment of a memorial, authenticating his appointment as director; and it is enacted, that that act "shall be deemed and taken to be a public act, and shall be judicially taken notice of as such by all judges, justices, and others, without being specially pleaded."

At the trial it was proved, that the Plaintiff acted as chairman of the company, and that a memorial of his of the original. appointment had been enrolled pursuant to the act. It was objected, that that act, being passed for the private objects of the company, should have been proved by an examined copy of the original; but the objection

was overruled, and a verdict having been given for the Plaintiff,

1834.

BEAUMONT

V.

Taddy Serjt. moved to set it aside and enter a nonsuit, MOUNTAIN. on the ground that the act had not been put in evidence at the trial by a copy properly authenticated.

He contended, that the clause requiring the judges to take judicial notice of it as a public act only had the effect of exempting a party from pleading it specially, and did not alter the mode of proof, which ought to be the same as with other private and personal acts. In Brett v. Beale's (a) it was held, that an act of parliament, private in its nature, was not made admissible in evidence against strangers by a clause, declaring "that it shall be deemed and taken to be a public act, and shall be judicially taken notice of without being specially pleaded;" and Lord Tenterden said, "two grounds have been laid for the admission of this evidence: the one, that the concluding clause renders it admissible as a public act; the other, that, even independently of that clause, it is so from its nature. The answer given to the first was, that the clause only applied to the forms of pleading, and did not vary the general nature and operation of the act. I was inclined to that opinion at the time, and my learned brothers agree with me in that impression. We also think that the second ground fails. It is said, that the bill gives a power of levying a toll on all the king's subjects, and therefore the act is public. The power given is not so extensive, it is only to levy toll on such as think fit to use the navigation. The ground, therefore, on which it is said the act is public and the evidence admissible fails; and I cannot receive it." [Alderson J. The question in that case was not so much as to the mode of proving the act, as (a) 1 M. & M. 421.

whether

1834. BEAUMONT

V.

MOUNTAIN.

whether the act could be taken as proof of certain facts recited in it.]

general, and not

The language of Lord Tenterden is confined to the facts of that case.

TINDAL C. J. We may decide on the present application, without attempting to distinguish between this case and Brett v. Beales. The legislature has required us, without qualification, to take judicial notice of this act as of a public act; we are bound to obey, and we should disobey if we were to accede to this application.

The rest of the Court concurred, and the rule was

Refused.

Jan. 22.

The Plaintiff,

after laying the venue in Mid. dlesex, declared that Defendant broke and entered Plain tiff's apartment in a

dwellinghouse situate and being in London. De

murrer, that though Plaintiff had laid

his venue in

SMITH V. SMYTH.

THE Plaintiff laid his venue in Middlesex; and declared that the Defendant, on the 18th of December 1833, to wit, in the county of Middlesex, broke and entered a certain apartment of the Plaintiff's in and parcel of a certain dwelling-house, situate and being in London, and then and there beat Plaintiff with a stick.

Demurrer, assigning for cause that the action of trespass qu. cl. fr. is a local action, and that the Plaintiff had laid his venue in Middlesex, although he alleged the apartment entered to be in London, which must be taken to mean the city of London. Joinder.

Ludlow Serjt., in support of the demurrer, contended, Middlesex, he that, in common parlance, London means the city of alleged the

apartment entered to be in London, overruled.

London;

London; and that the Court would intend the Plaintiff
to have alleged that his room was in that city.
If so, the venue ought to have been laid in London.

Sed per Curiam,

The Court may take judicial notice of the division of counties. And if the Plaintiff had declared that his apartment was in such a county, as the county of Oxford, or even the city of London, which is in the nature of a county, there might have been ground for this demurrer. But the demurrer admits every fact that is properly and consistently pleaded. The Plaintiff, after laying the venue in Middlesex, has alleged that the Defendant broke and entered the Plaintiff's apartment situate in London. London Street; London House; the London University; are names of places in Middlesex ; and the Court cannot be called on to pronounce that there is no place in that county called London. In Kearney v. King (a), the Court of King's Bench refused to intend there might not be such a place as Dublin in England; and Abbott C. J. said, "It is said that the bill is stated to have been drawn in Dublin; but it is not possible for the Court to take judicial notice that there is only one Dublin in the world. Let us suppose that, instead of Dublin, the bill had been said to have been drawn at St. Germains; would it have been sufficient, in order to support such a declaration, to give in evidence, not a bill drawn at St. Germains in Cornwall, but one drawn at St. Germains in France, for 542 livres, one sous, and eight deniers? Undoubtedly it would not."

Judgment for the Plaintiff. (6)

(b) See Dilcham v. Chivis,

(a) a B. & Ald. 304.

4 Bingh. 706.

1834.

SMITH

V.

SMYTH.

1934.

Jan. 23.

BELCHER and Others, Assignees of MABERLY, a Bankrupt, v. PRITTIE and Another.

M., a trader THIS

engaged in extensive con.

was an action of trover for title deeds, brought by the assignees of Mr. Maberly a bankrupt, against cerns, was in the trustees under the marriage settlement of his son perilous cirColonel Maberly; and the question was, whether an cumstances, and likely to assignment of a house in the Regent's Park, by Mr. become bank Maberly to those trustees on the first of July 1831, was rupt, although a voluntary assignment by way of fraudulent preference, not suspected, from January and made in contemplation of bankruptcy. 1831 to Ja

nuary 1832,

when he ac

tually became
bankrupt.
Among
others, he

owed his son
12,000l.,
which debt,

upon his son's marriage, was settled on the son's wife.

In May 1831

some of M.'s property in Middlesex was released

from mort

gage, and M.,

at the request

of his son, on

Mr. Maberly became bankrupt in January 1832.

In 1828, he had given his son a bond for 12,3007. for money borrowed of him to that amount. The son married in 1830, and shortly before the marriage, this bond was assigned to the Defendants as part of the property to be settled on his intended wife.

On the 1st of July 1831, Mr. Maberly assigned to those trustees, to be sold in discharge of this bond, the house in question in the Regent's Park; and his situation at that time, and the circumstances which led to the transfer were as follows:

He was carrying on the business of a banker at Edinburgh and in London, with branch banks at Aberdeen, Montrose, and Glasgow; he had a bazaar in London, which yielded a return of 2000l. a year and upwards; and an estate in Surrey, which he farmed himself with a

the 1st of July considerable outlay of capital, buying sheep to the number of 700 or 800, having stock worth some thousands

1831, con

veyed it to the trustees under his son's marriage settlement, as a security for or in discharge of the debt due from him to his son. The transfer was not registered, or otherwise made public, till after M.'s bankruptcy. A jury having found that it was not made voluntarily by way of fraudulent preference, or in contemplation of bankruptcy, the Court refused to grant a new trial.

of