[Reported, in the Queen's Bench and in the Exchequer Chamber on error from that Court, 1 B. & S. 807.] Friday, IN THE EXCHEQUER CHAMBER. (Error from the Queen's Bench.) GREENOUGH against MCCLELLAND. [Reported, 2 E. & E. 429.] Reported, in the Queen's Bench and in the Exchequer WILEY against CRAWFORD. [Reported, in the Queen's Bench and in the Exchequer Chamber on error from that Court, 1 B. & S. 253.] VOL. III. N E. & E. Saturday, July 7th. Saturday, July 7th. Saturday, July 7th. 1860. Saturday, May 26th. Saturday, July 7th. LEARY, appellant, against LLOYD, respondent. Toisetier CASE stated by justices under stat. 20 & 21 Vict. the head of "Discipline" in The Mer Act, 1854, 17 7 & 18 Vict. c. 104., have reference to British ships alone. One of these, sect. 257, renders liable to a penalty every person who wilfully harbours or c. 43. On 25th January, 1860, George Lloyd, the respondent, chant shipping who is the police officer employed by The Newport Dock Company for the protection of the shipping frequenting the Newport Docks, within the borough of Newport, in the county of Monmouth, and to prevent seamen from deserting their vessels, laid an information, not in writing, before one of the justices for the said borough, against the appellant, Dennis Leary, who keeps a sailors' lodging house and beer-house at Newport, for having wilfully harboured certain seamen who had deserted their vessel. The information was laid under sect. 257 of The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 104.; and a summons was issued and served upon the appellant, who appeared, with his solicitor, at the Town Hall, Newport, on Friday, 27th January, 1860, before two of the justices of the said borough (by whom this case was stated), to answer the charge. secretes any apprentice must be shewn deserted from is a British ship: and that, inasmuch as by sect. 19 "every British ship must be registered," "and no ship" thereby "required to be registered shall, unless registered, be The summons recited that information had been laid "That you, Dennis Leary, did on 22nd January, 1860, at the borough of Newport aforesaid, then and there wilfully harbour Peter Smith, Allen McIntyre, Ferdinand Pamin and John Brown, seamen who had deserted recognized as a British ship," proof that the ship is registered must also be given, either by the production of the original register, or by an examined or certified copy of it, as required by sect. 107. from the British ship Sultana, knowing or having reason to believe such seamen to have so deserted." Evidence of the witnesses in proof of the offence as alleged in the summons was duly taken on behalf of the respondent in the presence of the appellant and his attorney, who cross-examined the witnesses: and, no evidence being called by the appellant in reply, the magistrate deemed the offence proved, and convicted the appellant in the penalty of five pounds, including the costs, in reference to one Peter Smith, one of the seamen whom the appellant had harboured in his house. The appellant, being dissatisfied with the determination and conviction of the justices, duly applied in writing to them to state and sign a case for the opinion of the Court of Queen's Bench thereon, which the justices agreed to grant to him, and he (the appellant) having entered into a recognizance to prosecute without delay his appeal, and having otherwise complied with the statute 20 & 21 Vict. c. 43., the said justices stated and signed the case accordingly. The following evidence was adduced at the hearing in support of the information. It was proved, by Samuel Brewster, that he was the master of the British ship, Sultana, of Liverpool, of 1316 tons burthen, then lying in the Newport Docks, within the said borough, where she had arrived a week previously from Antwerp; that eleven seamen, who were on the ship's articles of agreement (which were produced) and who had arrived at the port of Newport with him in the vessel, had all deserted the said ship; that Peter Smith, Allen McIntyre, Ferdinand Pamin and John Brown, named in the summons, were four of the eleven seamen who had so deserted; that the men signed the 1860. LEARY T. LLOYD. 1860. LEARY V. LLOYD. articles at Antwerp, to come to the port of Newport and from thence to proceed to a port in the United States and back to a port of discharge in the United Kingdom; that the men, having only just commenced their voyage, and having no right to leave the ship, deserted either on the night of the 21st or 23rd January, 1860, and took away all their clothes and effects with them. The official log book of the ship was not produced, but it was proved that the aforesaid Peter Smith, Allen McIntyre, Ferdinand Pamin and John Brown had severally been duly convicted, on 25th January, 1860, at Newport, by two of the justices for the said borough, of having deserted from the said vessel, The Sultana; and had been, each of them, sentenced to three weeks' hard labour for that offence. The appellant's attorney here objected that there was no evidence before the magistrates that The Sultana was a British ship. That the evidence of the master that she was such, and the production of the articles of agreement signed by the deserting seamen, which were in the form required by The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, was insufficient proof of the ship being a British vessel, in the absence of the certificate of registry, which he contended ought to be produced. He further contended that, in the absence of the official log book, no legal evidence was before the justices in proof of the men named in the summons being deserters. The justices were satisfied with the evidence before them that the ship was a British ship, and that the seamen named on the summons had deserted from the said vessel. Sect. 244 of The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, was referred to in reply to the appellant's attorney's objection. |