| Notes: | The Bury and Norwich Post
Tuesday, 21 Oct 1873, Page 7
DISS.
COUNTY COURT, Wednesday, Oct. 15.
(Before J. Worlledge, Esq., Judge.
HUGGINS v. ELLIS.
This was an action brought by Charles Hoggins, farmer and dealer, Shelfanger, against Robert Ellis, dealer, Winfarthing-road, to recover 2l. 10s. under remarkable circumstances. Mr. Lyus appeared for the plaintiff ; the defendant had no legal representative. - The plaintiff deposed that in June last he sold defendant ten lambs at 29s. 6d. each, the total amounting to 14l. 15s. The lambs were drawn the same day; and some eight or nine days afterwards he went for the money, when defendant paid him 13l. 5s., being the price of nine lambs only, less 6d. The money was paid in two 5l. bank notes, three sovereigns, and 5s. in silver. This was on a Monday, when plaintiff had no other gold in his purse. On Tuesday he took no money at all; and being at Bury on Wednesday, he went into the Waggon Inn with two friends and called for three glasses of ale, handing in payment one of the sovereigns received from the defendant, which the waitress handed back to him in consequence of its being bad. Next day he went and saw the defendant, to whom he gave the bad sovereign, but who declined to give him another one for it, or to pay the remaining 30s. due on the ten lambs. In cross-examination by defendant plaintiff admitted that he had offered to compromise the matter rather than go to law; but his Honour remarked that that proved nothing, for a very good Book had given very good advice, “Agree with thine adversary quickly whiles thou art in the way with him,” and the plaintiff might simply have been trying to act upon it. - John Bower, plaintiff’s bailiff, confirmed his master’s account of the bargain: and Joseph Prentice, an intelligent boy in his service, deposed to accompanying his master on the occasion of his going for payment of the lambs, when he saw defendant hand him separately two 5l. notes, three sovereigns, and 5s. in silver, which later he placed on the cushion of plaintiff’s gig. - In resisting the action defendant asserted in the most positive that he paid plaintiff 14l. 15s. in two 5l. notes, four sovereigns, and 15s. in silver. Plaintiff afterwards handed him the bad sovereign, which he refused to accept, as it was dangerous to have a spurious coin in his possession. - Defendant’s wife, and William Brown and James Baldry, more or less corroborated this version of the affair. His Honour said that on the strength of the boy Prentice’s evidence alone he should give judgment for the plaintiff, believing, as the lad had stated, that only 13l. 5s. was paid, and that one of the three sovereigns was bad. The usual costs would follow. - The defendant protested that the case had been decided against him by means of “downright perjury;” to which his Honour responded that if that were so, he had his remedy by criminal proceedings. |
