SINGULAR ACTION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1791, 16 March 1888, Page 2

SINGULAR ACTION

An extraordinary caao of excluding boys \n " corduroy " from church came beforo Mr Jaatice Stephen the other day. ' It waa an action brought by a boy named Taylor, one of the Inmates of a reformatory school, against Cfaptaln Tlmaon, a churchwarden, to reoover damages for assault m his oxcJaaion from a pariah church, and for 'an injanotlon against further exclusion. Pefendani pleaded that, m preventing the plaintiff froiij entering the ohqrchi he only qofcad m the, proper exercise of hts power as a churchwarden, The church m question waa the District Parißh Church of Fetley, m Hampshire, which the plaintiff, among other inmates of the reformatory situated* m the parish, had for some tima been m the habit of attending. Recently a petition, signed by 40 or 50 out of about ij.150 inhabitants,; waa laid b fore the Governors of the reformatory, repreaentlag, among other things, that there was no room m the church for the boy?, and suggesting that the presence of -these inmates of a reformatory, "clothed m common cbrdqroys." did not ''conduce to the purity of the atmosphere or the com« fort of those present." The churohwardena gave ndtice that the boya would 'not be admitted after a given date, and on (tie plalntift' then presenting himself at the churchyard gate he was tamed away' by the defendant ; hence tlia actlqn. H^ lordship held" that the defendant' had no right to keep the boy away from the. phargh, and gave a yerdloj; for the plalntlfj for nominal aßtu^gea aq4 oogta on |hg higher scale, with judgment aocotdlngly, but there would be no injunction.