A DEAR PROMISE.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 66, 30 April 1870, Page 4

A DEAR PROMISE.

In the Court of Exchequer on the 7th February, a breach of promise case, Goad v. Rcggs, was called on, when Mr Serjeant Ballantine, who appeared with Mr Anderson for the plaintiff, said he was happy to inform the court that the trial would not be proceeded with. The plaintiff was a young lady, nineteen years of age, the daughter of a gentleman of very high rank in the army, and the defendant was a gentleman of the highest possible respectability the member of an eminent mercantile firm. The parents on both sides approved of the match, and nothing could be more kind or correct than the conduct of each party, from the commencement of the engagement ; but the yoxxng gentleman changed his mind after a certain period. For this and other reasons the parents of the lady had felt bound to bring the matter into court ; but the Solicitor-General, who appeared for the defendant, had offered to give a sum of L2OOO, and, on behalf of the young lady, who was not present, but whose interests had been entrusted to his care, he agreed to a verdict being entered for the plaintiff for that sum which he thought would be a better termination of the case. The Solicitor-general (with him was Mr A. L. Smith) said the only question was the amount of damages, because the defendant admitted that he had made the promise aud broken it ; also that he was a rich man, and that the young lady suffered by the breach. There was no imputation of any sort or kind upon the plaintiff ; it was nothing more than a young man changing his mind, and feeling that ho could not undertake to complete the engagement ; but from the first the defendant felt that, looking to his own position and that of the young lady, he ought to offer large compensation, and both sides were now satisfied with the payment of the sum named. Mr Baron Bramwell — 1 think the young lady is better off with L2OOO than with a husband who had not been inclined to marry her. A verdict was then entered for the plaintiff— damages, L2OOO.