ROLLS' COURT, DUBLIN. Mat 13-16, 1879.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 175, 24 July 1879, Page 4

ROLLS' COURT, DUBLIN. Mat 13-16, 1879.

MACDONOUGH V. JOYCE. "An extraordinary case againßt a money- lender has been beard before the Master of (he Rolls. The plain-. tiff is the Rev W. Macdonough, rector of Ciough, in the County Aoirim, » •mall living of £150 it year, with 17 acres of l»n--»; and the defendant is Mr Thomas Joyce, of the Accommodation Batik, «brse name hue recently figure! very prominently in some transactions which have been the subject of strcre comment from the Bench. The plaintiff sought to have a bill <i •ale set * side, onJ to recover certain goods which were sold under it, and (be sum ol £53, 'which be alleges was taken away not cf (he house during h seizure by the defendant. His case Wbp, that in October 1877, he rrquired & loan, and gave a rromißeory note for £70 to the cUfendfiof, payable in three months, cud received in essb £62. Fe aleo signed a document, the ns'ure of which be Alleges he di 1 cot know at the time, and was told that hie signature wbs merely a matter of form. It tnrned oat afterwards to be a bill of sale of a veiy sweeping character, the tffaet of it betofj, in fact, that the defended might, if he choße, enter, or even break into bia house next diy and seize his goodd. Mr Joyce's practice was (o charge a penny in the pound per day as interest for over.ua bills. The plaintiff paiJ £52 in iostafraente and interest upon the iromUeoty note, which was twice renewed. He paid in February £12, in April £20, and in in July £20, and yet at that date Mr Joyce's claim was £44. Whiie paying eff the lon, in this way Mr Macdonough was astonished at findiog hU name iu the "Black Mat" as the granterot a bill of sale to Mr Joyce. He wrote at once to express l.is surprise, and state J that he dij not give any bill of sale. A correspondence ensued, and ihe defendant demanded £14 still due. The plaintiff then placed tbe matter in the bands of a solicitor in Belfast, who wrote to the defendant, offering to pay the principal due, and reasonable interest. In reply, he protested against any attempt to evade tbe original onlract, and stated that be would resist any attempt. He threatened to pat tbe bill of sale in execution if his demand wrb not met, and, finally, in October lest bia agent went down to tbe reatory, and in tbe absence of Mr Macdonough, carried c flf every article of furniture, except (he few that were in the kitchen. Ihe plaint ff whs cot left a single bed, and had to sleep in a farm house, as had also bin strvante. He had a sum of £53 in a drawer in his dressing table, which was also carried off. Very extraordinaiy contradictory tvidenca occurred on Tuetday on several points in the testimony of several witnesses regarding matters not essentially involved in ihesnit. The master of the rolls declared that if a monstrous contract was produced before him, which had been presented by a money-lender to a reckless, needy man to sign, he would hold, as a matter of law, tbi t the parties to the contract were not on equal terms. The case is still at hearing."— The Irishman, May 17, 1879 "The Master of the Roils on Friday ' week, delivered judgment in the extraordinary casa of the Rev Mr Macdoaoogb agaiost Mr Joyce, the moneylender. His Honor set aside 83 fraudulent in equity the bill of sate under which tbe defendant seized and sold the Rev. Mr. Macdonough's furniture and effects, and declared the defendant to be responsible to the plaintiff for the seizure and removal of •ny property outside what would have fairly paid him the sum when due to biro, with interest at five per cent, the defendant to pay the cost of the suit. The master of the rolls, referring to the language of Mr Joyce's bills, to the effect that interest was to be paid at the rate of one penny per pound per : day, remarked that he was not certain the avoidance of the formal statement of the rate per cent, did npt afford pome indication of chicanery •od deceit. But Mr Joyce is not singular in this respect. What moneylender ever formally mentioned interest at the rale of 150 per cent?"— The Irishman, May 24, 1879.

« A teI t£ ram re the "cent Dunedin election says :— Mr J. G. S. Grant was proposed, and harangued the electors for an hour, in a speech characterised solely by vindictive abuse and lipeUooa assertions. Sir George Grey and bir J uhuß Vogel, he said, were " necessity professors," and Parliament generally was censored by him in the strongest language he could command. A few oaths garnished his utterances, and he expressed the conviction that he ought to be Premier in place of Sir George Grey, We clip the followiog specimen of the vulgar amenities of debate in the New South Wales Legislature from the Town ard Country Journal : " Mr O'Connor interrupted Mr Lucas to say that it was easy to see that Mr Lucas didn't do much work— he was so fat. On this Mr Lucas, with rather more animation than he usually exhibits turned round upon Mr O'Connor and said that was a nice remark for a member to make who was a pig butcher. The hon. member, he said, was always talking about pigs, it was pigs everywhere with the hon member -7Pig3 in the House, pigs out of the House, pigs hanging up outside his house; in tact the man was pig from head to foot ! This little encounter caused some laughter, and appeared to be keenly enjoyed by Mr •M. itilnone. ' ■> J he f? road Arrow 3ays, in its issue of May 3rd :— " Certain of our contemporaries have been making the worst of our Zulu misfortunes, and in more than one instance it has been suggested that officers have been wanting in personal courage. We are glad that in no case has this charge been established. The authors of club gossip— a numerous and influential class— are still busily employed, and a great deal of capital has been made out of the fact that some half-dozen officers belonging to regiments actively employed at the Cape, have come home on leave, with a view to retiring from the service. To speak correctly, we believe that in three instances officers have left their regiments under these circumstances, and are now m this country. It is, of course, difficult to understand how any private considerations, however weighty, could induce an English officer to ask for leave when employed at the front ; and consequently the appearance of the gentlemen referred to at home has created a good deal of surprise, and some not very complimentary comments in crack military circles. The circumstances under which the officers have left their regiments have not been explained, and it is perhaps only just to those concerned to conclude that they were irresistibly pressing." A most ludicrous incident (says the Telegraph) occurred in connection with the Castlemaine meeting. Mr Patterson's speech, which had been carefully written out, was supplied to the Ministerial papers in Melbourne and Castlemaine early in the morning. Taking advantage of the favor conferred, the speech was set up during the day, and some copies of it struck off. Some time before the meeting began, one of those slips got into the hands of some prominent opponents of Mr Patterson's, whose intense delight may be envied, but not often experienced, on finding that the speech was interlarded with " cheers," " laughter," " laughter and cheers," " cries of « No, no,' " " hear, hear," as thickly as the vainest orator who ever mounted the stump could desire. One of the allusions in the speech struck the readers as brilliantly audacious. Moved, of course, by indignant sympathy for the working men, Mr Patterson, ensconced in his luxurious Melbourne quarters, had written— " You might go and discharge all your men at 6s 6d a-day, and all the men now working in the Melbourne swamp, and I will ask", would there be any sympathy shown for them by the people who cry out about the dismissal of Black Wednesday ? " And, equally as a matter of course, the question was received by " No, no."

A correspondent of the Wellington Chro? nicte utters the following complaint :— I must remark that in. no place have I noticed such utter disregard to civility and courteousness as is manifested among the shopmen and others in the different establishments here. From the hightest to the lowest, you will find persons answered with the gruffest and most uncouth " Yes >J or " No," and they do not take the trouble to keep the inside of their places of business clean, or to oblige their customers in a proper manner. In reference to the new Minister of Lands the correspondent of the Herald writes : — Mr Thomson sometimes causes fun by bia broad Scotch accent and dry humor. On one occasion he was discussing the financial statement, and called the attention of Sir J. Vogel to a serious error in one of the tables Sir J. Vogel rather pooh-poohed the matter, and said if the hon. gentleman, instead of carping about an error in tables, would just refer to the table B he would see that the whole matter was clearly and correctly put. Said Mr Thomson, " But I have looked at table B, and it's a' wrang thegither.'-" Sir J. Vogel, after scratching his head, had to admit that it was " a' wrang thegither," and that Mr Thomson had Bcored a point. " Broadbrim " writes from New York :— The walking mania is still upon us, and a more miserable looking lot of scallawags than those walking at Gilmore's garden could scarcely be raked out of the streets. As usual, the main body of the audience consists of the sweepings of the slums, while gamblers, prize-fighters, and pickpockets are the magnates of the occasion. The whole affair would be beneath contempt if it were > not for the wonderful performance of Panchot, who actually completed bis walk of one hundred miles in nineteen hours and a half, a feat which I believe has never been accomplished before. A Victorian journal remarks of Mr Berry: '• From the little shop in the suburbs, where 20 years ago the Premier sold groceries, to the balcony of the Treasury, in the full glare of the electric light, looking down on the up-turned faces of thousands, and with a real live baronet at his side acting as fugleman, and " the Major " to lead off the cheers, is indeed, a great step." In the Saturday Review several statistics relating to racing are compiled in support of the theory that there are no symptoms of decline in the popularity of racing. In 1878 £225,000 was given to be run for This was only added money, and, including entrances, the total value of stakes raced for amounted to £391,000. In 1876 the added money was about £166,000, and in 1877, £194,000. Limit your wantß. The " must " is hard ; yet solely by this " must " can we show how it is with us in our inner man. To live according to caprice requires no peculiar powers. The freedom of New Zealand from snakes and venomous reptiles is a matter of great rejoicing; but good people of New Zealand look well to yourselves, and see that no lurking serpent is nestling within you. You may be neglecting the stealthy encroachments of some deadly serpent in the form of insidious disease. Take the antidore ere it be too late Whatever atage of disease you may be suffering, those marvellous medicines, " Ghollau's Great Indian Cubes." can save you.