SEIZURE OF A LADY'S HORSES IN PARIS.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3026, 26 October 1878, Page 4

SEIZURE OF A LADY'S HORSES IN PARIS.

The Civil Tribunal of the Seine has just heard a suit in which Lady Meux was the plaintiff, to recover possession of her horses and carnages, which had been seized by a creditor—not of herself, but of a man Quick, in whose name they had been put rout at livery. Lady Meux appears to have had a difficulty with the proprietor of a house she had purchased, and, fearing law proceedings, she was advised to remove her equipages to the stables of Mr Howlett, Rue Jean Jacques-Rosseau, where they were placed as the property of Mr Andrew Quick. The lady settled matters with her landlord, but on the very day on which those difficulties were at an end a Mr Erick, a creditor of Quick, appeared at the stables with a bailiff, and seized ten horses, two ponies, and four carriages of different kinds, all belonging to Lady Meux. She at once applied to a judge referee to have the distraint removed, but Erick replied by exhibiting three dishonored, acceptances of Quick, of 20,000f. each, made to his order. Both he and his debtor, he said, had accepted the French jurisdiction, and the Judge-de-Paix, having condemned Quick to pay the 60,000f., with that authorisation he had seized the horses and carriages. Quick admitted that they were not his, and that it was to render a service to Lady Meux that he had allowed them to stand under his name. The profession of Erick did not appear in the suit, nor the motive of the debt, but he was described by Lady Meux's advocate as a bookmaker's clerk. He subsequently gave up the carriages and five of the horses, without prejudice to his ultimate right over them. The present suit being brought by Lady' Meux to recover her property, Erick objected that as his adversary was a married woman she required authorisation from her husband. The Court had therefore to also examine that point. The advocate for the plaintiff remarked on the obscure nature of the transactions between Erick and Quick, and suggested that if the former had possessed 60,000f., which from his profession was doubtful, it was not Quick that he would hare accepted for debtor. The Court decided that the personal status of Lady Meux was governed: by English laws, and that the French legislation which required authorisation from her husband to plead ..was not necessary ; next, that she proved that the horses and carriages were her property, and had never ceased to be such;, that she had paid the cost of the keep of the horses and the housing of the carriages and harness, which core her

arms and initials; that Quick was not in a position to possess such equipages, as he was bankrupt in April last. Judgment was therefore given declaring the seizure null and void, and condemning Erick to pay the costs.