LIST OF JUDGMENTS. Both in this list and in the body of the work the Judgments are arranged in THE OFFICE OF THE JUDGE PROMOTED BY ADLAM v. COLTHURST. Order made upon a parishioner who had removed earth and human bones from a churchyard to restore them—An excuse that the field upon which he had placed them was no longer in his possession, overruled. THIS case was first heard before my predecessor, Dr. Lushington, who made an order upon the defendant to restore the earth and bones. The defendant failed to comply with this order, and alleged as his excuse that he had parted with the possession of the field in which they had been placed to his son-in-law, who refused to allow them to be interfered with. He also pleaded bankruptcy in discharge of his costs. The matter then came before me, and on the 21st of November 1867 I delivered the following judgment. The defendant thereupon submitted, and filed a certificate of his performance of the decree within the time limited in the judgment. The case is reported in the Law Reports, 2 Admiralty and Ecclesiastical, page 30. JUDGMENT.—This case was argued before me on the 2d of November, and my judgment would have been given immediately had I not been requested to defer it for a few days, on the ground that there was a prospect of the matter being arranged out of Court. That prospect has disappeared, and I can no longer delay my judgment. The reasons assigned by the defendant for non-compliance with the order of the Court, A both as to the payment of the £100 costs, and the restoring the bones and earth which had been so improperly removed, are these, in substance at least: First, he says he is a bankrupt, and cannot pay the £100. Secondly, he says that the field into which he has removed the bones and earth out of the churchyard is no longer his, for he has transferred it to trustees for his son-in-law and daughter, and that he cannot lawfully enter upon it for the purpose of obeying the order of the Court. Looking to the whole of the circumstances of this case, as set forth in the judgment of my predecessor, and the date and character of the pleadings before him, and the minutes of Court, I am sorry to say I have no doubt whatever that one if not both these excuses have been resorted to with the deliberate intention of rendering nugatory and treating with contempt the decree of the Court. With regard to the bankruptcy, it is alleged that the defendant became bankrupt before the decree of this Court was made-that he has an order from the Bankruptcy Court which protects him from the process of this Court. The case cited, Wallinger v. Gurney, shows that the production of an interim protection order under 5 & 6 Vict. c. 116, s. 1, justifies the sheriff in discharging an insolvent out of his custody under a writ of execution, although the debt for which the execution creditor had recovered judgment did not exist until the insolvent's petition had been filed. Therefore, if it be true that the order which Mr. Colthurst has obtained be of this kind, and protects him from debts incurred subsequently to that order, he will, under the authority of this case, be discharged by the sheriff on the production of that order, though he be arrested under the writ issuing in consequence of the decree of this Court. It may, however, be that this £100 costs is not a debt provable under Mr. Colthurst's present petition in bankruptcy. It may also be that, looking to the fact that the date of the defensive allegations given in by Mr. Colthurst in this case, namely, the 21st of February, was the principal cause, according to the opinion expressed by Dr. Lushington in his judgment, of most unnecessary expense; that the date of Mr. Colthurst's becoming bankrupt was the 25th of February; that after this date Mr. Colthurst persisted in carrying on a defence in this cause which entirely failed, in which his creditors would, in no event, have the slightest interest, and which, as I have said, was the principal cause of the costs in which he has been condemned;-looking to all these facts, I am not certain, if Mr. Colthurst is not already protected from the payment of these costs under the order which he has obtained, that he will obtain an extended or fresh order of protection, by which he 1 11 C. B. (N.S.) 182; 31 L. J. (C. P.) 55. |