Parish settlements and the practice of appeals ... / Jellinger C. Symons.
- Jelinger Cookson Symons
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Parish settlements and the practice of appeals ... / Jellinger C. Symons. Source: Wellcome Collection.
23/377
![cottage in Creech; in 1795 he let it to the parish officers for 1000 years, and they took possession. In 1813 he was placed in it by the parish officers, and the pauper’s wife came to nurse him. He died there that year, and his daughter continued in the cottage, and at the end of six weeks the pauper joined his wife, and laid claim to the cottage as his wife’s property. The parish officers had mislaid the con¬ veyance to them, and therefore could not withstand his claim; and the pauper and his family resided there from 1813 to 1818, when the pauper having become chargeable, and the officers having found the conveyance, they were removed, and the point submitted to the Court of Queen’s Bench was, whether the pauper gained a settlement by this residence? Bayley, J., said, “We are of opinion that he did. The sessions have found no fraud in the pauper or his wife in acquiring or retaining possession; and if we were at liberty to infer fraud, which we are not, there are no pre¬ mises from which such an inference could properly be drawn. The husband comes to the cottage under a claim of right, and for anything which appears he might really be¬ lieve he had that right. The parish officers who alone can gainsay it do not gainsay it or take any steps to oppose his occupation, but acquiesce in it for more than four years. There is no decision under circumstances in any respect like the present. R. v. St. Michael's, Bath (g), and R. v. Catherington (A), were cases where the pauper had nothing which he had a colour for calling his own, and if not, we must look to the words of the statute whether this is within the mischief against which that statute meant to provide. The 13 & 14 Car. 2, c. 1 2, recites, &c. [here he read the recital and enactment, and added] is then the pauper within the words, the spirit, or the mischief of the provision ? He comes to Creech, not for any of the motives this statute meant to repress, but because he has a freehold in the parish j (g) Doug. 630. (h) 3 T.R. 771. N](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2933553x_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
