28 September 1813 Lancaster Assizes - Cumberland and Westmorland Newspaper Transcriptions

28 September 1813 Lancaster Assizes

LANCASTER ASSIZES
   HINDLEY v. CAVE.

       This cause, which materially affected the interests of the Brewers and
the publicans in general, came on a t the late Assizes at Lancashire, -
before Mr. Baron WOOD and a very respectable Jury. Mr. TOPPING and Mr. LITTLEDALE
for the plaintiff. Mr. SCARLETT and Mr. LAWRENCE for the defendant.

       Mr. LITTLEDALE having opened the case, Mr. TOPPING stated the
importance of the action which was then before the court, arising out of a demand made
by the plaintiff, a Brewer in Liverpool, for ale and Porter alleged to have
been sold and delivered by him to the defendant, who is a Publican, resident in
the same place. The defendant, by payment into court, had reduced the balance
of the account to £6 10s the recovery of which was now sought. - He examined
three witnesses in support of this statement.

       Mr. SCARLETT having fully demonstrated that the casks in use at the
Plaintiffs Brewery, and in which he had been accustomed to make his deliveries
of Ale and Porter, were materially deficient in their legal contents, addressed
the jury at considerable length for the Defendant. Several witnesses were
waiting to have proved the deficiency, the allowance of which was contended for,
but Mr. SCARLETT maintained that the attempt to prove a case for the Plaintiff
had completely failed, inasmuch as it had fully established the illegality of
his demand.

       He fully explained the law upon the case, which provides that "No
common Brewer shall sell Ale or Beer by any other rate than by the Barrel of
Thirty-Six Gallons of Winchester Measure," and left its decision in the hands of
His Lordship on the Bench and the Jury.

       The learned Judge then summed up the evidence, and took occasion to
observe that if the Jury were of opinion that Plaintiff had delivered his Ale in
casks not of the measure prescribed by law, whether willfully or not, he was
not entitled to a verdict. The Jury after retiring about ten minutes returned
a verdict for the Defendant, to the general satisfaction of the Court, which
was much crowded during the whole of the proceedings.

       By this verdict the Defendant obtained an allowance of two gallons per
barrel for every barrel of Ale or Porter drawn by him in the course of his
transactions with the Plaintiff.