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The proceedings, preliminary to the inquiry of
damages to be held before the Sheriff of
Cornwall, at Bodmin, on the 18th inst., appear to
be prosecuted, on the part of the Board of Trade,
with all the dispatch that the provisions of the
new act admit of.
On Saturday last, the full list of 48 special
jurors of the county, was struck by the
under-sheriff, H.Trefusis Smith, Esq., Mr.
O'Dowd, the newly appointed solicitor for
Merchant Shipping, attending on behalf of the
Board of Trade, and Mr.J.Kelly, solicitor, on the
part of the owners of the John, who are eight in
number.
The list of 48 jurors will, today, be reduced to
20, each party having the power of striking off
14 names. Concurrently with these proceedings,
further notices have been served on the
defendants, the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854,
requiring, in addition, to the original notices
of the instruction to institute the suit, a ten
days' notice to each of the defendants, of
the time and place of the enquiry.
The Act gives the plaintiffs the option, instead
of serving the defendants with the latter notice,
of having the Master of the Ship served, who,
were he at liberty, would, in that event, be
competent to represent the owners in the trial.
But he being in custody, under a charge of
manslaughter,, it has not been thought proper to
have any notice served on him. In the mean time,
claims to a considerable amount continue to be in
to the Board of Trade, by such survivors of the
lost passengers, as are, due to the Clergy of the
counties of Cornwall and Devon, to notice the
commendable zeal with which they seem to aid
those unhappy persons in communicating with the
Board of Trade. But it cannot be too clearly or
extensively communicated throughout the
localities in which the claimants reside, that
the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act,
under which the pending enquiry will take place,
restrict the right to compensation to cases of
death or injury; for example, that of a parent,
who has lost a child - a child who has lost a
parent - a husband who has lost a wife or child,
and vice versa.
The Statute does not in this proceeding,
recognise any claim on the part of remoter
relatives.
In some instances, the claims will, no doubt, be
comparatively clear and satisfactory, but in
others they will not be equally so, foe example;
where a whole family of the passengers were, to
all appearance, sacrificed. It may turn out in
this latter class of cases, that the families
were proceeding to join their head, at the place
of the ill-fated ship's destination. With
respect to these we would suggest to the clergy
and magistracy of the place whence the emigrants
departed to communicate all the information in
their power. This becomes the more necessary, as
the list of passengers furnished by the Master to
the Emigration Agent, and recorded by the latter
at the Custom-house, does not state the residence
of the passengers.
The owners of the late emigrant ship John, recently wrecked
on the Manacles Rocks, on the Coast of Cornwall, accompanied by
loss of life to a melancholy extent, and against the owners of
which ship, the Board of Trade had instituted proceedings under
the Merchant Shipping Act, for the recovery of damages for
distribution among the relatives of those who were drowned - have
made proposals to the Board of Trade for staying the proceedings,
and the Board have come to an arrangement with the owners, in
accordance with which, the latter have placed at the disposal
of the Board of Trade a sum sufficient to meet all just claims
within the terms and provisions of the Act. The owners consider
that, after investigation into the circumstances of the wreck,
which took place before the magistrates at Falmouth, that it
would be inexpedient to incur the expense of an enquiry before
the Sheriff of Cornwall and a special jury, which had been summonsed
for the purpose. This arrangement renders the inquiry which had
been fixed for the 18th inst. Unnecessary.
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