Vice Chancellors' Courts, Saturday, March 25. klDeore oar L,. Z5HADWELL.) ins murier nearing of this cause was resumed to-day, and occupied the wbole time of the sitting. The facta were re- ported in The Times of the 16th inst, when the Solicitor- (.eneral opened the case. Mr. WALtER followed the Solicitor-General in support of the plaintiff's case, and had not concladed his address when the Court rose. (Be,fore Sir J. K. BRUcE.) PICXBRING V. TIIE BISHOP OF ELY. The SOLICITOR-GENERAL replied in this case. He con- tended, tha- although the Crown, a lord of a manor, or a corporation, might either of them take to itself the perform- ance of acts relating to their several estates or properties, yet that if the offices to which such duties were attached were once granted, neither one or other of them eould do anything which would derogate from that grant. If the Crown grant. ed the office of keeper of a forest, the lord of the manor the right cf taking surrenders, or a corporation the right to make their corporation leases, neither could take away the right to perform the duties, if by such an act any profitable employment would be abstracted fiom the grantee. In the case before the Ooart the then bisho hae grasited, 40 years ago, the "office of receiver of al issues, rents, and sums of money arising from the see of Ely" to the plaintiff. The documentary evi- dence showed that as early as the time of Henry IV. there was such an officer in the see as receiver-general, and the oral testimony showed that as long back as liviDg memory went it had been the usage, the habit, or practice, of the re- ceiver-general to prepare the leases and surrenders now clainea to be prepared by the plaintiff, so that the plaintiff bad established the place of receiver-general to be an ancient offiEce, and that one of its duties was to de what Mr. Picker- ing claimed, and one of its rights to receive what Mr. Picker- ing said he ought to he permlitted to receive. It had been objected that the patent did not mention tbis par:icular duty. No patent did specify the duties. It had then been said that no evidence beyond the patent could be received to in- terpret it. Sach was not the case i on the contrary, the only wvay to find out what were the duties of an offi- cer, was to see what had been the usage of the holders of such office in time past. The counsel for the bishop had objected that thb office or place of receiver-gene- ral was one of trust and skill, and that therefore the biasop onght not to be bound by the patent granted by hie predecessors. Many similar offices were offices of skill, avid might, like this, be performned by deputy. So long as the party performing the duties was of competent ability, that was enougb. The learneJ counsel then commented at lesIth on the authorittes cited for the defendant, and contended thst the plaintiff had fully established his case, and was en- titled to call upon the Court to protect him from the dis- turbance of his legal right. Re did not come here for the arpose ef having a specific performance of his agreement. lherewes no agreement between the pirties. lt was the owner of a legal ancient office who claimed, the protectior, o f his nght.madams ofhiD rONOU.-I not this a case for a sstandomus 7 The SOLICITOR-OsENERAL thougbt that it was not. If a mnodainus were applied for, a coi rt of law would aay " brinR your action for disturbance." The Universities of Oxford sud Cambrid>ge and tke East India Company had claimed and obtained the protection of this Court for their legal rlhta. Hi HoSaoun wished to know whether the counsel for the plaintiff thought that the receiver-general could resign his office without and against the consent of the bishop I The SOLICITOR- GENERAL eonsidered, after referring to se- veral authorities, that he could not. THE BISHOP OF ELY v. PICKEIt5NG. Tbis cause was one for the delivering up by the receiver of certain deeds, papets, and muniments alleged to belong to, ad that they ought to be in the castody of, the bishop. The same counsel appeared as Li the other suit. His HONOUR will give hig judgment on both causes on the 71h of April. ((Before Sir J. WlGuAX.) FOSS V. HARBOTTLE. His HO6oun delivered judgument on the demurrera in this case. The bill was Ailed by two sharsholders of the Victoria Park Company, on bel.lf of the;madsae and al otbqr itame b<rs of the company, except the defenantis, against 'r. Hiar- bottle, J. Adshead, H . BYrom, J. Westhead, R. Bealey, directors and J. Denison, T. P. Banting, the solioitor and R. LAne, the arobitect. The bill eaarged four of the defend- ants, who were directors of the company, first, with having, in sabetanoe, purchased their own lands, for the uee of the company for the purpose of formint a park in the neighbour- bood of Manchester, to be called the Victoria Park, and with having taken out of the asseats of the campany as the purchse-money for the lands so purehasd much larger sums thaln the lands were in fact wortbhWr than ought to have been paid fer them. The other defendants were charged with privity to these transactions. Secondly, that the direc- tore had improperly mortgaged the property of the company, haying power of doing so under its constitution. The act of Parliament establishing the company (7 William IV.) pro- vided that they should not raise money by mortgage until a sam of liWO,O,1. had been subscribed by the shareholders, wbich had never been done; and the charge was that the directors hba evaded this prorision b affixing the common seal of the company to conveyanees to themiseles individually, and then mortgaging the property themselves to tbird persons- the bill charged, in fact, although by circuity, that the pro- perty of the cbmpiny wa so eneumbered in order to pay the directors themselves the sums they claimed from the com- pany. By the act the company was made a corporation, end one objection was, that this suit, if it could be sustained, could only be sustained by the corporation, and not by some indivi- dual members against others. This had bceh insisted uponas a general proposition, but be thought cases might be suggested in which a sait might be brought by some individnale of a cor- poratlon against others, notwithstanding as a body they had taken a corporate oharacter. The quesdion was whether the eireumstances of this case, as they were stated in the bill enabled the plaintiffs to proceed in the manner they Ka2 chosen. His Honoar then went through the materiai clauses of the act of Parliament with reference to the powers of the directers and the individual proprietors. By the 129th section of the act, the proprietori w,re enabled to convene a meeting by serving a notice thereof on the clerk of the company at their principal offlice, in Case the directors when applied to refused to convene such meeting. The acts com- plained of with rerard to the purchases of land were acts which the company might,if they had thought proper, here confirmed, for the directors themselves would have been bound by the transaction; the acts with regard to the mortgaging of the property might have been acts which, if beyond the powers of the company, the proprietors migbt not hive been able to confirm. The suit, however, Wus not for the purpose ef setting aside those mortgages, but the object was to ebarge the defendants with the consequences of making them: this was a point, therefore, in which the other mnembers of the cor- poration might or might no:concar. There was nothing in the b:ll inconsistent with the fact that all the membrs of the cor poration except the plaintiffs might disapprove of the object which the plaintiffs sought to obtain by this suit. The next question, therefore, would be, wbether the circumstanres were such as ta have prevented the plaintiffs from procuring a meet- ingof the proprietors to be called,at which meetingthe company might, if they had approved of such a coarse, have deter- mited to proceed in their corporate name against the defend- ants, if they had a case agairst them, or thoaght the proceed- ing would be beneficial. The bill stated that there was now no clerk of the company, and no office, and that the business had been far some time transacted at the office of Mr. Bent- ing, the solic?tor. The service of the notice of meeting by the proprietors might have been made at that office. There was no magie in the service on a clerk of the company at the principal office. The clause containinA the directions in this respect was merely directory. The service would have been l valid, constituted as the com pany was according to the state- ment of th tbill. The bill did not state such a case as to show that there was not a board do facto, and that the members of the corporation, if they approved of the suit, might not have sued in their copotrate character, without making it necessary to proceed in the form adopted by this bill. The demurrers must, therefore, be allowed. VICE. CHANCELLORS' COURTS, SATURDAY, MAtCU 25. -WOODRUFFl. V. D/NIELL.