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New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1283, 18 November 1857, Page 4

A French Defaulter.-—A Paris correspondent states some new facts in relation to M. Charles Thurneyssen, whose failure and flight took place in May last, and who has been thus far screened from capture. It appears that his debts amount to £640,000, while his assets at the best will not exceed £60,000. For ten years he had been insolvent, and for seven he had been regularly plundering his clients. The 'creditors arc endeavouring to bring two of his I relatives—M. Auguste Thurneyssen, the wellknown banker, and M. George Thurneyssen—under liability as partners, owing to mutual transactions entered into at various periods, and the Tribunal of Commerce has postponed its decision for a fortnight. The Great Hope Case.—Mr. and Mrs. Hope, after numerous legal proceedings relative to their divorce and to the possession of their children before the courts both of England and trance, came in March, 1855, to an arrangement that their youngest child, John Henry, should remain with Mrs. Hope, and that the other four should go to their father, Mrs. Hope reserving to herself the privilege of seeing and corresponding with her children. Mrs. Hope, besides, consented to abandon an application for divorce which she had made in England, and undertook not only to oppose but to promote the demand for divorce made against her in that country. A few days ago Mr. Hope applied to the civil tribunal to order that the child in question should be given up to him, and he based his demand on the ground that the Court of Chancery in England had decided that all the children should be placed under his care, and that as the arrangements of March, 1855, was not legal, he was not hound by it. Mrs. Hope, in reply, insisted mat the interests of the child, who is only 10 years cf age, required that he should be left under her care ; and she represented that, as her busband was an Englishman, and as she by her marriage to him must be considered English also, a trench tribunal had no jurisdiction over them in such a matter. She also represented that if the arrangement of March, 1855, wasnot binding in law, there was nothing to prevent the tribunal from declaring that it was equitable, and that it should be acted upon. Lastly, she urged that as Mr. Hope thought fit to live apart from her, and refused to fulfil the duties of husband towards her, though no separation between them had been pro-’ nounced in France, he was not warranted in insisting on exercising alone paternal power over nil their children. The tribunal decided that as the parties are English, as Mr. Hope refused to receive his wife into his house, though not legally separated from her, and as, besides, the interests of ihe child required that he should remain with □is mother, it (the Iribumi 1 ) had no jurisdiction 11 tiie matter, and that Mr, Hope’s application must be dismissed with costs.