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Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 316, 5 August 1868, Page 2

Last night the new gymnasium at Emanuel's Little Grey hotel was formally opened, aud a large number of subscribers put in an appearance. Everything requisite to carry out gymnastic exercises has been provided, and everything has been done by the promoters to render the establishment ail that it professes to be. Those who are confined during the day have now the means of healthful exercise placed within their reach, and we doubt not that there are many who will gladly avail themselves of them. We may hope to be shortly in possession of a telegraph in full working order, as Mr Aitken has arrived per s.s. Kennedy and 28 packages of telegraph materials .appear on her manifest. Yesterday was a thorough banyan day in Westport, for not a bit of meat, excepting pork, was to be got for love or money. The butchers' shops were literally bare, and some of the proprietors availed themselves of the opportunity to have a regular clean up of their respective This state of affairs will we believe be maintained til! the John Penn or the Beautiful Star turns up. Whether it is a prelude to a rise in butcher's meat, we cannot say, but it is at least ominous. A rather important interpleader case was heard on Monday last, and it will bo read with some interest by persons interested inleasehold property iu the Buller, It was as follows: Tho K «.i lill' had levied, under an ext-

c-utiou upon the bouse property known as the Quartz Eeef Hotel. The execution creditors were Messrs Munro and Powell, and the claimant was Mr E. K. Tyler. Mr Pitt appeared for the claimant, and Mr Campbell for the execution creditors. The case was argued on Saturday, when Mr Pitt maintained that terms of years could not he sold under a distress warrant. Mr Campbell, on the other side, urged that terms of years being chattels, could be levied upon, and that this power, if it did not exist before, is expressly given by the 2nd sec. of " The Execution of Judgments against Eeal Estates Act, ISG7 ;" judgment was reserved. The judgment was in substance as follows :—That the " Execution of Judgments against Real Estates Act has not the force attributed to it by the counsel for the execution creditors, inasmuch as it merely assimilates real to personal property, and it cannot bo maintained that it was the intention of the Act to make real property the subject of a distress warrant from the Eesident Magistrate's Court, particularly when the Act provides that judgment is to be signed in the Supreme Court, in order thatexecution may be had against real property. The only question remaining is, what meant by the term " chattels," in the distress warrant, under a writ of fi fa. estates in land less than freehold can be sold, and this writ directs the bailiff '•' to cause to bo made of the goods and chattels of the defendant" the sum required. But the distress warrant from the Eesident Magistrate's Court

directs the bailiff to levy, "by distress : and sale of the goods and chattels " of the defendant. The use of the word " distress " is material because distress is distinctly laid downbyßlackstonetomeanthetakiugofpersonalchattels.lt appears therefore that under the distress warrant, chattels real cannot be levied upon, and this view is confirmed by the plain contradiction -which would arise if a species of property could be token in execution, the title to which the Court has no jurisdiction to investigate on an inter-pleader summons, since immediately the title to land is put in question the jurisdiction is ousted. It must be held therefore that " terms of years " cannot be the subject of a distress warranf from this Court, and the execution in the present case must be withi drawn.