§ MR. WAIT (for Sir CHARLES LEGARD)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the case of "Brunton v. Pennington," tried in the County Court of Yorkshire, holden at Stokesley on the 18th May 1877, If he is able to state to the House on what grounds the Judge refused to grant a case for the opinion of the High Court, on the legal points of great importance to a large class of persons which were then raised; whether this is the third time, since January 1876, that a case has been heard at that court, which depended on the true construction of an Act of Parliament, 1 and 2 Will. 4, c. 32, and whether on each of those occasions a case for the opinion of the High Court, on the true construction of that Act, has been asked for and refused; and, on what grounds the Judge refused to receive the documentary evidence submitted to him, under the Act 34 and 35 Vic. c. 112, and whether on each of the previous occasions above referred to, similar documentary evi- 1659 dence under the same Act was submitted and received?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, he was unable to state why the Judge had refused to grant a case for the opinion of the High Court on the legal points involved in the case referred to; and, although he did not think such a Question should be put to him, he had put himself in communication with the Judge with a view to its being answered.