4a^ ANNUAL llEGISTER, 1805. 



infraction of the law, and after, 

 wards called upon to pay enormous 

 penalties. It therefore became them 

 to pay regard to such a favourable 

 construchon of the act of parlia- 

 ment, as the enacting clauses would 

 bear them out in. He had by him 

 a note of Mr. Justice Blackstone, 

 on a trial before Mr. Baron Perry n, 

 upon the act of Queen Anne, for 

 the preservation of the same, in 

 ■which an exception was taken, that 

 there was an interval of three hours 

 between the proceedings, and that, 

 therefore, it could not be held to bfc 

 only one. The court, however, de- 

 termined, that, notwithstanding the 

 interval, it should be considered as 

 the same transaction: but, as the 

 note observed, the court was then 

 deciding on the meaning of a reme- 

 dial statute, but might not have 

 given the same construction to the 

 words, had it been an information 

 for the recovery of penalties. It 

 appeared to him, he si»;d, that, on a 

 liberal construction of the act, no 

 penalty, in this case, attached upon 

 the printing only, as there was no 

 publication in tlie question. There 

 was also another objection, which 

 struck him, against a conviction in 

 this tiase. The act of parliament 

 required, that the printer's name 

 should appear upon the first and 

 last pages of every book ; but here 

 the printing was not itself a sheet, 

 nor any thing else but a part of a 

 book ; and, as the book was not 

 produced, non constat, that the in- 

 tention of the act was not complied 

 witii, and the printer's name not an- 

 nexed according to its directions. — 

 Upon the whole, the objection 

 seemetl to him to be fatal to the in- 

 formation. 



Mr. Moser, the other sitting ma- 

 gistrate, fully concurred in the opi- 



nion of his colleague, and expressed 

 his abhorrence of such nefarious 

 practices. 



The counsel in support of the 

 prosecution did not ofier a single 

 observation against this decision of 

 the magistrates, which disposed of 

 14 other cases, in the same predica- 

 ment ; and on which Bell said he 

 would withdraw the informations. 

 The number of informations, under 

 the act, against printers in the me- 

 tropolis, exceeds 1000 ; and are, in 

 all probability, as numerous, in 

 proportion, throughout the countrj'. 



28th. At a common hall this day, 

 the livery returned James Shaw and 

 Charles Flowers, esquires, as proper 

 persons to serve the office of lord- 

 mayor of London ; and the alder- 

 men, on a scrutiny, elected Mr. 

 Shaw, 



At King's Cliife, two children 

 died suddenly, after having ate a 

 large quantity of blackberries. 



Died. — i7th. The d.ay she com- 

 pleted her J 00th year, Mrs. Gar- 

 land, relict of Mr. G. formerly a 

 respectable Lisbon Merchant. 



OCTOBER. 



1st. This day the coming-house 

 of the new powder-mill, at Roslin, 

 near Edinburgh, containing upwards 

 of 40 barrels of gunpowder, blew 

 up with a dreadful explosion. Twp 

 of the workmen perished. One 

 man was thrown across the Rivef 

 Esk : the other to the top of a pre- 

 cipice overhanging the water. Both 

 have left helpless widows, one the 

 mother of 7 young children. 



A water-party, consisting of Mr. 

 Hoare, George Peters, esquire, of 

 Jesus-college, Cambridge, eldest son 

 of Mr. P. the banker, of White 



Hart-courtj 



