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SUPREME COURT.-TUESDAY.
(From the Herald.)
(Before Mr. Justice Dickinson and a jury of four.)
DICKSON V. BRUSH AND ANOTHER.
This was an action of trover to recover the
value of a nugget of gold weighing about
31 3 ounces, and valued at £90. The defendants
pleaded that they were lawfully possessed of
the " nugget" as their own property.
Counsel for plaintiff, Mr. Foster; attorneys,
Messrs. Thurlow and Grant. Counsel for defendants,
Mr. Broadhurst ; attorney, Mr. Martin.
The plaintiff is a storekeeper, residing at
Mudgee, and the defendants, Messrs. Brush and
MacDonnell, are jewellers, carrying on business
in George-street, Sydney. On the 2nd February
last plaintiff purchased for £85 a nugget weigh-
ing 319 ounces, which was subsequently stolen.
A person was prosecuted for the theft at the
Bathurst Circuit Court, but was acquitted, and
no trace was discovered of the missing nugget
until one was seen at the shop of defendants,
which was said to be the same. This piece of
gold was the subject matter of the present
action.
The nugget being produced in court, was
sworn to positively by plaintiff's storekeeper, by
his son, and by a resident in Mudgee (his land-
lord), who had seen and examined it, to be the
same that had been stolen from plaintiff's store.
The value was admitted to be £90. It was admitted
also that the defendants purchased the
nugget for this sum on the 17th March, and
caused a paragraph to be inserted in the Empire
describing the appearance, fee., of the nugget,
and stating its weight to be 31 ozs. 4dwts.
Mr. Broadhurst contended that evidence as to
the identity of such a thing as a nugget was, in
its nature, unsatisfactory, and ought not, as in
the case, to have the effect of stripping bona-fide
purchasers of the property for which they
had paid.
In support of this, it was also shown that Mr.
Dickson himself, when he first saw and claimed
this nugget, had not been positive as to its
being the one which had been stolen from him.
Mr. Dickson's attention having been attracted to
the paragraph in the Empire already alluded to,
and to one which appeared in the Herald on the
following day, came to Sydney and saw the
nugget in defendant's window, and subsequently
he obtained a search warrant, and having the
evidence of others, as well as his own, to its
identity, it was removed in the ordinary way.
Defendants, however, commenced proceedings
against Mr. M'Lerie for the detention, and the
result was a Judge's order, under the Inter-
pleader Act, for the trial of the right of owner-
ship by these pleadings. The deposition of Mr.
Dickson OH the occasion referred to was placed
in evidence, and from this it appeared that, as
already stated, the latter, on first examining the
nugget, was uncertain as to whether it was his or
not. It further appeared, however, that he was
afterwards clear upon this point.
Mr. Foster having replied, his Honor briefly
summed up, and the jury, after retiring for a
few minutes, found a verdict for the plaintiff,
damages £90.
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