Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

An extraordinary sensation was produced among the legal gentlemen at the West Riding Sessions at Leeds, last week, by the following singular circumstance. A Commissioner of the Insolvent Court had been sitting at Wakefield, and used a description of paper called foolscap furnished by the Government stationer: by a lucky accident the watermark was discovered to be “1837.” A sheet of the paper was produced in the Sessions Court by Messrs. Maude and Marshall, barristers, and the attention of the Court was called to the fact of paper being used in 1836 with 1837 marked upon it. The case was put of a disputed will comprising large possessions and great wealth, and affecting the interests of families, &c., very materially. What would be the consequence if the watermark of the paper were found to be subsequent to the date of the will? Or suppose the paper were stamped – a case not only possible, but extremely probable – and the instrument written on such paper were questioned, and the watermark ascertained as before, it is impossible to foresee the consequences. The character of the first attorneys, whose reputation was perfectly unblemished, might thus become compromised, without their being at all to blame in the matter. Or, descending to humble life, we will suppose a case in the Court of Requests; a poor man is sued for a debt which he has paid, he produces his receipt, but the water-mark of the paper on which it is is examined, and being dated a year subsequent to the date of his receipt, not only is his reputation destroyed, but he has to pay over again a debt which he has already discharged, and he may be pauperized and disgraced for life. It would be easy to multiply instances where this paper might produce disastrous effects: the above will suffice; and we hope the public will be warned. The paper produced at the Leeds Sessions will be transmitted to Mr Baron Parke.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

THE WATER-MARK ON PAPER
An extraordinary sensation was produced among the legal gentlemen at the West Riding Sessions at Leeds, last week, by the following singular circumstance. A Commissioner of the Insolvent Court had been sitting at Wakefield, and used a description of paper called foolscap furnished by the Government stationer: by a lucky accident the watermark was discovered to be “1837.” A sheet of the paper was produced in the Sessions Court by Messrs. Maude and Marshall, barristers, and the attention of the Court was called to the fact of paper being used in 1836 with 1837 marked upon it. The case was put of a disputed will comprising large possessions and great wealth, and affecting the interests of families, &c., very materially. What would be the consequence if the watermark of the paper were found to be subsequent to the date of the will? Or suppose the paper were stamped – a case not only possible, but extremely probable – and the instrument written on such paper were questioned, and the watermark ascertained as before, it is impossible to foresee the consequences. The character of the first attornies, whose reputation was perfectly unblemished, might thus become compromised, without their being at all to blame in the matter. Or, descending to humble life, we will suppose a case in the Court of Requests; a poor man is sued for a debt which he has paid, he produces his receipt, but the water-mark of the paper on which it is is examined, and being dated a year subsequent to the date of his receipt, not only is his reputation destroyed, but he has to pay over again a debt which he has already discharged, and he may be pauperized and disgraced for life. It would be easy to multiply instances where this paper might produce disastrous effects: the above will suffice; and we hope the public will be warned. The paper produced at the Leeds Sessions will be transmitted to Mr. Baron Parke. – Halifax Express.

333 words.

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• HMSO (1) ·
• Law (4) ·
• 📌Leeds (235) ·
• Stationery (1) ·
• 📌Wakefield (36), cathedral city on the River Calder in the West Riding/West Yorkshire ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (147) ·

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