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Chap. IX.] Legal Proceedings. 107
Trustees and the Duke of Devonshire as to the ownership of a strip of land by the side of the road from East-Bourne to Pevensey, as to whether it was, or was not, part of the waste lands of the Manor of East-Bourne. This was tried at the Summer Assizes at Lewes on July 22, 1864. The result was a compromise, each party agreeing to convey to the other, strips of land for the mutual advantage of each other.
It was a long time after the place began to grow that we obtained County Court facilities but as the result of an agitation, in which I took an active part,, the first visit of a County Court Judge took place on April 4, 1878 ; but the Sittings were treated as off-shoots of the Lewes Sittings, and Mr. J. H. C. Coles, appointed Registrar, was treated as a Deputy of the Lewes Registrar rather than as an independent official.
Nor has East-Bourne ever occupied any prominent position in the annals of crime. There was an important burglary at The Gore in July 1845, which was never brought home to the thieves by legal proof owing, I used to hear, to the crass stupidity of the Police who were brought into the case, and this, though traces wrere obtained through anonymous letters which led to the intervention of Sir J. Graham, the Home Secretary, and also of the Postmaster-General, being sought and obtained. Two of the certain culprits as accessories
were a footman named J------ D----- and a coachman
named B-----, both in the employ of my grandmother-Mrs. Brodie, and no greater punishment of them was
possible than simple dismissal. D------ set up as a
lodging-house keeper in London and B----- became a
railway porter at Hastings. The plunder took the shape of an extensive raid of silver spoons and forks. These were replaced by new ones, and some of the new ones-and of those not stolen are now in my possession. There is little to distinguish the one from the other except the hall-mark which is the letter i#t, indicating the date of 1847, the larger part of the Brodie plate being marked G which means 1802, the year of my East-Bourne-grandfather's marriage. |
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