The Daily Dispatch: April 25, 1864., [Electronic resource]

---

---

The Perjury case.

--It will be recollected that the case of R. H. Horne, charged with swearing before the Clerk of Henrico county that John H. Colquitt, Jr., a minor, was over twenty-one years of age, was fully examined on Thursday, and the Mayor took until Saturday to give his decision.

On Saturday morning, Horne and all the witnesses being in Court, the Mayor delivered an opinion, of which the following is a summary:

‘ He would not take jurisdiction in this case, for, though he had jurisdiction, the county of Henrico also had jurisdiction, and he preferred in this instance, for sundry reasons, that the county should settle this matter. But, lest any one should think he was trying to shuffle off a difficulty, he was free to say he did not think there was any difficulty. If he took jurisdiction he should not remand the prisoner, because of the loose manner in which the affair of issuing the marriage license had been conducted.--The Clerk had no right to issue that license, the woman in the case being a resident of this city and not of the county, and the oath taken by the prisoner being to the "best of his belief "--an odd sort of an oath.--He would discharge the prisoner, and the county could hold him to account for the matter if it saw fit.

’