The Annual Register contains the following interesting case. July 25, 1857.—At the Maidstone Assizes an action arising out of a singular and melancholy accident was tried. The action, Shilling v. The Accidental Insurance Company, was brought by Charlotte Shilling, widow and administratrix of Thomas Shilling, to recover from the defendants the sum of £2000, upon a policy effected by the deceased on the life of her father-in-law, James Shilling. The husband of the plaintiff, Thomas Shilling, carried on the business of a builder at Malling, a short distance from Maidstone. His father, James Shilling, lived with him; he was nearly 80 years old, and very infirm, and his son used to drive him about occasionally in his pony chaise. In the month of March, last year, an application was made to the defendants to effect two policies for £2000 each upon the lives of Thomas Shilling and James Shilling, and to secure that sum in the event of either of them dying from an accident, and the policies were completed and delivered in the following month of June. On the evening of the 11th of July, 1856, about half-past 7 o’clock, the father and son went from Malling with a pony and chaise, for the purpose of proceeding to a stone quarry at Aylesford, where Thomas Shilling had business to transact, and they never returned home again alive. There where two roads by which they could have got to the quarry from Malling, one of which was rather a dangerous one to be taken with a vehicle and horse, on account of a steep bank leading to the river Medway being on one side and the railway passing close to the other; but this route, it appears, was much shorter than the other, which was nearly two miles round, and it was consequently constantly used both by pedestrians and carriages. About 8 o’clock the pony and chaise and the father and son were seen on this road, and upon arriving at the gate leading to the quarry, Thomas Shilling got out, leaving the pony and chaise in charge of his father. Mr. Garnham, the owner of the quarry, was not at home, and while one of the labourers was conversing with Thomas Shilling, the sound of an approaching train was heard, and the men advised him to go back to his pony, for fear it should take fright at the train, and he said he would do so, as it had been frightened by a train on a previous occasion. He accordingly went towards the gate where he had left the pony and chaise, and from that time there was no evidence to show what took place. The family sat up the whole night awaiting the return of their relatives in the utmost possible alarm at their absence; but nothing was heard of them until the following morning, when a bargeman found the drowned pony and the chaise and the dead bodies of the father and son floating in the Medway, near the spot where the chaise had been last seen on the previous evening. They were taken home, and a coroner’s inquest was held, and the only conclusion that could be arrived at was that the pony had taken fright at the noise of the train, which appeared to have passed about the time, and that he had jumped into the river, which at this spot was from 12 to 14 feet deep.

The policy on the life of the father had been assigned to the son, whose widow claimed the two sums insured from the defendants. That payable on the death of the son they paid: but they refused to pay that due on the father’s policy, and pleaded to the action several pleas, alleging certain violations of the conditions; and singularly enough, considering that they had not disputed the son’s policy on the same ground, they now pleaded that the death was not the result of accident, but arose from wanton and voluntary exposure to unnecessary danger.

The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff.