The Press. — London, England, 1854-01-14 00:00:00

.ZM'ir 34 nnb Volta. A FIAT IN BANKIWPTCY was issued as far back as January, 11447, in the case of Mr. James Bohn, a bookseller in St. James's - stree t, but, owing to the protracted nature of the law proceedings taken for the recovery of assets in his estate, the bankrupt was not able to tile his accounts in condition tit for pass ing the court until the 91st ult. lie accordingly came up to "pass" on Tuesday last : The balance-sheet, which extenda from September, 1515, to January, 1817, shows these results :—To creditors, 6,7721.; ditto, secured, 9,2111. ; capital, 9341.; profits, 8,8591.; accounts received. Ell. ; by debts (assigned), 0761.; property, 53111.; property held as security, 21,3331.; trade expenses, 1,606/. ; personal, 7341. ; losses, 1,4111. ; liabilities, 1421. The principal creditor was the trustee of the late Captain Long, of ltyde, who bad advanced the bank nip& 3,0001. in 1845. By venous indentures, bearing date in 1845 and 1846, the bankrupt had assigned to Captain Long all Ids copyright and interest in " llugilale's Monasticon minim," and other works. A further security extended over the lease of his premises, and the remainder of his stock in trade and fixtures had been given as security for a further advance of 8,0001., which Mr. Bohn denied having ever received. Judgment was obtained and execution put in, as the bankrupt contended improperly, whereupon an action was cummenceil against the sheriff, and proceedings taken to Chancery against the trustee. In the former the assignees were successful ; the latter are still pending. About 6001. has been received under the estate, but there has as yet been no dividend. The bankrupt passed. THE MAGISTRATES OF MARLBOROUOR.STREF.T PO ME COURT have made some judicious arrangements with the parochial authorities and the police, with a view of relieving as far as possible those privations to which the poorer classes in the district are exposed, in consequence of the severity of the season and the high price of fuel and food. Aided by the contribu tions entrusted to their hands, or placed in the" poor box" at the court, the magistrates have placed at the disposal of the parishes a large quantity of coke, to be distributed among poor families in the various localities, and have also consented to receive recom mendations from the relieving officers, as these par ties are more likely to know who are the honest necessitous, and who the mere lazy pauper and im postor. The police have also had instructions to search out for proper cases of relief, and the result is that much uncomplaining and undoubted privation has been brought to light and suitably relieved. Tim LONDON GAS COMPANY charged a hairdresser in York-street, Camden-town, named Strutt, with stealing some gas. The nature and the object of the alleged felony were considered novel, and the case, which was tried at the Middlesex Sessions, excited much interest. Strutt, it appeared, hal con tracted with the company for gas enough to supply one burner. Their inspectors fancied that he was using more than he paid for, and examined his shop, where, in a corner, they discovered that a small pipe had been inserted in the main, whence gas enough was extracted to keep his shaving-pot boiling. When found out Mr. Strutt declared that he had fully in • tended to pay for the surplus gas. One of tha t had been in use for more than a twelvemonth, as he had seen it often when going to the shop to get shaved before he entered his present employment. At the trial some difficulty arose as to the proof of proprie torship in the gas, it being pleaded and admitted that the several gas companies who supplied the dis trict occasionally tapped mains in mistake belonging to one another. That doubt being ultimately cleared up, the jury returned a verdict of " Guilty of stealing, without felonious intention ": The AastaTAN r Jenoc : Gentlemen, that's nonsense. That is a verdict of not guilty, though you say guilty. It is the felonious intent that makes the guilt, and that verdict is like a jury finding a man guilty of murder without wilful design. The jury were then locked up for some time, but presently returned into court with a verdict of Guilty. The prisoner was sentenced to one month's im prisonment. THE NIGHT Or WEDNESDAY WEEK will be memo rable in the annals of London traffic from the many interruptions and inconveniences which the weather occasioned, but in no respect were the elemental influences more seriously felt than in the supply and price of cab accommodation. It was a time when all the accustomed regulations were overset, and when, if ever, Mr. Fitzroy's Cab Act might be considered temporarily dormant. Nevertheless, the provisions of this act were invoked against an unlucky cab driver by Mr. I'anizzi, whose name has acquired so much notoriety in connection with the unfinished catalogue of books at the British Museum, and as the plaintiff in divers actions for penalties against publishers in London and the country. The present charge was heard on Monday at Bow-street Office, when Mr. l'anizzi made the following statement of his grievances:— On Wednesday afternoon, the 4th init., h eelt a porter from the Museum to get him a cab, but lie rwtiirl it it the answer, " No one will come." Witness then walked to the Maud in South =punt-row, it being then between seven and eight o'clock, and LW/ four or Ave calm, but no drivers. Supposing they had gone into public-houses, he continued for some (tine to bawl out for the cabmen, but the waterman and two or three other Melt Way laughed at him. Eventually, on seeing defendant with his cab, witness desired him to come to the pavement to take hint up. lie did se vary 'broke, and witness went behind the cab to look at its Punter, upon which defendant exclaimed, " be In e pas- THE PRESS. sion !" and putted the smoke of a cigar iu hie (Mr. Panizes) face. Witness said, "This is not respectful conduct, and you know it," at the same time demanding the number of his badge. The cabman stood in such a position that witness was obliged to put his face close to the titan's breast in order to see his badge, and while doing so the defendant blew another puff into his Iwo. Witness ordered him to desist, but he replied, ' I have paid for it (the cigar), and shall smoke it." All this time the other men were laughing and jeering at him, and when witness had taken his seat, and directed the cabman to drive him to Belgrave-squure, they cried out, " You'll never get there!" The defendant would not ring or knock at the house where witness alighted, and never delivered up a ticket of his number. The defendant said the occurrence happened on the first after noon after the great snow, and the gentleman came up in a great passion from not being able to get a cab. Detendatit could not pull up close to the kerbstone owing to the snow, and this excited hint very much. lie (defendant) was certainly au noyed at the gentleman's manner ; but he took the cigar out of his mouth when the gentleman was taking his number, and also whim lie opened the door of the cab. Samuel Wright, &journeyman watchmaker, said that he hap pened to he passing at the time, and was attracted by the crowd. The gentleman was very much excited, but the cabman did not mitt his cigar in complaimuit's fare, nor use any abusive lan guage. When the gentleman got into the cab, the driver offered to give him a ticket, but the gentleman said, " You be —!" and refused to have it. Mr. Panizzi stated that this evidence was wholly false. Mr. IlAtd, said it was perfectly ridiculous to suppose that any gentleman of common propriety would make such a false charge against a cabman ; and the witness, in making out a case for the defendant, had even gone further than the man himself, who did not any that Mr. Panizzi refused to take a ticket. Besides, the defenhuit was liable to a penalty of 40s. fur smoking at all while on awl. The cabman was fined :10s. for the two offences, and costa, or twenty-one days. Jolts BURTON was detected coming out of some warehouses belonging to the St. Katharine Dock Company, where he had no legitimate business, with seven pounds of pepper in his pockets. There were large quantities of that article lying about in the stores where he was noticed to have been prowling about. Being taken to the police superintendent of the dock, the prisoner endeavoured to make him be lieve that he had received the pepper from some of the men, and merely carried it away to show to the dock authorities, in proof of the frauds which their employes were committing ; but this barefaced at tempt to shift his guilt upon innocent shoulders proved abortive, and Burton was sent to prison. He was in due course brought up for trial at the Mid dlesex Sessions on Monday last, when the above facts were stated in evidence, and a moral certainty of the crime sufficiently established. A technical difficulty, however, arose from the circumstance that the stolen article could not be legally identified. The pepper found upon the prisoner's person exactly resembled that which lay in the company's ware houses, but still it could not be sworn to as actually having been their property. Nor could the dock officers even declare that their stores had been robbed at all, since the gross quantities of pepper lying in heaps were too large to allow the deficiency of a few pounds to be perceptible. Upon this point Mr. Ribton, the prisoner's counsel, quoted a prece dent from the law reports of 1845, the case having been tried before Mr. Justice Erie at the Wiltshire Assizes : In this ease the prisoner, a little boy, was indicted for stealing a doll and other toys. It was proved that the prosecutor kept a large toyshop at Trowbridge, and that the prisoner came into his shop dressed in a smoekfrock, and, after remainingfor some time, front suspicion that was excited, he was searched, and under his smockfroek they found concealed a doll and six toy horses. The prosecutor swore that he believed the toys to be his property, as they exactly resembled others which he hail in the shop. With respect to the doll his evidence went still further, as he swore the doll had been his, because his private shop-mark was on it; but lie could not say it had not been sold in the regular way of business, and lie had not missed it; trod, front the peculiar nn titre of his stock and the business lie carried on, could not miss any of the articles with stealing which the boy stood charged. Under these circumstances Mr. Justice Erle re m 'irked that the corpus delicti had not been made out, and consequently directed an acquittal. Mr. Sergeant Adams, however, would not consent to follow the precedent set by Mr. Justice Erle, as the decision entirely contravened his own opinion of the law, but offered to refer the case to the Court of Appeal. This course was accordingly adopted, and formal verdict of Guilty recorded, subject to revision by the Court of Criminal Appeal. THE same company have had William Cook, an extra porter employed in their warehouses, taken into custody on a charge of stealing some raw silk. lie was suspected, watched, and searched, and four skeins of silk being found secreted in his stockings, where they formed false calves to his legs, he was cosigned to the police. After an examination at the Mansion-house on Tuesday the prisoner was remanded. THE BELGIAN MINISTER at the Court of St. James's, M. Drouet, had been made defendant in an action brought by one Taylor to recover a sum of 2501. which that plaintiff alleged was due to him as a deposit on certain shares in a company for working mines in Belgium, of which company M. Drouet had been a director. The case had proceeded through the pre liminary stages during the defendant's absence from England. On Thursday, however, he applied to the Court of Common Pleas for a rale to show cause why all the proceedings should not be set aside or stayed, alleging through his counsel, Mr. Willes, that, though he had a good defence to the action on the merits, he felt it due to his diplomatic position to SATURDAY, plead the exemption from liability to all legal pre_ cess before an English civil tribunal which apper tained to his status as a resident Minister of the Belgian Government at the British Court. The rule was, therefore, asked for on the ground that the Court had no jurisdiction in the case. The applica tion was unopposed, but the Court made a variety of inquiries touching the international law which governed the case, and in the course of the atgu ments sundry precedents, some of them dating from the time of Oliver Cromwell, and a number of high legal authorities, including Grotius and Vette], were cited in support of M. Deouet's demand. Ultimately the Court granted the rule. I "R7•1141 1 7P gittibtnts aA effnites. AT A SERIOTTS FIRE which broke out in a German lodging-house in Whitechapel, ten persons had a narrow escape, after undergoing a terrible fright. The flames spread so rapidly that four of the lodgers were forced to get out of an upper window and hang on to the side by their hands. In another room were four children, with their parents, left without retreat, and the fire approaching nearer every mo ment. Happily a fire-escape was brought to the spot, and the whole number successively extricated from peril, although their safe deliverance seemed a matter of miracle, so near had the flames reached. The house was nearly gutted before the conflagration could be got under. THE MYSTERY ATTENDING THE MURDER IN ACTON is still under investigation. A man named Wildbore has been taken into custody on suspicion, and re manded, after examination. He is said to resemble the man who drove the cart in which the murdered lad was carried off. The police have since traced out anotherboy who witnessed that transaction, and whose evidence will be ready on future occasions for the purposes of identification. A FARMER'S LABOURER at Stapleton, near Bristol, lost his way on Wednesday night while taking home a horse which his master had borrowed, and in the morning was found frozen to death. The Wiltshire Independent speaks of a carter being lost in some snowdrift, his cart and horses having been with diffi culty recovered. Several cases are mentioned in the papers (two occurred at Glasgow) of persons in a state of intoxication, who laid down on the ground, being frozen to death. So great was the weight of snow which bad collected on the tops of some build ings that they were forced in, and in one case, at Belfast, three lives were lost from this cause. A lady residing in Liverpool was to have been married in the sth inst. to a gentleman from town, who was ex pected to join the guests assembled at the marriage feast. Instead of his arrival, however, the bride re ceived a telegraphic message conveying the intelli gence that her intended was "snowed up" at Staf ford. After the frost came the thaw, and the floods contributed a fresh series of disasters to those occa sioned by the cold or the snow. WILLIAM CUMMING, capitally convicted before the fligh Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, and whose execution had been fixed for last Monday, has been respited for fourteen days. This reprieve has been requested by the law authorities at Edinburgh in order to give time for some important inquiries. SAM DAY, the well-known jockey, who had only recently recovered from breaking his thigh at Good wood races, experienced a similar accident on Satur day last, whilst on a visit to Mr. B. Way, at Denham house, near Uxbridge. Every attention, and the best surgical aid, have been 'rendered to him, and it is hoped that the consequences will not be serious. In turf circles much commiseration is expressed for him. A MELANCHOLY AND MYSTERIOUS EVENT has oc curred near Leeds. At Hunslet a recently-married couple were residing in a house where some outside steps led from a platform on a level with their bed • room window into the road. On Saturday last both husband and wife were in Leeds amusing them selves, and apparently happy and loving. They returned home at night, but were missed in the morning. Footsteps in the snow led to a search! in the river, when the body of the man was found clothed only with a shirt. His wife was discovered lying bruised and insensible in the road. It was surmised that he had wandered forth in a stirs of somnambulism and been drowned, and that the effe followed to call him back and fell down the steps. She has never recovered her senses sufficiently to afford any explanation respecting the affair. INTELLIGENCE has reached I ondon that on Christ mas morning it very destructive fire occurred in one of the finest blocks of buildings in Montreal, entirely destroying it. The block was principally occupied by J. and I). Lewis, as a dry goods store. The losses are as follows :—London offices : Globe, 10,00 01 .; Royal, 5,0001.; Phoenix, 3,0001.; Equitable, 2,1004; Liven 00l and London, 2,04 01. Local office`' Hartford, 2,000!.; Home, 2,0001.; Etna, 2,0001.; PM! tection, 1,2001. Total, 29,9001. NI I