The Press. — London, England, 1856-12-13 00:00:00

DECEMBER 13, 1856. Mn. CAWOOD, a respectable (!) surgeon of Selby, has been committed for trial at York, for forging the name of a brother surgeon, Mr. Wightman, also of Selby, to a bill of ex3bange for 1501. ONE OF THE MOST DARING BURGLARIES accom panied by brutal personal violence occurred on Tues day morning at the house of Mr. Bradley, a wealthy brewer, residing at " The Manor," a short distance from Sheffield. The circumstances are briefly as follows :—The house is situated at some distance from any other habitation, and on one side is a large garden, overlooking which is Mr. Bradley's bedroom. Three female servants live in the premises, but the men servants do not sleep in the house. Between two and three o'clock o❑ Tuesday morning, Mrs. Bradley, who was nursing her invalid mother, heard a noise of footsteps in the house. She immediately got out of bed, ran to her husband's room, and to him communicated her suspicions that robbers were in the house. Mr. Bradley got up, but before he could get on his clothes the door of the bedroom was broken open, and five men, masked and armed with bludgeons and revolvers, rushed into tha room. One of the men threw himself upon Mr. Bradley, and a desperate struggle ensued, in which Mr. Bradley received a blow with a life preserver, which broke one of his fingers ; he was also struck with great violence on the head and shoulders. Mrs. Bradley, after several ineffectual attempts, in which she ran great personal risk, seized her husband's arm, and assisted him to extricate himself from his assailants. One of the men then presented a pistol at Mr. Bradley, and threatened to blow his brains out if he stirred to give an alarm. Two of the men remained on guard outside th• door, whilst the others, having found Mr. Bradley's keys, proceeded to ransack the house. They entered the bedroom in which the servants were sleeping, and ordered them to lie still in bed, or they would murder them. Mr. Bradley threw up the window of his room, with the intention of calling for assistance, but he was de terred by the threats of men who were on guard in the garden below. After having thoroughly ran sacked the house, the robbers decamped, taking plate and money to the amount of 2601. Imme diately after their departure an alarm was given, and a surgeon was called in to attend Mr. Bradley, whom he found suffering from great loss of blood. He is considered to be in a dangerous state. An examina tion of the premises showed that the thieves had broken a pane of glass in the window of the breakfast-room, slipped the hasp of the window, and broken open the shutters inside. THE DOUBLE. MURDER AT ROTHERHAM, Yorkshire, continues buried in mystery. One man, William Bee, a pot hawker, arrested on suspicion last Satur day, has been liberated after a brief examination. BREACHES OF TRUST still continue rife. A few days since Mr. James Shaw, agent in Liverpool to the District Provident Society, absconded with 2,6001. belonging to the society. The defalcations are said to have been made easy of accomplishment owing to the loose system of auditing the accounts ; and the local committee, seeing this, have male good the amount among themselves. Again, a Mr. William Ellis, a confidential clerk in the employment of Messrs. Abram Gartside and Co., wool brokers, Liverpool, absconded, leaving defalcations to the amount of 1,0001. He is believed to be accompanied by a bankrupt innkeeper, in the same town, who is stated to have fled with 2,000/. or 3,0001. in his possession. THE STATE OF THE SMITHFIELD " SAMARITAN " INSTITUTION WIC.; brought before the notice of Sir R. Carden, at the Guildhall, this week. Mr. Potter, one of the guardians of the West London Union, said that he had to pass every day a building called the Samaritan Institution, in West Smithfield, pro fessedly an institution for giving relief and shelter to the houseless poor, and that during the last eight months on no occasion had he seen it used for any other purpose than as a residence for 11r. Barber, the secretary, a coach•house for his phaeton, and a stable for his horse, except the upper part, which he had let for 101. a month. To these statements Mr. Horsley, the solicitor of the institution, opposed his own full denial, and he bitterly complained that Mr. Potter should have chosen to make them at " the very time that we are reopening the institution, and obtaining contributions to enable us to relieve the destitute poor during the inclement season of the yetu ". Sir R. NV. CARDEN: DO I understand you to say that the institution is now open? Mr. BARBER: Certainly, sir, and there were no less than T-1!) persons relieved yesterday, and were preached to by a missionary at two services during the day. Sir R. W. CARDEN: Let the inspector, who lives opposite, state what he knows of this institution. Inspector Cole : I have lived opposite from the com- mencement of the institution to the present time, and it is the general opinion of the neighbourhood that it is worse than useless. The greatest number of persons who apply there daily go away without relief, and many that have been relieved have been ted with food, which I have tasted, that is not fit to feed pigs with. I have remarked that shortly before Christmas every year there has been great THE PRESS. activity evinced in the institution, and immediately after Christmas such activity has entirely ceased, and I have drawn my own conclusions from it accordingly. The class of persons congrega , ing there are a disgrace to the persons causing them to come there, and when they pet relief they do not consider it worth their acceptance. The inspector's evidence was corroborated by the policeman on the beat, who " had taken many ap plicants from the institution to the workhouse for relief, but he never knew one go from the workhouse to the institution." A missionary here described the class of persons relieved at the institution as thieves, prostitutes, and vagrants Mr. Honsi.Ey: Why, that is the very class we profess to relieve. and reclaim, if possible. Sir R. W. CARDEN : Let this matter end here, and think the public will be able to judge, from what hag trans. pired today, of the merits of the " Samaritan Institution." THE ARGUMENTS IN THE CASE OF APPEAL against the bankruptcy proceedings of the British Bank were continued and concluded on Tuesday, Sir Fitzroy Kelly submitting that it was utterly impossible, and could never have been contemplated by the Legis lature, that there should be simultaneous proceed• ings in chancery and in bankruptcy against the same company : How could the property of the company be administered by two officers appointed by two) different courts, which might differ from each other on almost every point? The sixth and thirteenth sections of the Wiuding•up Act ex pressly enacted that, when a winding up order had been granted by the Court of Chancery to wind up the affairs of a company against which bankruptcy proceedings had been already commenced, the whole of the procedings in bank ruptcy should be transferred to the Court of Chancery. If it should clearly appear that one act of Parliament pre scribed certain things, and that by another act of Parlia ment certain other things were prescribed, and that the two acts were absolutely inconsistent and incompatible, that act which was the more recent must prevail, and the other act give way. That would be the case in every act of Parliament, but especially so was it with regard to the Winding up Act of 1818, which was passed for the express purpose of amending the act of 1841. He contended that the adjudication against the bank after the winding-up order was unlawful, or at least could not be lawfully ope rated upon, and that the winding-up order had in fact repealed any provisions of the bankruptcy laws, so far as the Royal British Bank was concerned. The Lords Justices intimated that they would deliver their judgment on the 19th instant. A TICKET-OF-LEAVE MAN, who had been five times previously convicted, one Thomas Smith, was tried before Mr. Baron Alderson at Liverpool on Thursday, for burglary. The identity of the prisoner was clearly established in connection with the robbery, and a verdict of " Guilty " was returned. His lord ship addressing the prisoner, said : You are one of those gentlemen who, having been transported for seven years, have been sent back again to give us trouble. I see you were only discharged last July, and you were transported after being previously convicted five times. The sentence of the court is, that you be transported for the term of twenty years. The prisoner, who had protested his innocence, ex• claimed, Thank you, my lord !" REDPATH AND KENT were re-examined on Thurs day, and some fresh cases of forgery gone into. The evidence against Kent was seriously strengthened, insomuch as he was shown to be the attesting witness in each case of fraudulent signature of the assumed transferees' names by Redpath. Evidence to prove forgeries to the extent of 7,2501., and some minor sums, was heard at great length, and the case ad journed till Friday. glisctilantons. A SINGULAR CIRCUMSTANCE, connected with the wreck of a Prussian brig, came to light last week. The brig was run down in the English Channel on the 10th of last March, and nothing more was heard of her till the other day a letter from the ship Sand ford, Captain Hughes, dated " Auckland, New Zea land, August 7th, 1856," reached the secretary of the Underwriters' Association, detailing how, on the morning of the 11th of March, while passing the Start, the following circumstance occurred : One of my passengers, Colonel Wyatt, her Majesty's 65th Regiment, directed my attention to a large quantity of planking, spars, and other pieces of floating wreck. Being at that time in the cuddy, shaping my course. and taking the bearings of venous salient points on both coasts, I forthwith proceeded to the poop, and, having stationed myself in the starboard quarter-boat with my spyglass, I soon perceived a large piece of wreck about one mile on the starboard bow. From having a square framework of wood, it appeared to be the afterpart of a quarter-deck, with the companion-deck still on it, and a figure resembling that of a human being was clinging to it. I forthwith shortened sail, and, having brought my ship to the wind, with the maintopsail to the mast, I lowered a boat and di rected the crew to overhaul the wreck and bring back what. ever they found there. My orders were obeyed, and I had the satisfaction of releasing an unfortunate man from a lingering ani miserable death. Not perceiving any further vestiges of life, or any spars or boats that could give a clue to this disastrous collision, I hoisted up and secured my lifeboat and proceeded on my course. 1187 The declaration of the rescued man, Michael Krat tiat, was appended, and is as follows : I belonged to the brig Auorkua Month, W.l tickers, master, belonging to the port of Memel, in the Baltic, which had proceeded froin Londonderry, in Ireland, to Liverpool, and there loaded a cargo of salt for Piliau. in Prussia. On the evening of the 10th of March the brig above named was working up the English Channel on the port tack, with the wind fresh from E.N.E. at s p.m. On that night I turned into lily bed to sleep, and was aroused between the hours of 11 and 12 o'clock by a fearful concussion and shock. I immediately rushed on deck, and perceived that another vessel had rim into the Auorkua Month, and at the same time I heard Captain Rickells order the mainsail to be hauled up. I'revious to the concussion, from the motion of the Auorkus Month, it appeared to me that the ship was luffed well up in the wind, as if to avoid collision, and I distinctly heard the officer of the watch shouting to the other vessel, but they took no notice of it. The carpenter bad, it appeared to me. gone forward, for he shouted out, " Our ship is sinking ! and at the same time with his axe proceeded to cut away, as well as he was able, the lashings of the longboat in rnidships. Evidence had by this time so far collected our faculties as to perceive that the vessel which had run into us had square yards, and had been ap parently running down Channel, and I distinctly beard English spoken by some person on board of her, and answered by his captain. The Auorkua Month had fallen off before the wind, and the vessels had separated, but the vessel that had fouled us made no attempt to save life or render any assistance to the disabled vessel; I cannot say whether she had experienced any damage, as she had struck us in the fore part of the fore chains, on the port bow. The crew (including myself) perceiving the Auorkua Month settling in the water, and that they could not get at the lashings of the longboat and jollyboat (which were inside of her) betook themselves to the rigging by various ways, and I got tip to the maintopgallant crosstreea, but per ceiving that the hull had totally disappeared under the water, which was nearly up to me, I struck off and swam towards some small spars that were floating near me. On reaching these they proved to be the boat's oars, and I accordingly placed one under each arm, and thus floated until daybreak, when I perceived part of the deck, with the aftiroompanion hatch on it, was near me. and I left my oars and swam towards it. and with some difficulty got on it. In the course of that morning (March 11) • schooner ran close to the wreck on which 1 was standing, and 1 shouted to them, but they did not attempt to rescue me. With despair at my heart, I sat down behind the companion hatch to get some shelter from the cold biting wind which chilled and benumbed my limbs, and in this position I saw a boat pulling towards me, and, jumping up, saw a large vessel hove to. In the course of a few minutes the boat was alongside the wreck, and I was as sisted from it and taken to the Sandford, when I was un dressed and put into a bed, and carefully attended to until 1 recovered. "MICHAEL KRATTIAT." A CAUTION TO RAILWAY TRAVELLERS bag been going the round of the daily papers in the shape of the following story :—A short time ago, a gentleman, whose family is well known in the Channel Islands, being about to proceed to India, was anxious to pay a visit to his mother, who was at Reading, before he left England, and he took a ticket for that place, by the Great Western Railway. While he was in the waiting-room he happened to show money in notes and gold in his pocket-book, which be placed in the breast-pocket of his inner cost. He g')t into an empty compartment of a first-class car riage, and was followed by a fashionably dressed and gentlemanly-looking man, who, as soon as the train started, addressed some observations to the gentle man, the result of which was a polite conversation between them upon a variety of matters, in which the stranger showed that he was acquainted with a number of well-known sporting men, and could con verse on all the topics of the day. Taking a small case from his pocket, he took front it a flask and a glass; into the latter he - poured some sherry, which he drank, and was about to return the flask to the case, when he suddenly begged his fellow passenger's pardon for not asking him to take a glass tri.b him at first, and hoped he would allow him the pleasure, &c. The gentleman assented, and a glass was handed to bim, the contents of which he drank. He directly fell asleep, and did not wake until the train arrived at Swindon, when be found himself alone ; his pockets had been cut open, and he had been robbed of 691., but fortunately a larger sum, which was concealed on his person, had not been found by the thief. It is supposed that the flask was a double one, and that out of one part the delinquent helped himself to a glass of real sherry, and that, having in duced his fellow traveller to take a glass with him, he poured out drugged wine from another part, which having produced its effect, the swell mobsman rifled his friend's pockets, and got out at an intermediate sta tion. The gentleman is now on his way to India, and the story is declared to be authentic, though the concluding sentence that " the person wore large whiskers and a moustache" looks suspicious. THE WINE DUTIES REDUCTION CoststrrrEg, of which Mr. Oliveira, M.P., is the chairman, have just issued their annual report. The committee speak in moderate terms of the success of their under taking, but acknowledge that their funds are low, and require still further augmentation for renewed exer tions.