The Press. — London, England, 1856-01-12 00:00:00

JANUARY 12, 1856. o ne of the not many nor very onerous duties, which c i a lly belong to their offices , a nd for the dischar g e of wich those who hold thm are not commonly ill rem une. rata These offices are, in these days, exposed sometimes to invidious criticism and to inquiries into the reasons for which they are retained. Is the defence of them made more easy to those who wish to defend them by this too frequent disregard of a very manifest duty, to which I thus venture to solicit attention ? Or are we to be told that the age will not bear these things ? That observances such as this, the want of which Mede in his days so feelingly deplored, which our whole Church in 1682 deliberately adopted and ordained—which the greatest of our divines since that time—Bishop Patrick, in his " Christian sacrifice;" Bishop Bull (Milieus Hereticorunt), in his Letter in r.nswer to the Bishop of Meaux ;" Bishop Wilson, "On the Lord's Supper "—have all exulted in adducing as evidence of our union with the primitive Church against the innovations of Rome. Are we, I ask, to be told that ordinances such as this will now be opposed by many of the noble, many of the powerful, not a few even of the professed statesmen of the day ? 'ain THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT was opened for the January Sessions on Monday last. The Recorder, in his address to the jury, said that, although in point of numbers the calendar was light, yet he re gretted to see five persons charged with wilful mur der. The learned gentleman then detailed the cases, and explained the peculiar nature of the law with re erence to the plea of insanity. On the opening of the Court on Wednesday by Mr. Baron Martin and Mr. Justice Crowder, Mr. Ballantine applied that the trial of the prisoner Corrigan be postponed till next sessions ; an application the Court granted. The trial of Mary M'Neile, charged with the murder of two of her infant children by cutting their throats, was then proceeded with. Medical and other evi dence being given in support of the undoubted in sanity of the prisoner at the time of the act, Mr. Baron Martin briefly charged the jury, who at once returned a verdict of Not guilty on that ground. A second and similar case—that of Sarah Allen, charged with the murder of two of her children by drowning them—was then brought before the Court. From the evidence adduced it appeared that the prisoner, who resided at Chelsea, on the night of the 15th November last took her three childun out for a walk on the river side, and flung them severally into the Thames. By the efforts of some boatmen, who beard the struggling and cries, two children were got out, though one died shortly afterwards, while the body of the third child was not found for some days. In the course of evidence all the witnesses who had known the prisoner testified to her having peculiar delusions about her children—at one time that they were scrofulous ; at another that they had no clothes; at a third that her husband was ruined, and that they would all come to beggary ; and, finally, that her children would be better off if dead. In her usual conduct she was extremely indulgent to her children, and after their deaths suffered most severely. Dr. Rowe stated that he had examined the prisoner in prison, and had not the last doubt about her suffering from decided delusions, which would require great care and long treatment for their cure ; and that a delusion of such a character, as believing that her children would be better off if dead, was very likely to induce the commission of the crime with which she was charged. Mr. Justice Crowder then summed up, and the jury returned a verdict of Not guilty. EDWARD HARVEY AND HARRIET RAY, re cently committed for starving one of the male pri soner's children to death, were next brought up on their trial. The circumstances of the case appeared in THE PRE33 of last week. The prisoners, who co habited, had so grossly neglected the four children of the male prisoner, who is a widower, that two of them absolutely died from starvation. The parish officers of Hackney having deposed to the horrible neglect of the children, and Dr. Letheby given his opinion, from an analysis of the intestines of both children, that they died from long-continued starva tion, Baron Martin summed up, expressing his belief that there was not sufficient evidence to support a charge of murder or manslaughter against the woman ; and that the man appeared rather to have neglected his duty, in not obtaining relief or work, than having wilfully withheld nourishment from his children. The jury acquitted the woman, and found the man guilty of " Manslaughter." The prisoner was brought up on Thursday for judgment, and sen enced to twelve months' hard labour. THE TRIAL OF THE THREE CONSTABLES, Medjett, Gearing, and Bewley, for assaults upon certain persons during the late Hyde-park riots, took place on Thursday before Mr. Baron Martin. In the case of Mediett, charged with assaulting Mr. Stevens , a hairdresser, while passing down Park-street during the riot in front of Lord Robert Grosvenor's, al though the prosecutor, supported by the evidence of two witnesses, swore positively to the identity of the prisoner as one of several policemen who beat him severely with their truncheons, three constables for THE PRESS. the defence swore as positively that the prisoner was in the extreme rear of the reserve, and never left there, or charged at all into the crowd during the whole of the riot, while a girl, Elizabeth Bloxam, who was in the crowd and witnessed the assault upon Mr. Stevens, and followed the man who corn• mated it, swore that the prisoner was not that man. Mr. Baron Martin, in summing up, left the case entirely to the jury, who, after a short deliberation, said they were not satisfied with the evidence as to the defendant having actually committed the assault, but they believed he was one of the constables con cerned in the attack upon Mr. Stevens. Mr. Baron Martin said this was tantamount to a verdict of " Guilty," and ordered the verdict to be recorded and the prisoner taken into custody. William Gearing, another constable, was then tried for assaulting, and falsely imprisoning, John White. From the evidence adduced it appeared that the prosecutor was a pot-boy, who had gone to the park on the first Sunday for the purpose of enjoying the fun, that he had hooted the police, was taken into custody, res cued by the mob, and finally carried off to Marl borough-street. The jury, without waiting for the defence, at once returned a verdict of Not guilty. William Bewley, the third constable, was then tried for assaulting Messrs. Floyd and Massey. A portion of the evidence having only been got through by the time of the court rising, the case was adjourned. The trial was resumed on Friday morn ing,, when a number of witnesses, whose evidence tended to prove that the prisoner could not be the man who committed the assault, were called and examined for the defence. The learned judge summed up, and the jury returned a verdict of Not guilty. The prisoner Rledjett, convicted on Thursday, was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. JONATHAN HEYWOOD, convicted at the last Liverpool Assizes for the murder of Margaret Jones, a woman he cohabited with, was executed on Saturday last at noon, in front of the county gaol at Kirkdale. Up wards of 10,000 persons were supposed to be present. THE MANCHESTER TURN-OUTS still continue in much the same relative state. A few of the men who lately resumed work were assailed by the turn outs, pelted, and hooted down the streets, and threatened with their lives. The ringleader in one case was captured, and brought before the magis trates. The bench, while allowing that the workmen had a perfect right to strike for higher wages if they chose, insisted that they must give others the same liberty they asserted for themselves, and committed the prisoner to hard labour for a month. AN EXCAVATOR AND HIS WIFE, John and. Maria Satchwell, were brought before Mr. a Beckett, at the Southwark Police-court, on Saturday last, charged by the parish authorities of Bermondsey with having wilfully neglected to feed their four children, of the ages of five, seven, ten, and twelve years. From the evidence of the relieving officer, and of Dr. Dixon, a surgeon of Bermondsey, it appeared that the children were so utterly neglected by their parents, who earned good wages and lived well them selves, that their bones were actually protruding through the skin, and when taken to the workhouse they were positively on the point of dying from star vation. Other evidence was given to prove the habi tual neglect of the children by the prisoners, when Mr. a Beckett at once committed them for trial, and directed the children to be kept in the workhouse. A CURIOUS CASE, in which the validity of a Jewish custom with respect to marriage had to be deter mined, was brought before Mr. D'Eyncourt at Wor ship-street on Tuesday. Asher Dauben, charged with deserting his wife and child, set up as his defence that the marriage had been celebrated in conformity neither with Jewish rites nor the provi sions of the established law. From the evidence of the woman, who, with one child in her arms, was far advanced in pregnancy, it appeared that, about eighteen months ago, the prisoner had become engaged to her, but, being too poor to defray the expenses of a regular marriage by the high priest, they deter mined to have recourse to a peculiar but simple civil form of solemnisation, not uncommon among their class, and consisting merely of an expression of mutual acceptance in the presence of witnesses, and the placing the ring on the woman's finger. This ceremony was gone through, and the marriage con summated. Feeling auspicious of her husband some time after, she determined to be remarried according to the full rites of the Jewish Church. This her husband postponed for some trivial reason from time to time until within the last nine weeks, when he suddenly deserted her, and left her in so destitute a condition that she was compelled to obtain admission into the workhouse. The inter preter corroborated the statement of the woman re garding the valid and binding engagement among the Jews of such marriages, and observed that if the form were held to he illegal the most shocking con• sequences would ensue, as the greater proportion of the poorer Jews were married after this manner. Mr. D'Eyncourt, before giving his judgment, communi cared with Dr. Adler, the chief rabbi, who declined to pronounce at once a positive opinion as to the vali- 35 dity of this form of marriage. The learned rabbi in his reply stated that this peculiar form, though once in common use, was now comparatively obsolete, that in the present case, which had already been brought before him, there was no doubt that a moral com pact existed between the two, and that the man should be compelled to support the woman and her children. Mr. D'Eyncourt, in conclusion, thought it incumbent on the parish officers to prove the validity of the marriage under the Jewish laws in a more positive manner. The man had certainly displayed an absence of all proper feeling or principle in the course he had pursued, but ho should not be justi fied in sending him to prison until the facts had been more conclusively established. The parish overseer undertook to put the vestry clerk in motion in this respect, and the warrant was suspended till the point could be determined. SIR ROBERT W. CARDEN, OR the occasion of a wretched-looking, half-naked child of nine years' old (one of many of this class) being brought before him, at the Mansion-house, on Monday, charged with begging in Threadneedle-street, spoke strongly againt the system of street almsgiving. From the evidence adduced in this case, it appears to be the function of those children who at this time of year surround the confectioners' and bakers' shops, and importunately beg for a morsel or a halfpenny, to transfer their gains to their parents, who wait round a near corner to receive the profits of their children's exertions. A baker's shopman assured Sir Robert Carden that he had seen three boys outside his window receive as much as two shillings in pence in less than an hour, and that, though he bad often tested the sincerity of their complaints of hunger by calling them in and giving them bread, they never wanted it. Sir Robert Carden, in conclusion, said:— A heavy responsibility lies upon those who give money to these children, who are brought up in almost every in: stance by their parents to idleness, and I actually am dis posed to believe that the evil will receive no correction ncr alleviation, except by some act inflicting a penalty for giving street alms. The money thus solicited is not for bread or for meat. It was but a short time ago that some ladies of my acquaintance were solicited by a wretched looking woman, who had a train of ragged children after her, and begged with an earnestness which seemed to be inspired by famine alone. The ladies were near a butcher's shop at the moment, and, determined to give a Christmas treat to such a miserable family, ordered the butcher to cut off three or four pounds of good beef steaks, to make their other contributions more perfect. The moment, however, they turned their backs, in walked the recipients of their bounty, and, laying down the steaks, said to the botcher, " You know we don't want this. Take it back, and give us back the money you got for it, or buy it at any price you can afford." Juat stizli is the fate of the gifts of the humane but unsuspecting population of London to street beggars. The baker's shopman said that when gentlemen, who would not give money to the begging children,, to supply their parents with the means of ' g etting drunk, purchased bread at his establishment, the offer was immediately afterwards made to sell back the purchase at a lower rate. Sir R. W. CARDEN : There is no practice so injurious as that of street almsgiving ; and this kindness, or rather the criminal infirmity of the shopkeepers who allow these infant beggars to be round their houses, is a great encou ragement to the trade, which is of all trades the most likely to min the minds of the wretched children. They go on fiom begging to thieving, and they will continue in that horrible progress till they sink into the grave, so long as the mistaken humanity, which my brother magistrates and I are constantly deprecating, is without restraint. I ain confident that many of the low ginshops would be obliged to shut up if they were not fed by the money pro cured by these children for their unnatural parents, and the system is carried on in such a manner that it cannot escape detection by any one acquainted with life. I trust that the public will look to this great evil for the sake of the poor objects themselves. THE CASE OF THE GREAT SPIRIT ROBBERIES AT Bnisror. was tried on Thursday before the Re corder, Sir Alexander Cockburn. In the case of Stephen Bendall, the receiver, the prisoner's ser vant deposed to having been sent by him to the house of Kendall, his accomplice (turned Queen's evidence), and having there received, in a jar, cer tain quantities of gin at three different times, which she brought to her master. The evidence of Ken dall, the informer, agreed with the servant's state• went, and the jury found the prisoner Guilty. The Recorder sentenced him to eighteen months' impri sonment with hard labour. Davis was next put upon his trial, found Guilty, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour; while Sims, there being no . evidence to- convict him as an accomplice, was acquitted. Mr. Philips, in evidence, deposed that, so far as he could ascertain, he had been robbed of 2,066 gallons of brandy, 393 gallons of rum, and 832 gallons of wine. A rigorous investigation is being prosecuted by the Custom-house authorities, and many subordinate officers suspended. ABRAHAM BAKER, the footman, who murdered his fellow servant, Naomi Kingswell, was execute& on Monday morning in front of . Winchester gaol.