The Press. — London, England, 1857-01-17 00:00:00

58 over the country. A more equitable adjustment cf the tax, and the abolition of the war increase, were the points insisted on most strongly at the Ballast meetings. . . THE DEAN OF LISMORE, it is believed, will succeed to the vacant Bishopric cf Cork. A HORRIBLE ♦MURDER has occurred in Carlow. A farmer named Dyoe was brutally murdered by two brothers, named M'Clean, on Saturday evening last while on his way home from Tullow. At the inquest a verdict of " Wilful murder" was returned against the 31`Cleans, who, of course, are at large. 6lettion 4nttiligenct. WEST KENT ELECTION.-Sir Walter Riddell, Bart., will he proposed in the Conservative interest to fill the vacancy occasioned by Sir E. Filmer's decease. Nothing will, of course, be done till after the funeral of the deceas,A member, but in the meantime both parties are preparing for an earnest and vigorous contest for the vacant seat. Mr. Wykeham Martin has issued his address in the Liberal interest. Mr. Martin is in favour of the revision of the income tax, extension of the franchise, and the admission of Jews $o Parliament. MALDOS.-Mr. Thomas Sutton Western, a county magistrate, has issued an address to the constituency. The signatures to the requisition inviting Mr. Western to stand for the borough, according to his statement, continue to increase, and include the names of nearly three hundred electors—the constituency being under nine hundred. Several gentlemen have declared themselves candidates for Maldon at the next elec• tion ; amongst others Mr. Bramley Moore and Mr. G. W. Peacocke, the sitting members; Mr. Mechi (the Sheriff of London), Mr. Sutton Western, and Mr. M'Enteer, the banister. KrsosTos-reox-Hil.r..—Mr. H. W. Schneider, whose name is well known in connection with the Mexican anti South American trade, has announced himself as a candidate to supply the vacancy in the representation of Kingston-upon-Hull occasioned by the elevation of Sir W. H. Watson to the judicial bench. AYLESBURY.—Mr. Abraham Wing bas issued an address to the electors of the borough, in which he announces his intention of offering himself as a can didate at the next general election. Mr. Wing's poli tical programme consists of retrenchment in all the departments of the State, the repeal of tin' church rates, the immediate abolition of the income tax, re formation of the Church, abolition of the law of set tlement and substit►►tion of union rating, the abolition of the Poor-Law Board, whose powers should be transferred to boards of guardians. He also advocates a stipendiary magistracy and vo'e by ballot. Mr. Wing comes forward " with no wish to oppose that able gentleman, her Majesty's Attorney-Gent ral, but to remedy an evil complained of by a great majority of electors—that of having no resident member." NOTTINOHAM.—Mr. Ernest Jones appeals to the Chartists of England to help him to contest Notting ham. He says : The principles I advocate are sufficiently obnoxious to the oligarchy of both land and money, and I have advocated them with sufficient determination and uncompromising ness to induce them to strain every nerve to prevent my return. More than ordinary influence will be brought to bear to secure that point. They well know what they have to expect should I get into Parliament. 1)o not misunder stand me—l say this without taking any merit whatever to myself—but they know that I have studied the subjects of which I treat—they know they cannot meet me with argu ment—( they have tried it and failed)—they know they cannot frighten me and put me down—they know that 1 have the ear of the people—and they know therefore that a seat in Parliament for me, humble though my talents may be, would be a severe, perhaps an insuperable blow for them. Therefore I repeat that the Nottingham election will be made (though perhaps covertly) a Government contest—let us make it a popular one. (*gab) ant 4ain. THE BULLION ROBBERY ON THE SOUTH- EASTERN RAILWAY. CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT, JAN. 13. THE trial of the prisoners Pierce, Burgess, and Tester, charged with committing the extensive bullion robbery• upon the South-Eastern Railway in May last, was commenced on Tuesday morning. At ten o'clock Mr. Baron Martin and Mr. Justice Willes took their seats on the bench, accompanied by the Lord Mayor, Alderman Humphery and Sir F. G. Moon, Mr. Sheriff Mechi, Mr. Sheriff Keats, Mr. Under-Sheriff Crosley and Mr. Under-Sheriff An• derton. The prisoners —William Pierce, aged 40, described in the calendar as a grocer, and as imperfectly edu cated; James Burgess, aged 35, railway guard, well educated ; and William George Tester, aged 16. clerk, also well educated—wero then placed at the THE PRESS. bar. Burgess was dressed in the uniform of a rail way guard, and the other two prisoners were in plain clothes. Tester, who is much the youngest of the three, and who wears a moustache and large black whiskers, evidently felt the nature of his position much more keenly than his comrades. All three prisoners during the whole of the day kept up a inetty constant communication with their legal advisers. There were four indictments against them. The first charged them with stealing two hundredweight of gold, value 12,0001., the property of their em ployers, the South-Eastern Railway Company ; the second charged them with stealing a number of bars of gold end some gold coins, the property of the same prosecutors ; the third charged them with stealing the same property in the dwelling•house of the prosecutors ; and the fourth charged them with feloniously receiving the property, knowing it to have been stolen. The prisoners pleaded "Not guilty" to the whole of the charges. Sergeant Shea attended specially, with Mr. Bodkin and Mr. Monk of the Northern Circuit, to conduct the prosecution ; Mr. Sergeant Ballantine attended specially, with Mr. Sleigh, to defend Tester; Mr. Sergeant Parry, also specially retained, with Mr. itibton, appeared for Pierce; and Mr. Gifford, Mr. Poland, and Mr. F. H. Lewis defended Burgess. The details of this famous robbery have already been so fully made public at the preliminary exami nations in November, that a brief summary of the affair will be sufficient at the present moment. On the night of the 15th of May, 1855, some 12,0001. worth of gold was stolen from the bullion chests of the South-Eastern Railway while on their way by train from London to Folkestone. Upon the dis covery of the robbery it was soon ascertained that the boxes, when weighed at Boulogne, weighed less than they did in London, and exactly what they weighed at Paris; hence the robbery must have been effected between London and Boulogne. It was im possible that it could have been done while crossing the Channel, and so the conclusion was inevitable that it had been effected between London and Folkestone. Eighteen months after the commission of the robbery the confession of a convict in Portland Prison established the truth of this conclusion. Edward Agar, a convicted forger, one day last autumn stated to the prison authorities at Portland that he could give information relative to the great gold robbery. They questioned him, and he at once named Pierce, a discharged servant of the railway company, Burgess, a guard, and Tester, a clerk in the traffic department, as his confederates, and then gave a detailed statement of the manner in which the robbery was effected. Four years ago, meeting Pierce accidentally in Covent-garden, Agar got into conversation with him. Pierce suggested a robbery of bullion on the railway. Agar thought it impracti cable, and there the matter ended. Agar went to the United States. In 1854 he returned, and met Pierce again. Pierce again suggested the robbery, said he thought he could get impressions of the keys, and Agar at once entered into the affair with profes sional zeal. Burgess and Tester, it would ap pear, had been previously sounded by Pierce, and they also entered into the spirit of the thing. Pierce and Agar then go down to Folkestone for a week to watch the movement of the clerks, the arrival of the tidal trains, and, above all, to ascertain where the keys of the bullion safe were kept, and, if possible, obtain secretly an impression of them. Failing in this, and attracting the attention of the police, they returned to town. A short time after wards Agar goes down with Tester, who is to in troduce to Agar the clerk of the station, Sharman, with the view either of bribing Sharman to lend the keys, or otherwise to obtain useful information from him. The introduction takes place, but nothing ensues ; Sharman was a "sedate young man," and Agar "could not make his way with him." No results ensued, and the difficulty of obtaining an impression in wax of the keys seemed insuperable, when good luck befriended them. A key of the bullion chest was suddenly lost, and the chest was sent up to town to be refitted with a key. When the new key was made it was entrusted to the care of Tester; he at once carried it to Agar, who took the impression in wax. As there were two keys to the safe, it was necessary to obtain the impression of the other. A third visit of Agar, arid the r of Agar and Pierce, to Dover took place, and one day during the absence of the clerk from the office Pierce took the key from its cupboard, Agar hastily took an impres sion of it in wax, the key was safely returned to its place, and the robbery from that moment was as good as effected. Agar then came to town, bought keys in blank, and set to work to file them out. With the connivance of Burgess he made frequent trips by train to fit his keys to the bullion-chest locks till they were fitted perfectly. After this came the purchase of lead to make up the weight intended to be abstracted in gold, and of leather and shot bags, ,he. The fortnight's watching and evening cab-drives to the station until the gold was going SATURDAY, down, and the ingenuity with which the robbery was effected, are fresh in the memory of our readers. Suffice it to say, that on Tuesday last Agar repeated his detail almost verbatim, while on the part of the prosecution witnesses corroborated his statement in all its motet material points—witnesses with whom he could have been in no possible collusion. Wit nesses confirmed his statements with respect to the visits to Dover and Folkestone, the filing out the blank keys, the purchase of the bags and shot, and the constant visits to the station in cabs ; while as to the division of the profits of the robbery, the posses sion of four out of six hundred pound notes, ex changed at the Bank for 600 sovs., was clearly traced to Burgess and Tester. Mr. Sergeant SHEE, in opening the case to the jury, at great length gave a detailed narrative of the events of this remarkable case, in substance pre cisely similar to the history previously given by Agar when examined before the Lord Mayor, and pub• lished in THE PnEss of Nov. 15 and 22. Agar was then called, and repeated his evidence almost verbatim as previously given, and on concluding which he was cross-examined as to his mode of life previous to his conviction, with the view of showing that he was a character of the very worst class. Agar ultimately acknowledged that some fourteen or twenty years ago ho had been for four years in the service of Mr. Davis, a linen draper at Chiswell, and that three years after leaving his service " he commenced a course of crime,'' and that up to his conviction last year had continued " engaged in crime." _ The examination of a few witnesses who proved the discovery at Boulogne of the short weight of the boxes, and at Paris of their being filled with bags of English shot, occupied the first day. On Wednesday the examination of witnesses was proceeded with. Cabmen were called, who proved that Agar and Pierce had been driven several times to St. Thomas's street or the neighbourhood, and servants in coffee houses and public houses proved that Burgess, Pierce, and Agar were frequently together before the robbery. The purchase of 5001. of Turkish Bonds for Burgess was also proved, and the evidence of Raffan, the fruiterer, as to Pierce having given him a 1001. note with other notes to get cashed, repeated. The fact that Tester, with a black bag, came up from Redhill, one night in May, 11455, was sworn to by a railway guard, and other witnesses, railway porters and clerks, corroborated this testimony. One had lifted the hag, and found it " lumpy." Fanny Kay in her evidence gave some points of interest in connection with the conduct of Agar and Pierce in the house at Shepherd's-bush : I remember the death of Mrs. Bessell, our next door neighbour, on the 18th of May, 1855, and I went to see my child after that occurrence. For a few days both after and before that event Agar was absent from home all night. He was so on the Tuesday or Wednesday night before Mrs. Bessell's death. When next I saw him he came in the afternoon in a cart with Pierce, and they then had two bags with them, which they carried into the wash house. After that Pierce came regularly almost every day, and they usually went then up to the first floor back room. I looked into that room upon one occasion when they were there together, and I saw that they had got the stove out, and that there was a very bright fire. I opened the door, but was not allowed to go in. They both ran to the door as soon as I opened it, and closed it se as to prevent my entrance. Previous to that they had been a good deal in the washhouse together, sometimes spending the whole of the morning there. Ido not know what they were doing there, but I often heard them hammering. They had shooting•bags with them made of drab leather, and one black bag. When they were upstairs in the back room, although I saw nothing, I constantly heard a noise, such as proceeds from a furnace ; it was like the roaring of a large fire. It continued for several days. After that I saw what appeared to me to be square pieces of stone brought downstairs by Pierce and taken away. When they were working in this way they came down regularly to their meals, and appeared always very hot and dirty. I asked them what they were doing, and they said, " Leather.spron weming." They never gave me any other answer. I went into the room after their operations had ceased, and I saw that the stove had been replaced and blackleaded. I also noticed that the floor was burnt in two places. In the course of her cross-examination it appeared that she had never received any benefit from some 2,5001. invested for her by Agar. Mr. Baron Martin remarked upon this statement, and Mr. Wontner explained that the money had been invested by Pierce in Turkish Bonds. Mr. Rees, the solicitor for the Railway Company, deposed to having in spected Kilburn-villa (Pierce's residence), where nothing but a box of tools and Turkish Bonds to the amount of 2,0001., leases, deeds, and securities of different sorts were found : I also went to Cambridge•villas, Shepherd'i-bnsh (Agar's residence, where the gold was melted down). I had the grate in the back bedroom removed, and behind it I found the three firebricks which have been produced and idenu fied by Agar. The chimney bore evident marks of having been subjected to great heat. The floor between the fire place and the window was very much burnt. I had the boards taken up, and underneath were a number of small bits of gold, which had evidently run through the floor.