The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-08 00:00:00

1066 mate commerce. The council resolved that the letter be published. MR. ASHUR, the treasurer of the Health and Water Committee of Liverpool, ordered a warm bath at the Pierhead Baths on Tuesday evening, went into the room, and was seized with syncope, fell into the bath, and was drowned. When discovered he was quite dead. THE GOOD OLD ENGLISH CUSTOM OF HARVEST HOMES has just been revived on St. Giles's estate, Dorsetshire, the seat of the Earl of Shaftesbury. Having previously entertained at a festivity of this description the peasantry on a portion of his domain in that county to the number of nearly three hundred, his lordship last week invited those residing in the parishes of Horton, Woodlands, Sutton, and Gassage All Saints. The labourers and servants on the various farms, numbering about three hundred and fifty, assembled during the morning in the yard ad joining the mansion of St. Giles's, under the care of their respective employers, anti shortly after pro ceeded to church, headed by a band of music. After service the peasantry were conducted to a spacious tent, gaily decorated for the occasion, anti under which was spread a most bountiful old English dinner of beef, beer, and puddings. The Earl of Shaftesbury presided at the head of the tables, and Loral Ashley took the post of carver at the other end. Among the interested spectators were Count Crewe witch, the Russian Ambassador, and his countess ; the Marquis d'Azeglio, and other visitors and friends of the family. The repast being over, and grace pro nounced, the noble earl rose, and addressed afew words to those around him before they left. His lordship thanked his good, honest, and noble tenantry for their readiness in co-operating with him in a work such as this, and for giving those in their employ a a day's holiday, without stinting them in their wages. He then proceeded to observe that he rejoiced they were beginning to revive throughout the length and breadth of the land the good old British custom of harvest-homes. It had fallen, unhappily, into disuse, but was now being revived in many parts of the kingdom. He did hope it would be continued, be cause he believed such gatherings were of benefit to them all : He was sure if landlord anti tenant, employer and em ployed, those who bad property and those who had none— except that honest property of their labour—would juin in one great effort to advance each other's welfare and to maintain their Christian character. they would arrive at that condition of things which was the happiest and safest that could be attained in this fallen world. Cheers were afterwards given for Lord Ashley, who briefly returned thanks ; and also to the Countess of Shaftesbury and the other members of the family. The party then repaired to the park, where dancing and a variety of rural sports were kept up with much spirit, the whole proceedings being of a most pleasin2 and gratifying character. Ggatu au Volta. Mn. WATSON, Q.:C., has been raised to the bench as Baron of the Exchequer in the room of Mr. Baron Phil retired, Mr. BARON WATSON yesterday took the oaths and his scat. THE GREAT GOLD ROBBERY OF MAY, 1R55, when a box containing 15,000/. was stolen in transitu be tween Paris and London last year, hills fair to be at length cleared up. Two men, Pierce and Bur gess, the first a discharged, the latter an actual guard ill the South Eastern Railway Company's service, were brought up on Thursday before the Lord Mayor, charged with being concerned in the robbery. The solicitor for the company attended, and said that so strong was the chain of evidence against these two men that he felt satisfied of their guilt.—Remanded. A COUPLE OF JEW PAWNBROKERS, David Barnett and Aaron Cohen, currying on business in the Back road, St. George'sdn- the East, were summoned on Monday before Mr. Selfe, at Southwark Police Court, for neglecting to give pawn tickets. From the evidence adduced it appeared to be a regular custom of these harpies upon the poor to give no ticket, and to charge about twenty per cent. interest upon the money lent. Mr. Selfe fined both of them 31. and costs, and threatened to fine them heavily if they were charged before him with taking exorbitant and ille al interest. BousoN, the Crystal Palace clerk, was tried at the Old Bailey on Saturday last. The prisoner pleaded guilty to the charge of larceny as a servant, hut not guilty to the charge of forgery. Mr. Sergeant Bat lantine conducted the defence, and called the various witnesses to prove the forgery of a transfer of shares in the name of Henry Johnson. Mr. Johnson, brother-in-law to the prisoner, swore that the signa• ture of his name to the transf-r was a forgery, and in the handwriting of the prisoner. The defence set up by Mr. Giffard was, that the prisoner had, er imagined he had, th e aut h or i ty o f M r . J o h nson f or using his name and effecting the transfer. The jury found the prisoner guilty of forgery, and Mr. Justice Erie sentenced him to twenty yearn' trans- THE PRESS. portation for forgery, concurrently with fourteen for larceny. The prisoner is in his thirty-fifth year. A SERIOUS AFFRAY OCCURRED IN SPITALFIELDS on Saturday night, among some of the disbanded soldiers of the Anglo-German Legion, when an Eng lishman, Henry Mole, of Crown•court, Spitalfields, interfered, with the intention of preventing mischief. One of the Germans, Lewis Theism, who was intoxicated, immediately cut at him with a knife, inflicting a terrible gash, extending from the top to the bottom of the face. Mole fell, and a police constable, Warner, :13 H, coming up, attempted to arrest the assailant. The German immediately stabbed the constable on the left side of the breast, and then inflicted another wound on his thigh. The policeman struggled with the villain, but soon fell from exhaustion, when several bystanders and three or four police constables made a rush on the German soldier, and after a severe struggle secured and conveyed him to the Chapel-yard station, in Spitalfields. The wounded men were conveyed in cabs to the London Hospital, where their wounds were dressed. Both men still continue in a dangerous state. The weapon with which the wounds were in flicted was a long spring dagger-knife. The prisoner was examined at Worship-street on Monday, and remanded. Mr. W. J. O'CoNNELL appeared before the Lord Mayor on Monday, and, addressing his lordship at some length, protested against the usual insults upon the Roman Catholic Church or clergy being per mitted on Guy Fawkes-day. The Lord Mayor in reply said : It is very difficult in any country to get rid of traditional customs. The annual exhibition of the effigy of Guy Fawkes has come down to us from the time of James the First, when party feeling between Catholic and Protestant ran very high, and the conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament has always been held by historians to have been a Roman Catholic conspiracy. The burning of Lon don in the year 1066 was attributed to the same source, and it is only recently, through the exertions of the present City Solicitor, that the libelous inscription upon the Mo. nument on Fish-street-hill, attributing the fire of London to the Roman Catholics, was by order of the Co'at of Common Council erased We cannot, however, conceal from ourselves that all our party struggles, at almost every period, have been quickened by feelings arising out of a presumed Catholic or Protestant ascendancy. 1, however, regret extremely that lately the exhibition of Guy Fawkes, instead of being a mere memorial, should have assumed the offensive form of which you so justly complain—that the figure, instead of being the figure of an abominable conspirator, Guy Fawkes, should be exhibited as an indi vidual dressed in the habiliments of a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, bearing on his breast the emblems which all Christians are bound to honour and to worship. Such conduct must be obnoxious to every one, and most offen sive and painful to members of the Roman Catholic communion. I lament that any custom should be kept alive in our times, even among boys, calculated to give pain to any single individual. T hope, therefore, that your repre- sentation will be conveyed through the public press, and that it may have the effect of modifying this annual exhibi tion, if it does not altogether get rid of it. If this cannot be accomplished, let us, at all events, have a Guy Fawkes whom boys should only recollect as a wicked traitor, who sought to blow up the King and Parliament, and not taught to mix up with it anything calculated to wound die feelings of their Roman Catholic fellow•subjeets. The day on the whole passed off very quietly. At Brighton, however, the proceedings were unusually riotous, and resulted in rather a serious collision between the people and police. Mr. HUMPHREY BROWN'S ship Hornet, from Cal cutta, was seized on Monday, in the name of the Court of Chancery, off Deal, and she is now lying in the Victoria (London) Docks, under the care of Messrs. Bennett and Aspinwall, the brokers acting for the official manager. The vessel was mortgaged to the Royal British Bank by Mr. Humphrey Brown, and consequently under the winding up of the bank forms part of the assets to be divided among the creditors and depositors. The value of the ship and freight is estimated at no less than 20,0001. The claims of about 1,100 creditors, amounting in the aggregate to 120,0001., were proved on Saturday by the official manager, at the chambers of Vice-Chancellor Kin• dersley, and it is expected that at the end of the present month all the claims sent in up to Saturday will have been examined and proved, and on the completion of the proofs the official manager pro poses applying to the court for liberty to pay a dividend of ss. in the pound. Mr. COOPER, an attorney practising at the Cheshire Quarter Sessions, held at Knutsford last week, is at present under a charge of the most serious nature. During the hearing of a case of appeal against a conviction for unlawful possession of stolen silk, Mr. Cooper, who appeared for the appellant, was observed to tear a most important corner off the invoice. The keen eye of a constable detected the attempt at fraud, and Mr. Cooper was at once seized, the torn pieces picked up from under his feet and fitted to the in voice. The bench, after consultation, ordered the depositions of the witnesses of the act to be taken. Two gentlemen deposed to the fact that the mutilated evidence was material to the case, and that the muti lation essentially altered the meaning of the invoice SATURDAY, as it stood before. Mr. Cooper was then committed fk;r contempt, and was confined all night in the House, of Correction. On the following day he was discharged; but an or.ler of court was made, direct ing the county solicitor to apply to the Court of Queen's Bench to have Mr. Cooper struck off the rolls. THE THREE FOREIGN SEAMEN, Lagarva, Barbalano and Pettrich, charged with piracy and murder on board the English barque Globe, in the Black Sea, on the sth July last, were on Monday fully committed for trial at the next Winchester Assizes. Houm, the man who stabbed Benjamin Bromley at. Shrewsbury last week, has been committed for trial on the charge of " Murder." Bromley, will be remembered, dropped dead on the spot. He was struck through the heart. THE FIREMAN OF THE COAL-TRAIN ENGINE which last week caused that lamentable block up on the North-Western line, has died from his injuries. At the inquest a verdict of " Accidental death " was returned. In the course of the esidence Mr. M'Connell, the manager, explained the meaning and object of the guard cutting the telegraph wire—a most essential precaution under such circum stances : Mr. M'Connell explained that among the more recent improvements adopted by the London and North• Western Company for securing perfect safety of travelling over their line had been the establishment of a " special train telegraph," with signal-stations every two miles. At each station a policeman was on ciqty night and day, in whose watchbox there was a telegraph dial with a single needle. By inclining the needle to the left hand, the person in charge gave notice to the next station that a train hail passed on to the two wiles of road intrusted to his special care; while inclining it to the right hand would show that the train had passed off that portion of the line. There were in fact but two signals—" train on " and " train off " —but as it might happen, as in this case, that an accident occurred upon the two miles of road between the telegraph stations, the guard and breaksman were in structed instantly to sever the " special train wire," which had the effect of placing the needle at each adjacent station in an upright position. The policeman on duty at once became aware toy this movement that something was wrong, and could act according to circumstances. Several of the jury remarked that the system appeared to be well calculated to prevent accidents. Mr. M'Connell said if the signals were properly attended to, a collision, in the ordinary sense of the term, was im possible. The system, however, induced a rigidity of practice which, though essentially productive of safety to travellers, doubtless almost necessarily occasioned delays when any derangement occurred. The " train telegraph " had only one code, and the policemen in charge were not able to carry on a conversation by it. The wire was placed about half way up the ordinary telegraph posts, and in this instance had not been injured by the accident, though the ordinary intelligence wires had been destroyed. This " train telegraph " at present existed from London to Rugby, and was in process of extension over the whole system of the London and North-Western lines. It is worthy of remark, that only a few hours after the delivery of this opinion by Mr. M'Connell, in spite of the strictest attention to the rules of this signal system, the collision on Monday occurred. As A SPECIMEN of the class of gentlemen who garotte us of a night, we may take the following de scription of one Charles Hunter, charged before Mr. Burcham at Southwark Police-court on Wednesday with having garotted and robbed a Mr. Mason in the Clapham-road a few nights previously. In answer to Mr. Burcham's query as to what was known of the prisoner, Sergeant Broad, 23 L, said:— I have known the prisoner several years as a desperate thief. He was tried at the Central Criminal Court in De cember, 1850, and sentenced to seven years' transportation for burglary. He received a ticket of leave on the 10th of April, 1854. In July the same year he was tried at the Westminster Sessions, in the name of Charles Clifford, for picking pockets, and acquitted. In December he was again tried at the Central Criminal Court :or attempting to commit a burglary and murderously assaulting the occupier of the house, and sentenced to eighteen months' hard labour at Wandsworth. Shortly after he came out of prison, in August, 1846, he was again tried at the Central Criminal Court, with another man, for robbing the shop of Mr. Cockayne, jeweller, Mark•lane, and acquitted. His companion was sentenced to seven years' transportation. From that until the present time 1 have heard nothing more of him. Mr Btracium said it was quite time such a character was got rid of. He should commit him for trial, when no doubt the judge, on conviction, would pass such a sentence as would prevent his committing any further depredations on the public. The witnesses were then bound over to prosecute, and the prisoner was committed to Newgate. A ROGUE was nearly roasted the other night by an old woman near Inverary. She lived in a cottage by herself, and a few nights since she was aroused by a violent scratching and knocking in the chim ney, and the fall of much mortar and soot. It soon became clear to her that a thief was coming down the chimney, so to give him a warm reception she gathered up hastily a large heap of straw, crammed it into the fireplace, and lighted it. The fellow, who appears to have made his descent to a certain point with comparative ease, found the chimney narrowed so much that it required some effort to get through ;