The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-11-28 00:00:00

ALLEGED ATTEMPT TO EXTORT
MONEY FROM A NOBLEMAN.

At Marlborough-street Police-court, London, on
Saturday, Charles Mollison, 48, of Gowran, Kilkenny,
a gamekeeper, was brought up on a warrant charged
with sending a letter threatening to accuse Viscount
Clifden, of Chesterfield-gardens, of a certain crime,
with a view to extort £5OO. Mr. Poland and Mr.
Grain conducted the prosecution, the prisoner being
undefended. Mr. Poland, in the course of a brief
opening statement, said that for some two or three
years past the prisoner had occupied the position of
head gamekeeper on the estate of Lord Clifden at
Gowran, Kilkenny, having been appointed by the
trustees before his lordship came of ago last year.
Six months ago Lord Clifden, being dissatisfied with
the prisoner's conduct, gave him oral notice t.o leave,
which during the autumn was put into writing and
handed to the coachman to give to the prisoner. There
appeared also to be another grievance under which the
prisoner was suffering, namely, that a than named
Fitzgerald had been appointed to superintend part of
the estate over which Mollison had formerly exercised
control. On Nov. 10 his lordship received a registered
letter, which formed the subject of the present charge,
in which ho (the prisoner) threatened that unless the
notice to leave were withdrawn, he would take

proceedings of a very unpleasant character against
his lordship. The writer then proceeded to make foul
accusations against Lord Clifden, and said that unless
the notice to leave was withdrawn, he should apply for
£lOOO damages against him, or he would take £5OO
down and leave the place without saying anything
about the matter. The learned coansel contended
that it was clearly a case of a servant, on being dis-
charged, endeavouring to extort money by means of a
malicious letter, and asked that the prisoner should
be elm mitted for trial. Inspector Lansdowne, of
Scotland-yard, deposed that when he arrested the
prisoner, on the evening of the 10th, he became very
excited, and said that Lord Clift.len ought to be in
prison himself. He had only asked his lordship for
compensation for the injury he had done him.
Viscount Clifden was next examined, and gave an
emphatic contradiction to the imputattons cast upon
him by the prisoner. He knew nothing whatever of
the circumstances referred to in the letter. The pri-
soner, in his defence, said that he had been brought
to London and was quite unprepared to defend him-
self, having had no opportunity of consulting a
solicitor. Mr. Mansfield committed him for trial at
the Central Criminal Court.

The population of Paris is decidedly diminishing.
This autumn there are nearly 115,000 fewer inhabit-
ants of the French capital than four years ago, and
this diminution bears heavily on the cab and omnibus
companies, who are all lamenting over the fall in
their receipts. Apparently the chief absentees are
the foreign residents, who do not find Republican
Paris so amusing as formerly, and the poorer work-
ing-class, who can get food and house-room cheaper
outside the city.
Mr. Randolph Caldecott has just arrived in the
United States, whither he has gone to sketch for the
Graphic. Mr. Caldecott has never before visited
America, and it will be interesting to note the im-
pressions he receives from a new country.
M. Pasteur's discoveries of a hydrophobia cure are
declared by the German Press to he nothing new. It
is pointed out that this same inoculation against
rabies is described in a Teutonic medical work of 1849
as being successfully practised by a German Dhv-
sician named Hering, living in Philadelphia.