The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-07-13 00:00:00

THE BIBLE IN EDUCATION.

On Tuesday night the Earl of Shaftesbury presided
at a demonstration held in the Birroing,..a.M Town
Hall, in support of "Bibb. tetcLing in State-aided
Schools." HA illhlP moved the first resolution,
which 'rival--

"1 hat this meeting, convinced that education to be worth
the name must be religious, and feeling assured that a very
large number of the children attending elenicntary 3chools
will receive lie religious teaching or training except such as
is given in the ordinary course of school teaching, hereby
protest against any attempt to Prohibit or discOurage by
legal enactment the Ladling of 6cripture in ottr national
schools,"

The noble earl sold he should advocate rebellion if
parents were compelled to send their children to infidel
schools; and if need be be would go to gaol in resisting
such a law. He regretted the attitude taken br the
younger men among the Nonconformists, whose hot
blood, had somewhat impalrisl their brains; but he
was glad to knew that the Samuels and the
Moses IA Noneonformihts were almost to a mau
for the maintenance of God's word within schools.
(Cheers.) The greatest evil of the present day was the
fascinating and cheap invenile literature which was
presented in a firm, insidious, and attractive form, and
that evil tould alone be counteracted by the teaching
of God's word to the young.
Dr. Higg, of London, seconded the resolution, which
was carried.
The Rev. Canon Miller, of Greenwich, and other
speakers, subsequently addressed the meeting,

"RUINED and WRECKED in HEALTH."
At the Central Criminal Court, in London, Harry Benson,
aged 24, described as having no r °cup:Wren, was indicted
for having on the oth of November last, ill the city of Londui
forged and uttered a reteipt for £l,OOO with intent to de-
fraud ; and also for having on the 20th of October, falsely
pretended to the then Lord Mayor of Loudon (Sir Thomas
Pekin) that he was the Marquis de Mulroney, the Maire of
Chateaudun, produced fictitious letters, purporting to be
signed by M. Leon Say, Trefect of the Seine, and M. Bar-
thelmy et. Hilaire, secretary to M. Thiers, and represented
that. Le was authorized by them to apply to the French
Relief Fund at the Mansion-house for a grant in aid of the
ruhmel town of Chateaudun, and likewise pretended that for
two years he had bees an al tart,! at the licnch Embassy in
Loudon.
The prisoner pleaded "Guilty." It may be remem-
bered that he woo committed for trial on the 30th of
November loot, and that a day or two afterwards he
was found lying in lain cell in Newgate, suffering moat
acutely from learns on vital parts of his body, though
whether they were accidentally or intentionally inflicted
has never been discovered. From that time to the
present he has been confined in the gaol infirmary, and
the torture he has undergone by reason of his injuries
in said to have been inconceivable. Ile was brought
into the dock in his infirmary dress on the back of a
warder and placed on crutches with a man on either
sido to support him; and he appeared still to be in very
Feat suffering.
Mr. Poland (with whom was Mr. F. 11. Lewis) said
appeared on the instructions of the City Solicitor as
representing the Corporation of London, to conduct
the prosecution, and he hail no doubt his lordship had
read the depositions in the case. The fraud had been
effected with great skill and ingenuity', and the
prisoner, being an accomplished linguist and an edu-
cated man, had been able to impose upon the Lord
Mayor. He first of all by false pretence obtained
samples of stationary dies with the stamps of various
public departments in France, and upon these he wrote
the tictit 1;0114 letters of introduction in the names of M.
• d M. St. Hilaire, which had every appear- ,
lie then represented that
he was the Maire of Chateaudun, a town partly de-
stroyed in the war, and he applied to Lord Mayor
Lakin, WS the chief almoner of the large fund rained at
the ILansion-house, for a contribution in aid of the
distressed inhabitants. The Lord Mayor was suffi-
ciently cautious not to act on his own responsibility,
and he conferred with Mr. Alfred de Rothschild,
Colonel Stuart Wortley, and other members of the
Conunittee, who, after examining the various docu-
mantas and seeing the prisoner, voted bins £l.OOO on
bonnils'oi-thotvwn OI ChateluidUns Thu fraud Wu

I bare, and £'93o of the money was fortunately
recovered and reetored to the fund. Upon the prisoner
a document, showing that he contemplated a great
fraud in America, was found. It was as follows :

"Thing to be done on immense scale or not at all ;
£lOO,OOO uot worthy of at,tention if to be ditided among ail
towns that have siXerCd. Thing Must he it hit, and to be
temenibered in future years—namely, that England and
America, or America alone, have rebuilt the French cities
destroyed. Little help to be expected from England, who
has already done a great deal. Would America not be more
nattered and proud to have been the sole contributor
towards the reconstruction of France? What would be the
amount that could be collected? Would It be necessary for
me to visit all the cities of America, and what cities?
Would it be nec,ssary for me to return to Paris, or could I
sail at ones from Euglauel ? is A reijallite that 1 should Im-
mediately depart?"
Since the prinotur's committal the City Solicitor huh
undyed information from the French authorities that
warrants had been i=sued against the piisoner by the
authorities at Nice for various crimes there, 11.11 ti there
was every reason to believe that he was a moat per.
eistent and aivomplished swindler.
Mr. Besley, for the defence, Urged that the real
offence committed by the prisoner was fraud, and that
the higher crime of forgery could hardly be sustained.
There was no desilbt that he succeeded in deceiving the
Relief Committee and obtaining ih the name of charity
the earn of £l,OOO, but he was instructed that the
prisoner actually intended to proceed to Chateandun
and hand over the money to the municipal authorities.
The explanation woo somewhat corroborated by the
fact that the great bulk of the money VMS recovered.
In mitigation of punishment, he described the fearful
sufferings undergone by the prisoner for eight months,
and stated that, though only 24, be was utterly ruined
and wrecked in health.
The Recorder said he ought to know how those
sufferings had been caused.
Mr. Gibson, the surgeon, and Mr. Jonas, the Go-
vernor, of Newgate, stated, in answer to the Berth,
that there was nothing Xi show whether the injuries
had Loon accidentally or intentionally inflicted. There
was a small and enclosed jet of gas in the cell, and the
prisoner's sheet had been set on fire, but how that
came about they could not say.
Mr. Besley said the prisoner might he able to give
some account not the tircuinstance, and his solicitor,
Mt. George Lewis, jun., asked him in French to do no,
but he made signs that he was unable.
The Recorder, addressing the prisoner, said he had
pleaded guilty to indictments for obtaining money by
false pretenees In.l for forgery, but it did not appear.
hail
as raged by his counsel, that the forgery had
been committed in order to carry out the fraud.
That fraud had been most ingeniously contrived,
and only a person of education as he was could have
executed it. He had eleceß ed the people engaged
in ohatitidae Work, and diverted the flow of chaiity
from this country to another, and the Recorder saw
no reason to come to the conclusion that he intended
to return the money. He had even contemplated
more serions frauds. Under those circumstances, it
would have ordinarily been his duty to pass a long
sentence of penal servitude; but, considering the in-
tense sufferings he had undergone. aria mourning them,
there being no proof to the contrary, to have been
aecidental, he felt justified in merely sentencing him
to twelve months' imprisonment, with such hard
labour 13 103 waa lit to Undergo.
The prisoner was then carried from the duck.