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

'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 'getting
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.