The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-13 00:00:00

Cross-examined by Mr. Buchanan, be said:—

it was on a Sunday that I saw Agar and Tester together,
about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. I was in their com-
pany half an hour and better. I left them together.
The case was then adjourned till this day.

In connection with this remarkable trial we may
mention that the antecedents of Henry Agar, the
approver, furnish ample evidence of the convict
having pursued a most remarkable career of crime
for some years. That he should have escaped the
ends of justice so long can only be accounted for by
the extraordinary canning and tact he displayed on
every occasion.

Agar states his age is about forty. He is of
middle stature, intelligent, and determined. For years
it was known that he was associated with a class of
systematic bank forgers in what are denominated large
offences. In the pursuit of this excellent business
various stratagems were resorted to, and perhaps his
most successful scheme was that of advertising
as a commercial man for clerks, or writing. to
those who had advertised for situations, engaging
them for some kind of service, and "testing their
honesty " by sending them, generally at the first in-
terview, with forged cheques to the bankers. A con-
federate was always placed on the watch ; he
followed the clerk to the bank, and, in the event of
there being any delay, and an evidgnt detection of
the fraud, the principal accomplice had timely
notice, so as to enable him to escape. It was in this
way that all traces of the real delinquent were so
frequently lost. The extent of this description of
fraud upon banking firms has of late years reached to
a considerable amount. One of Agar's confederates
was a man named Nash. He, like Agar, generally
passed as a commercial man. He was convicted at
the Central Criminal Court about six years since,
having been detected at the Bank of England in ob-
taining gold for 8001. in notes paid by Messrs. Bar-
nett and Hoare in Lombard-street, on a forged
cheque, presented by a young aspirant after a clerk-
ship undergoing the usual test for honesty.
The forgery was not discovered until after the
money had been paid over the counter and
the clerk had left. The heads of the firm, however,
immediately apprised the Bank of England authori-
ties of the numbers of the notes nearly at the same
moment that they were presented by Nash, who was
at once handed over to the custody of the detectives
on duty at the Bank. Nash was sentenced to four-
teen years' transportation. From some circum-
stances or other, however, after a servitude of five
years, this respectable member of society obtained a
ticket of leave, and is now at large in the metropolis.
Agar was concerned with Nash in that forgery. Agar
and Pierce, on Nash's conviction, coalesced, and con-
tinued the business. This accounts for Agar's se-
veral trips to New York, in order to dispose of Bank
of' England notes the results of such forgeries, and
of course not negotiable in this country. They con-
tinued this business up to the period of the gold rob-
bery on the South-Eastern Railway. Soon after this,
probably about a month, Agar was apprehended on
the:charge of forgery. The circumstances under which
he was detected are worth notice. One day in the month
of August last year a man gave information to the
Forresters at the Mansion-house respecting a cheque
(forged) for 7001. on Messrs. Stevenson, the Lom-
bard-street bankers, which had to be given to him to
get cashed on a certain day, and of which he bad his
suspicion, as he was promised the handsome girt of
100/. if he succeeded. The matt was taken to
Messrs. Bush and Mullens, the solicitors to the
Committee of Bankers, who arranged that he should
act as he bad been directed. The man presented
the cheque at the bank named, and received in re-
turn a bag which he supposed to contain sovereigns,
and proceeded to Bedford row, where his employers
had appointed him to meet them. After loitering
about some time, a well-dressed man accosted him.
It was Agar, who, observing two men on the oppo-
site side of the street, said, " Come on, we are
watched;'' and, on reaching the corner of Princes-
street, he added, " Sling the stuff over to me, and I'll
bolt." The man did as required, and Agar took to
his heels. He was pursued by the two men, who
were Goddard, the officer, and an assistant of the
Forresters ; and a de-perate chace took place before
he was captured. He denied being the man, hut the
bag was found in his possession. Instead
co! con•
taming sovereiens, however, they were 700 farthings,
which Mr. Mullen,: had arranged with the bankers
to substitute for gold. At his trial a paper parcel
was produced which contained nine copper-plates,
sixty-nine blank cheques of Messrs. Courts and Co.,
forty-nine blank cheques of the East of England
Bank at Norwich, and a number of others. These

SATURDAY,

were stated by the prosecution to have been placed
for security by Agar in a confederate's hands. The
clerks of Messrs. Glyn and Go., and Messrs. Coons
and Co., proved that sume of those blank cheques
belonged to customers of theirs whose places bad
been burglariously entered. In two instances
cheques for 7001. and 800/. had been paid. Forres-
ter also produced Agar's trunks, which were found
at his lodgings, 7, Stanley place, Paddington green.
The contents comprised some gold, documents and
securities of value (portions of the proceeds of the
sale of the stolen bullion) ; but as the prosecutors
were not in a position to prove that it was the pro-
duce of any particular forgery, the judge ordered it
to be delivered up to Agar. His defence was, that
he had been ensnared by a third party. The jury
found him guilty of the forgery, and he was trans.
ported for life. Pierce was said to be implicated
with Agar in the forgery, and was included in the
indictment on which Agar was convicted. The part
he is believed to have taken in the affair, was in
watching the man to the bank in Lombard•street;
and seeing him come out with the bag, as he sup-
posed, containing the gold, hastened off to apprise
Agar of their apparent success. Although 50/. was
offered for his apprehension, be continued to evade
the vigilance of' the police until taken on the charge
of stealing the gold.
Agar was noted for being an experienced bcksmith.
His explanation of the way he got an impression of
the key of the bullion-safe, and the mode in which
he manufactured it, showed him to be very quick
and skilful in the art, and it is said he is the man
who made the duplicate key which opened the iron safe
of Messrs. Rogers, the bankers in Clement's-lane, on
the occasion of the robbery of 45,0001. some years
since. These and other circumstances, it is thought,
were communicated to the learned judge who pre-
sided on the trial, and led to the sentence of trans-
portation for life being passed upon him, which, to
those not acquainted with the career of the convict,
was considered a severe punishment, there being no
previous convictions against him. No doubt some
extraordinary revelations will come out in his cross-
examination at the trial.
With respect to the prisoner Pierce, after Agar's
conviction for forgery his whereabouts for two or
three months could not be ascertained. Subse-
quently, however, he was traced by the City detectives
in disposing of bars of gold to one or two individuals,
and investing the amount in Turkish bonds. It was
also discovered that he had become the manager and
part proprietor of a betting•office in Panton-street,
Haymarket, which, on account of its "large bank,"
was doing considerable business, Pierce keeping a
private account at the London and Commercial Bank.
It does not appear, however, that he entered upon
any great extravagances. Immediately after his ap-
prehension the metropolitan police searched the floor
of the pantry where Agar said Pierce had buried the
gold for security, but the treasure had vanished.
A VENERABLE IMPOSTOR, of gentlemanly appear-
ance, last Saturday contrived to extract ten shillings
from Sir Walter Trevelyan, Bait., upon a false repre-
sentation that he was Dr. Ashton of the Borough,
collecting subscriptions for a distressed Taunton
family now in London, and known by name to Sir
Walter Trevelyan. The old gentleman. while having
his boots cleaned in Victoria-street, was seen by
Horsford, the Mendicity officer, who suspecting,
from the description given, that he was a long-
looked-for impostor, followed him to several hotels,
and finally to the Athenaeum Club, where he ( Hors-
ford) took his seat in the hall chair, and heard the
whole of the conversation which took place between
Sir Walter and the defendant. Horsford heard him
tell Sir Walter that he lived in Union-street, in the
Borough, and that the husband of a Mrs. Emery. who
was suffering from a white swelling, was going to be
admitted into St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Monday
to undergo an operation; and this was why, ac-
cording to the letter ha showed Sir Walter, that the
wife wished to return, meanwhile, to her friends in
the country. The whole statement was of course
utterly false. Horsford and Fergusson (officers; of
the Mendicity Society) produced a large bundle of
letters, all similar to the one produced, and in the
same handwriting—the name of the doctor being
differently given in each. A dozen of these docu-
ments were also found on the prisoner, with lists of
gentlemen, and memoranda of particulars to be used
in other applications
Mr. HENRY : Has the prisoner never been convicted ?
Captain Wood said he had not. About two years ago
the society had some trace of him, and witness found him
out: but Horsford (the present witness's father) could
not swear positively as to his identity, so they did not
apprehend him.
Mr. HENRT: I must say peat credit is due to young
Horsford on this occasion for his tact and skill in securing
the defendant.
The defendant persisted to the last in refusing his name
and address, or satisfying inquiry on auy point. He said
be was a professional man.
Mr. HENRY ordered the defendant to be committed fcr
three months.
The defendant : Won't you mitigate the penalty ?

DECEMBER 13, 1856.

Mn. CAWOOD, a respectable (!) surgeon of Selby,
has been committed for trial at York, for forging the
name of a brother surgeon, Mr. Wightman, also of
Selby, to a bill of ex3bange for 1501.

ONE OF THE MOST DARING BURGLARIES accom-
panied by brutal personal violence occurred on Tues-
day morning at the house of Mr. Bradley, a wealthy
brewer, residing at " The Manor," a short distance
from Sheffield. The circumstances are briefly as
follows :—The house is situated at some distance
from any other habitation, and on one side is a
large garden, overlooking which is Mr. Bradley's
bedroom. Three female servants live in the
premises, but the men servants do not sleep in the
house. Between two and three o'clock o❑ Tuesday
morning, Mrs. Bradley, who was nursing her invalid
mother, heard a noise of footsteps in the house.
She immediately got out of bed, ran to her husband's
room, and to him communicated her suspicions that
robbers were in the house. Mr. Bradley got up, but
before he could get on his clothes the door of the
bedroom was broken open, and five men, masked and
armed with bludgeons and revolvers, rushed into tha
room. One of the men threw himself upon Mr.
Bradley, and a desperate struggle ensued, in which
Mr. Bradley received a blow with a life preserver,
which broke one of his fingers ; he was also struck
with great violence on the head and shoulders. Mrs.
Bradley, after several ineffectual attempts, in which
she ran great personal risk, seized her husband's
arm, and assisted him to extricate himself from his
assailants. One of the men then presented a pistol
at Mr. Bradley, and threatened to blow his brains
out if he stirred to give an alarm. Two of the men
remained on guard outside th• door, whilst the
others, having found Mr. Bradley's keys, proceeded
to ransack the house. They entered the bedroom in
which the servants were sleeping, and ordered them
to lie still in bed, or they would murder them. Mr.
Bradley threw up the window of his room, with the
intention of calling for assistance, but he was de-
terred by the threats of men who were on guard in
the garden below. After having thoroughly ran-
sacked the house, the robbers decamped, taking
plate and money to the amount of 2601. Imme-
diately after their departure an alarm was given, and
a surgeon was called in to attend Mr. Bradley, whom
he found suffering from great loss of blood. He is
considered to be in a dangerous state. An examina-
tion of the premises showed that the thieves
had broken a pane of glass in the window of the
breakfast-room, slipped the hasp of the window, and
broken open the shutters inside.
THE DOUBLE. MURDER AT ROTHERHAM, Yorkshire,
continues buried in mystery. One man, William
Bee, a pot hawker, arrested on suspicion last Satur-
day, has been liberated after a brief examination.
BREACHES OF TRUST still continue rife. A few
days since Mr. James Shaw, agent in Liverpool to
the District Provident Society, absconded with 2,6001.
belonging to the society. The defalcations are said
to have been made easy of accomplishment owing to
the loose system of auditing the accounts ; and the
local committee, seeing this, have male good the
amount among themselves. Again, a Mr. William
Ellis, a confidential clerk in the employment of
Messrs. Abram Gartside and Co., wool brokers,
Liverpool, absconded, leaving defalcations to the
amount of 1,0001. He is believed to be accompanied
by a bankrupt innkeeper, in the same town, who is
stated to have fled with 2,000/. or 3,0001. in his
possession.
THE STATE OF THE SMITHFIELD " SAMARITAN "
INSTITUTION WIC.; brought before the notice of Sir R.
Carden, at the Guildhall, this week. Mr. Potter,
one of the guardians of the West London Union,
said that he had to pass every day a building called
the Samaritan Institution, in West Smithfield, pro-
fessedly an institution for giving relief and shelter
to the houseless poor, and that during the last eight
months on no occasion had he seen it used for any
other purpose than as a residence for 11r. Barber,
the secretary, a coach•house for his phaeton, and a
stable for his horse, except the upper part, which he
had let for 101. a month. To these statements Mr.
Horsley, the solicitor of the institution, opposed his
own full denial, and he bitterly complained that Mr.
Potter should have chosen to make them at " the
very time that we are reopening the institution, and
obtaining contributions to enable us to relieve the
destitute poor during the inclement season of the
yetu ".

Sir R. NV. CARDEN: DO I understand you to say that
the institution is now open?
Mr. BARBER: Certainly, sir, and there were no less than
T-1!) persons relieved yesterday, and were preached to by a
missionary at two services during the day.
Sir R. W. CARDEN: Let the inspector, who lives opposite,
state what he knows of this institution.
Inspector Cole : I have lived opposite from the com-
mencement of the institution to the present time, and it is
the general opinion of the neighbourhood that it is worse
than useless. The greatest number of persons who apply
there daily go away without relief, and many that have
been relieved have been ted with food, which I have tasted,
that is not fit to feed pigs with. I have remarked that
shortly before Christmas every year there has been great