The Press.
London, England, 1856-04-05 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

coffee-house, and said he wished to see the ladies.
The landlady said he could not see them unless he
sent up his card and name. He told the landlady
who he was, and went upstairs with the London con •
stable, where he found Mr. Charlier in a widow's
garb, with a female companion. They pretended not
to know Inspector Leggatt, but he soon put the matter
to rights by asking Mr. Charlier if a black-leather bag
in the room contained the 1,1301. he had stolen. He
hesitated, but at length said the principal parts of
the gold and silver were there, and drew the notes
out of a pocket of the dress he had on. After count-
ing the money (upwards of 1,1001.), the inexorable
superintendent invited Mr. Charlier and friend to
accompany him back to Portsmouth, and by ten p.m.
had lodged them both safely in Portsmouth Gaol.
The next morning the prisoner, dressed in his full
widow's weeds, was put at the bar, and, after the
evidence cf Mr. Stewart the storekeeper, the mes-
senger Sheppard, the cashier at the bank, and
Superintendent Leggatt had been heard, was fully
committed for trial. The girl who accompanied him
was discharged. Mr. Charlier enjoyed a good salary,
was considered highly " respectable," is married,
and has four children.

Mn. Wit.soN, the cashier to the great Liverpool
firm of Messrs. Brockelbank, charged with the em-
bezzlement of a large sum of money belonging to
his employers, was tried on Monday at Liverpool
before Mr. Baron Martin, pleaded guilty, and sen-
tenced to fourteen years' transportation.

A CASE OF BRUTAL ASSAULT UPON A WOMAN was
brought before the Lo►d Mayor on Monday at the
Mansion-house. John Felix, a dock labourer, was
charged with having committed, some weeks since,
the assault in question. Mary An❑ Brooks, the
prosecutrix, a sickly, emaciated-looking woman, was
carried into court in a chair, and remained seated
during her examination. She appeared to be still
suffering intense agony from the injuries she bad re-
ceived. In her evidence she said:—

On Saturday night, the Bth instant, the prisoner
came home rather tipsy, and complained that his
supper was not ready. He then struck me and knocked
me down, and on my telling him that, if lie repeated the
blow, I would put him where he could not come out, he
lifted me up in his arms and threw me upon the ground,
with the left side of my face downwards, and then struck
me several blows on the right side of my face. He then
kicked me on the back of my head ; he had his shoes on
at the time. The blood gushed from my mouth. I
screamed " murder," upon which he returned and gave me
another kick on my right side. I was at the time an out-
door patient of the London Hospital, in consequence of
the ribs on my right side being fractured by a blow from
him six or seven weeks before.

k lodger in the house corroborated the complain-
ant's evidence, and added that the prisoner, who
constantly beat the complainant, had threatened to
" stick the hooks into her" (a pair of double hooks
used for lifting bales of wool) if ever she complained
to the police. Mr. Allen, the surgeon at Bartho-
lomew's Hospital, detailed the nature of the seveie
injuries the poor woman was suffering from, when
the Lord Mayor said the case was of so serious an
aspect that he should commit the prisoner for trial
at the Central Criminal Court.

A DESPERATE AFFRAY WITH POACHERS took place
last Saturday in Botanybay Wood, on Lord Elles-
mere's Worsley estates, near Manchester, between
five keepers and eight poachers. The keepers were
hidden overnight in the wood, and about one in the
morning the poachers, armed with bludgeons, came
right across the keepers' hiding-place. The moment
they saw them, the leader cried out, "There are only
five on 'em, lay into 'em, boys," and a most desperate
fight ensued. The keepers were knocked down like
ninepins by blows from the poachers' heavy
bludgeons ; but, being armed with cutlasses, they at
length got them into play, and, inflicting some terri-
ble wounds in return, succeeded in eventually cap-
turing four out of the eight poachers. The prisoners
were brought up before Mr. Trafford, a county
magistrate, the same morning, and fully committed
for trial. Both parties are reported to have pre-
sented terrible marks of the desperate contest over-
night—frightful bruises, heads and hands cut open,
clotted and bloody bandages, all proved that the fight
had been earnest on both sides. The four prisoners
are well-known bad characters, and one has been
already three times convicted of felony.
JAMES HOWELL, committed for the wilful murder
of his wife on the 21st of January last, at Bath, was
tried at Taunton on Monday before Mr. Justice
Crowder, found guilty of "Manslaughter," and sen-
tenced to six years' penal servitude.
THE EXECUTION OF THE PRISONER BOUSFIELD
took place on Monday morning in front of Newgate.
The prisoner for some time previous had exhibited
so perfect a prostration of mind and body as to re-
quire to be bodily carried on a chair to the scaffold.
The hangman, Calcraft, had been threatened by an
Anonymous writer to be shot on this occasion, and
became so nervous that he hurried over his prepa-
rations. He quickly got below the scaffold, and,
from either drawing the bolt toe soon, not properly