The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-08 00:00:00

Ggatu au Volta.

Mn. WATSON, Q.:C., has been raised to the bench
as Baron of the Exchequer in the room of Mr. Baron
Phil retired, Mr. BARON WATSON yesterday took the
oaths and his scat.

THE GREAT GOLD ROBBERY OF MAY, 1R55, when
a box containing 15,000/. was stolen in transitu be-
tween Paris and London last year, hills fair to be at
length cleared up. Two men, Pierce and Bur-
gess, the first a discharged, the latter an actual guard
ill the South Eastern Railway Company's service,
were brought up on Thursday before the Lord Mayor,
charged with being concerned in the robbery. The
solicitor for the company attended, and said that so
strong was the chain of evidence against these two
men that he felt satisfied of their guilt.—Remanded.
A COUPLE OF JEW PAWNBROKERS, David Barnett
and Aaron Cohen, currying on business in the Back-
road, St. George'sdn- the East, were summoned on
Monday before Mr. Selfe, at Southwark Police Court,
for neglecting to give pawn tickets. From the
evidence adduced it appeared to be a regular custom
of these harpies upon the poor to give no ticket, and
to charge about twenty per cent. interest upon the
money lent. Mr. Selfe fined both of them 31. and
costs, and threatened to fine them heavily if they
were charged before him with taking exorbitant and
ille al interest.

BousoN, the Crystal Palace clerk, was tried at the
Old Bailey on Saturday last. The prisoner pleaded
guilty to the charge of larceny as a servant, hut not
guilty to the charge of forgery. Mr. Sergeant Bat-
lantine conducted the defence, and called the various
witnesses to prove the forgery of a transfer of shares
in the name of Henry Johnson. Mr. Johnson,
brother-in-law to the prisoner, swore that the signa•
ture of his name to the transf-r was a forgery, and
in the handwriting of the prisoner. The defence
set up by Mr. Giffard was, that the prisoner had, er
imagined he had, the authority of Mr. Johnson for
using his name and effecting the transfer. The
jury found the prisoner guilty of forgery, and Mr.
Justice Erie sentenced him to twenty yearn' trans-

THE PRESS.

portation for forgery, concurrently with fourteen
for larceny. The prisoner is in his thirty-fifth year.

A SERIOUS AFFRAY OCCURRED IN SPITALFIELDS
on Saturday night, among some of the disbanded
soldiers of the Anglo-German Legion, when an Eng-
lishman, Henry Mole, of Crown•court, Spitalfields,
interfered, with the intention of preventing mischief.
One of the Germans, Lewis Theism, who was intoxicated,
immediately cut at him with a knife, inflicting a terrible
gash, extending from the top to the bottom of the
face. Mole fell, and a police constable, Warner,
:13 H, coming up, attempted to arrest the assailant.
The German immediately stabbed the constable on
the left side of the breast, and then inflicted another
wound on his thigh. The policeman struggled
with the villain, but soon fell from exhaustion,
when several bystanders and three or four
police constables made a rush on the German
soldier, and after a severe struggle secured
and conveyed him to the Chapel-yard station, in
Spitalfields. The wounded men were conveyed in
cabs to the London Hospital, where their wounds
were dressed. Both men still continue in a dangerous
state. The weapon with which the wounds were in-
flicted was a long spring dagger-knife. The prisoner
was examined at Worship-street on Monday, and
remanded.

Mr. W. J. O'CoNNELL appeared before the Lord
Mayor on Monday, and, addressing his lordship at
some length, protested against the usual insults upon
the Roman Catholic Church or clergy being per-
mitted on Guy Fawkes-day. The Lord Mayor in
reply said :
It is very difficult in any country to get rid of traditional
customs. The annual exhibition of the effigy of Guy
Fawkes has come down to us from the time of James the
First, when party feeling between Catholic and Protestant
ran very high, and the conspiracy to blow up the Houses
of Parliament has always been held by historians to have
been a Roman Catholic conspiracy. The burning of Lon-
don in the year 1066 was attributed to the same source,
and it is only recently, through the exertions of the present
City Solicitor, that the libelous inscription upon the Mo.
nument on Fish-street-hill, attributing the fire of London
to the Roman Catholics, was by order of the Co'at of
Common Council erased We cannot, however, conceal
from ourselves that all our party struggles, at almost every
period, have been quickened by feelings arising out of a
presumed Catholic or Protestant ascendancy. 1, however,
regret extremely that lately the exhibition of Guy Fawkes,
instead of being a mere memorial, should have assumed
the offensive form of which you so justly complain—that
the figure, instead of being the figure of an abominable
conspirator, Guy Fawkes, should be exhibited as an indi-
vidual dressed in the habiliments of a Roman Catholic
ecclesiastic, bearing on his breast the emblems which all
Christians are bound to honour and to worship. Such
conduct must be obnoxious to every one, and most offen-
sive and painful to members of the Roman Catholic
communion. I lament that any custom should be kept
alive in our times, even among boys, calculated to give pain
to any single individual. T hope, therefore, that your repre-
sentation will be conveyed through the public press, and
that it may have the effect of modifying this annual exhibi-
tion, if it does not altogether get rid of it. If this cannot
be accomplished, let us, at all events, have a Guy Fawkes
whom boys should only recollect as a wicked traitor, who
sought to blow up the King and Parliament, and not taught
to mix up with it anything calculated to wound die feelings
of their Roman Catholic fellow•subjeets.
The day on the whole passed off very quietly. At
Brighton, however, the proceedings were unusually
riotous, and resulted in rather a serious collision
between the people and police.

Mr. HUMPHREY BROWN'S ship Hornet, from Cal-
cutta, was seized on Monday, in the name of the Court
of Chancery, off Deal, and she is now lying in the
Victoria (London) Docks, under the care of Messrs.
Bennett and Aspinwall, the brokers acting for the
official manager. The vessel was mortgaged to the
Royal British Bank by Mr. Humphrey Brown, and
consequently under the winding up of the bank forms
part of the assets to be divided among the creditors
and depositors. The value of the ship and freight is
estimated at no less than 20,0001. The claims of
about 1,100 creditors, amounting in the aggregate to
120,0001., were proved on Saturday by the official
manager, at the chambers of Vice-Chancellor Kin•
dersley, and it is expected that at the end of the
present month all the claims sent in up to Saturday
will have been examined and proved, and on the
completion of the proofs the official manager pro-
poses applying to the court for liberty to pay a
dividend of ss. in the pound.

Mr. COOPER, an attorney practising at the Cheshire
Quarter Sessions, held at Knutsford last week, is at
present under a charge of the most serious nature.
During the hearing of a case of appeal against a
conviction for unlawful possession of stolen silk, Mr.
Cooper, who appeared for the appellant, was observed
to tear a most important corner off the invoice. The
keen eye of a constable detected the attempt at fraud,
and Mr. Cooper was at once seized, the torn pieces
picked up from under his feet and fitted to the in-
voice. The bench, after consultation, ordered the
depositions of the witnesses of the act to be taken.
Two gentlemen deposed to the fact that the mutilated
evidence was material to the case, and that the muti-
lation essentially altered the meaning of the invoice

SATURDAY,

as it stood before. Mr. Cooper was then committed
fk;r contempt, and was confined all night in the
House, of Correction. On the following day he was
discharged; but an or.ler of court was made, direct-
ing the county solicitor to apply to the Court of
Queen's Bench to have Mr. Cooper struck off
the rolls.

THE THREE FOREIGN SEAMEN, Lagarva, Barbalano
and Pettrich, charged with piracy and murder on
board the English barque Globe, in the Black Sea,
on the sth July last, were on Monday fully committed
for trial at the next Winchester Assizes.

Houm, the man who stabbed Benjamin Bromley
at. Shrewsbury last week, has been committed for
trial on the charge of " Murder." Bromley, will
be remembered, dropped dead on the spot. He was
struck through the heart.
THE FIREMAN OF THE COAL-TRAIN ENGINE which
last week caused that lamentable block up on the
North-Western line, has died from his injuries. At
the inquest a verdict of " Accidental death " was
returned. In the course of the esidence Mr.
M'Connell, the manager, explained the meaning and
object of the guard cutting the telegraph wire—a
most essential precaution under such circum-
stances :

Mr. M'Connell explained that among the more recent
improvements adopted by the London and North• Western
Company for securing perfect safety of travelling over
their line had been the establishment of a " special train
telegraph," with signal-stations every two miles. At each
station a policeman was on ciqty night and day, in whose
watchbox there was a telegraph dial with a single needle.
By inclining the needle to the left hand, the person in
charge gave notice to the next station that a train hail
passed on to the two wiles of road intrusted to his special
care; while inclining it to the right hand would show that
the train had passed off that portion of the line. There
were in fact but two signals—" train on " and " train off "
—but as it might happen, as in this case, that an
accident occurred upon the two miles of road between
the telegraph stations, the guard and breaksman were in-
structed instantly to sever the " special train wire," which
had the effect of placing the needle at each adjacent
station in an upright position. The policeman on duty
at once became aware toy this movement that something
was wrong, and could act according to circumstances.
Several of the jury remarked that the system appeared
to be well calculated to prevent accidents.
Mr. M'Connell said if the signals were properly attended
to, a collision, in the ordinary sense of the term, was im-
possible. The system, however, induced a rigidity of
practice which, though essentially productive of safety to
travellers, doubtless almost necessarily occasioned delays
when any derangement occurred. The " train telegraph "
had only one code, and the policemen in charge were not
able to carry on a conversation by it. The wire was placed
about half way up the ordinary telegraph posts, and in this
instance had not been injured by the accident, though the
ordinary intelligence wires had been destroyed. This
" train telegraph " at present existed from London to
Rugby, and was in process of extension over the whole
system of the London and North-Western lines.

It is worthy of remark, that only a few hours after
the delivery of this opinion by Mr. M'Connell, in
spite of the strictest attention to the rules of this
signal system, the collision on Monday occurred.
As A SPECIMEN of the class of gentlemen who
garotte us of a night, we may take the following de-
scription of one Charles Hunter, charged before Mr.
Burcham at Southwark Police-court on Wednesday
with having garotted and robbed a Mr. Mason in the
Clapham-road a few nights previously. In answer
to Mr. Burcham's query as to what was known of the
prisoner, Sergeant Broad, 23 L, said:—

I have known the prisoner several years as a desperate
thief. He was tried at the Central Criminal Court in De-
cember, 1850, and sentenced to seven years' transportation
for burglary. He received a ticket of leave on the 10th of
April, 1854. In July the same year he was tried at the
Westminster Sessions, in the name of Charles Clifford,
for picking pockets, and acquitted. In December he was
again tried at the Central Criminal Court :or attempting
to commit a burglary and murderously assaulting the
occupier of the house, and sentenced to eighteen months'
hard labour at Wandsworth. Shortly after he came out of
prison, in August, 1846, he was again tried at the Central
Criminal Court, with another man, for robbing the shop of
Mr. Cockayne, jeweller, Mark•lane, and acquitted. His
companion was sentenced to seven years' transportation.
From that until the present time 1 have heard nothing
more of him.

Mr Btracium said it was quite time such a character
was got rid of. He should commit him for trial, when no
doubt the judge, on conviction, would pass such a sentence
as would prevent his committing any further depredations
on the public.
The witnesses were then bound over to prosecute,
and the prisoner was committed to Newgate.
A ROGUE was nearly roasted the other night by
an old woman near Inverary. She lived in a cottage
by herself, and a few nights since she was aroused
by a violent scratching and knocking in the chim-
ney, and the fall of much mortar and soot. It soon
became clear to her that a thief was coming down
the chimney, so to give him a warm reception she
gathered up hastily a large heap of straw, crammed
it into the fireplace, and lighted it. The fellow, who
appears to have made his descent to a certain point
with comparative ease, found the chimney narrowed
so much that it required some effort to get through ;

NOVEMBER 8, 1856.

but as the chimney narrowed more every foot, he
only became more tightly fixed, and by the time the
oiu woman had lighted the straw was in as fair a
position for being roasted alive as ever a man was.
He bore the heat and smoke for some time, but at
length he gave in, and his cries soon attracted the
attention of the neighbours, who ultimately rescued
him out of that frying-pan into the arms of a couple
of constables.

THE FIRST MEETING IN THE BANKRUPTCY COURT
for proof of debts and choice of assignees in the case
of the Royal British Bank was held on Thursday
before Mr. Commissioner Holroyd. The Commis-
sioner said it would be most respectful to the Court
of Chancery to take no proceedings until the decision
of the Vice-Chancellor was made known, which
would be in a few days. Ultimately Mr. J. Wyld,
Mr. R. Taylor, Mr. H. Mitchell, Mr. J. Burke, and
Mr. J. Bell, of Finsbury-square, were then chosen
assignee:, and accepted the trust, and the next
meeting was fixed for December sth at eleven
o'clock.
A RULE NISI in the case of " Mather v. Lord Maid-
stone," was granted on Tuesday at the Court of
Queen's Bench by Mr. Justice Cresswell.