The Express.
London, England, 1865-11-20 00:00:00

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.

(THIS DAY.)

The November sessions of the Central Criminal Ccurt com-
menced this morning at the Justice-WI, in the Old Bailey,
and being the first sessions of the new mayoralty, the
Right Hoe. the Lord Mayor (Mr. Alderman Phillip) name
in state, attended by the Sheriffs (Mr. Alderman Gibbons
and James Figgie', Esq.), the Under-ebei iffs (Yam.
Duff ett and Rawlins), and the usual civic authorities. The
magistrates present were Alderman Allen ►nd Alderman
Mechi, and the presiding judge was t►e Common Serjrant.
The first edition of the calendar contains the names of 92

prisoners.
The COMMOII Setjeant, in charging the grand jury, said
there was only one cue involving the destruction of human
life, which was • charge of manslaughter by careless and
negligent driving ; and another cue of the same character
warlocks in which a man named James Murphy was accused
of wounding a young woman who had been his sweetheart
with intent to murder her. It appeared that the prancu
frit was anzione to break off her coonezion with the pri.
sour, and that be was very angry with her in consequence
of this, and that be watched her es she was returning home
and wounded her very severely. The ries indicted by
the prisoner were very serious, but fortunately the pro.
',nutria was recovering from the attack that bad been
made upon her. It ens his duty, however, to tell them
that this did not make any difference with regard to
the offence of which the primer was unused, and if
the grand jury should be of opinion that the prisoner
intended to destroy the life of the prosecutrix at the time
he made the attack upon her, it would be their duty to
return a true bill. Another cue of a very serious character
wu charge against a medical man, named Hunter, of
having committed a rape up= • woman who had snit=
him as a patient, while suffering under consumption or
: severe disease of
of
this It was unnecusery for him to
I say that a charge of this character against a gentleman is
the position of Dr. Hunter was one of the most grave
sad important character, and one that would require their
most serious consideration. The story told by the
proucutrix was undoubtedly • most extrordinary one.
She appeared to have been suffering Iron illaees, and
according to her story, she was asked to inhale something
and immediately afterwards she alleged that she found
the prisoner in the act of commitiog the offence im-
puted to him. It appeared, however, that she gave no
alarm at the time, and that she did not say anything of
what had happened until some time afterwards, and her
story was undoubtedly one of a very peculiar character,
sod the greed jury possibly might entertain some doubt
whether they ought to find • tree bill. He thought it
right, however, to 'amiss his opinion that, having regard
to the very serious character of the charge that wari made
against a person in the position of the defendant,
it would be better for all parties that the
matter should be fully inquired into, and that the
defendant should, at all events, have an opportunity
of bringing forward the evidence he was in a position to
produce in answer to the charge. For this reason. there-
tom, he thought it would better fee the grand jury to