The Express.
London, England, 1853-09-14 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 14, 1853.

complainant advised him to avoid the expense of legal
proceedings by liquidating the debt, upon which the
brute exclaimed with an oath, " Yes, 111 pay you at
once, take that —," and instantly levelling his
stick struck her a terrible blow on the head, which
felled her to the ground in a state of unconscious-
ness. She had been suffering excruciating pain ever
since, and was in such a state of pen and ex-
haustion .that she gave her evidence with diffi-
culty. The magistrate said that it was a
case of such brutal violence, that he mast
sentence the prisoner to hard labour for six
weeks in the House of Correction. "The prisoner was
staggered," says the report, " by the severity of the
sentence." We can fancy our hypothetical traveller
s • g also, but scarcely for the same reason. He
on, however, and learns that HENRY &areas,
a ruffianly-looking fellow, convicted of throwing a
police-officer down, and biting a piece out of his leg,
atones for his crime by 14 days' hard labour in the
House of Correction. He finds further on, that a
certain GEORGE FINN, a " thickset person," chose to
throw himself under the carriages of the railway
train, at the Waterloo station, and that on the
officers endeavouring to extract him from the
place, his conduct became most violent,—
plunging and kicking at every person
within his reach. Smrrir, an inspector of
police, deposed that on going to the assistance of the
officers who had the prisoner in charge, and were
nearly overpowered, he caught the prisoner by the
collar, when the latter got one of his fingers in his
mouth, and bit him severely, his teeth passing right
through the fleshy part, and cutting him to the bone.
The prisoner also destroyed the pair of trousers
which witness had on, and it was with the utmost
difficulty he was taken. He dealt desperate blows on
those who had him in charge, and tore a handful of
hair out of the head of one of them. The magistrate,
after enlarging upon the enormity of the offence, con-
victed the prisoner in • penalty of 31., or one
month's imprisonment, and ordered him " to pay
a further sum of 10s., or tea days' imprisonment, for
the injury done to the inspector's trousers." Our tra-
veller will observe with confusion that the correc-
tional tariff varies, and that the same magistrate
considers a day's imprisonment equivalent to a fine
of 2s. or Is., as the case may be, both rates differing
from that of the magistrate above-mentioned, who
valued it at eighteen pence.
We must suppose our traveller to be like another
NIEBUHR intent upon constructing the life of the past
from stray portions of documentary evidence, and
what can we imagine his verdict would be
upon the facts before him. He sees that to deprive
a person of two codfish and three haddocks calls down
a punishment of imprisonment with hard labour for
a year, while a series of violent acts which might
have deprived a public officer of his life is punished
with a mulct of 10s. He reads that the English of
the nineteenth century punished the pilferer of
eighteenpence with penal servitude for four years,
while a brute that half murders a woman is "stag-
gered" at the severity of a sentence which
dooms him to six weeks hard labour. He
remarks that the man who appropriates a
and half a bushel of flour expiates his
offence by four years' penal servitude, while a fero-
cious brute who bites and kicks policemen, and tears
their clothes from off them, has the choice allowed
him of paying 31. 10s. for his amusement, or under-
going imprisonment for a month and ten days.
There can be no doubt as to the nature of the deduc-
tions which the investigator will draw as to the
character of the English and their institutions. He
will necessarily come to the conclusion that they
were a race valuing property above all things, and
careless to a strange degree about human life, or at
least human pain. He will look upon us
as a bloodthirsty nation, caring little about
blood but a great deal about money. He
will conclude, not without a shudder, that so long
as we could preserve our property, we cared little
about protecting the person. And what have we to
urge against such a conclusion ? Do not the facts
warrant it ? Are the reports alluded to, in our im-
pression of yesterday, at all exceptional cases ?
Might we not look over a file of the paper and dis-
cover numerous reports which would tend to support
the traveller's conclusion still more strongly ? Surely,
then, it is not only for the sake of common humanity
but for the vindication of the national character that
something should be done to wipe off this stain, and
prove to the world and posterity by an alteration of
the laws that the Englishman of the nineteenth
century had a better knowlevlge of the relative value
of life and property than might be inferred from the
present administration of our penal code.

CHOLERA AT

The epidemic continues to prevail in Newcastle
and Gateshead. Yesterday (the 12th) there are re-
ported for Newcastle-57 new cases; 10 recoveries;
23 deaths. For Gateshead the number of at-
tacks is not known, as all the returns have not yet
' come in, but 27 deaths are reported up to yesterday.
The local authorities have shown great promptitude
and zeal. Meetings have been held of the Boards of
Guardians, and the local Board of Health at Gates-
head, at hich the Medical Inspector of the General
Board of Health was present, and where measures
for cleansing, and for providing for medical inspec-
tion of the districts attacked, by house' to house
visitation, were resolved on, so far as the powers of
the local authorities admitted.

Cbt Court

BALMORAL, Birr.l2.

Her Majesty and Prince Albert attended divine
service yesterday in the pariah church at Crathis. The
service was performed by the Rey. Archibald Anderson.
In attendance were the Duchess of Wellington, the Hon.
Mary Halted, the Earl Granville, Colonel the Hon. C. B.
Phipps, and Colonel the Hon. A. Gordon.
Her Majesty and the Prince dined yesterday evening at
Abergeldie with the Duchess of Kent

THE RECENT ROYAL VISIT TO HOLYHEAD.-
A Novel. Oaariart.—Daring the stay of the Queen and
royal party at Holyhead, Mr. John Jones, the keeper of
the pnneipal tower in C aaaaaa on Castle, forwarded to his
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales a basket of apples,
aceompanied by • memorial, stating that he had made a
small garden upon a part of the castle wall, known in
I ancient times as the Green-gate. The garden was 40 feet
high from the street, was 36 feet is length. and 9 in width.
He had planted an apple tree in it, which bore its first
fruit this year, and of which Mr. Jones begged his Royal
Highness's acceptance, " for the name of the place where
they had been grown." To this the following acknow-
ledgment has been reeeived : "Colonel Phipps has been
commanded to thank Mr. Jobs Jones for some apples:grown
on Carnarron Castle, which he has been good enough to
send to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales." Her'
Majesty was graciously pleased to accept tho present on
behalf of the Prince, and to order it to be soot on to Bal-
moral, whither the royal party were just about to proceed.

CHRIST'S HOSPITAL—On Wednesday, the 21st
being St. Matthew's day, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen,
Sheriffs and Governors of the several royal hospitals, are
to attend divine service at Christ's Church, Newgate-street,
where • sermon is to be preached by the Rev. George
Buckle, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, Ox-
ford. After which they are to repair to the Great Hall in
Christ's Hospital, where four orations are to be delivered
on the benefits of the royal hospitals by four of the senior
scholar., according to annual custom ; in Latin by Henry
Ludlow; in English by John Wilberforce Doran; in Greek
by Henry Jevers; and in French by Claude Hubert Pares.
Two odes will also be melted, one in English on the " Last
Days of King Edward VI ," by Charles William Paxton
Watts, and the other in Latin hexameters on " Liberia."
ANOTHER CHILD POISONED WITH LAUDANUId.
Yesterday Mr. Brent held an inquest at the Royal George,
Lower Ueorge•street, Chelsea, on the body of William
Parkins, an infant. Sarah Needham, the child's aunt,
stated that it had been suffering (roman attack of diarrheas,
and on Sunday mornibg last she advised the mother to give
it a spoonful or so of syrup of rhubarb, which was in a bot-
tle in one of the counter drawers. Witness had given the
same to her own child with good effect. She then went
out, and on her return some time afterwards, the deceased's
mother drew her attention to the sleepiness of the child.
She then looked in the drawer, remembering that there
was another bottle of the same sins and colour of label,
containing nearly a pennyworth of laudanum, which wit-
ness purchased and used for the toothache, and discovered,
to her horror, that her sister had administered the laudanum
instead of the syrup of rhubarb. The child was at once
taken to a surgeon's, and both the stomach pump, emetic.,
and other antidotes were immediately and continuously ap-
plied. Mr. Brown, surgeon, of Mans-place, Sloane-street,
Chelsea, was also called, and remained with the deceased
for ten hours, but, unfortunately, the poison had become
absorbed into the system, and proved fatal in the night.—
The coroner expressed his astonishment at tho want of
caution which had attended the occurrence, and the jury
returned a verdict of " Accidentally poisoned."