The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-08 00:00:00

TFIE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 8, 1851.

licy of compelling the claimant of a patent right to
go through this preliminary ordeal of contesting ob-
jections before obtaining a complete prima fade re-
' cognition of his claim. The practical result of the
eared system before Sir bone ROMILLY'S alteration
was, that patent-jobbers were in the habit of lodging
caveats• for the mere purpose of fishing out
information on the hearing before the Attor-
ney-General and Solicitor-General ; a bearing which,
except as a meets of supplying fraudulent spe•
clamor@ with ill-gained intormaticn, had eo little
practical effect that on an average of ten years (from
1838 to 18491 only 4 per cent, of all the er";ljoations
before the Attorney-General, and not 2 per cent.
of those before the Solicitor-General, were stopped by

these proceedings. .
The endeavour to remove the slightly increased
risk of litigation which might possibly arise if this
practice of giving a preliminary hearing to objec-
tions were wholly uiscontinued, dots not appear an
object of sufficient moment to justify the increased
embarrassment and expense that would be thrown in
the way of inventors by its maintenance.
By confining the Registrar to the duties of entering
and recirding registrations, classifying and arranging
specifications, drawings, and working models, super-
intending the annual publication of the former, to-
gether with indexes and titles, and once a year report-
tag on the progress of inventions and the rate of the
law—the interests of the public would be far better
secured than by frittering away his time in investiga-
tions which are in the majority of cases wholly in-
operative, and, even under the best of regulations,
must frequently be irjurious.
One registratim ctfice, an annual publication of
new rpecificati ns with good working indexes, •
gradual publication of all cid specifications of import-
ance till adequate means be at length provided for
ascertaining at slight expense and moderate trouble li
the existing state of previously patented rights—these
are some of the primary objects to be sought fur by
all practical reformers of our patent laws.

IT is the' privilege of creative genius that while
the forms of its expression pass current amongst
us as " household words," the being+ of its imagina-
tion became the most familiar types of the crimes and
the virtues of humanity. The great humonriat of
our own day has been no has fertile than hie fore-
runners in peopling the world of fiction with these
living children of the braia. Of all the numerous
family to which Mr. DICKENS stands in the relation
of spiritual father, none is perhaps, more vigorous in
its lineaments, or more lifelike in its ri pulsivenese,
than that squalid Israelite who playa the part of
arch-tempter in the Pandemonium of low vice re-
vealed in "Oliver Twist." Maeltellt is not more
completely the realised ideal of guilty ambition, or
Parson Adams of wise simplicity, than the Jtn
Fagin of that worst specks of wickedness which ma-
nufactures wickedness in others in order to traffic
with it for its own hue ends.
The system of Fagmism (no other name can fitly
designate the thing) is so extensively organised and
so lamentably active, it is at the root of so much of
the juvenile delinquency which occupies our police-
courts and crowds our prisons, that we shall make no
apology for asking our readers' attention to a crown-
ing instance of its working which appeared in our
impression of last Thursday.
JAMES TUOMAS NEWLAND, described as "a respect-
able looking youth, about 16 years of age," was brought
up a day or two ago before the Guildhall police-
court on a charge of having robbed his employer, a
warehouseman in Gutter-lane. On that cceseion the lad
admitted the truth of the charge, expressed great con-
trition for his offence, and declared that he had been led
astray by certain Jews, whose detection he promised
to ensure, and Maher to make a full disclosure of the
whole system of pillage in which he confessed he had
been for some time an agent. Upon this promise ho
was remanded, and the next day re-appeared before
the court, in company with two fellow prisoners—
HENRY HART and LEWIS LEVI, whom he had in
the meantime identified as the parties to whom he
referred, and who were now charged as the receivers
of the missing property under the circumstances dis-
closed in the following narrative :—LEWIS LEVI,
it may be as well to premise, plays so subordinate a
part in the drama, that we will ark our readers to
dismiss him at once from their minds,and concentrate
their attention upon the nal hero of the piece—Mr.
HENRY HART—old clothesman of the Tenter-ground,
Goodman's-fields.
One morning, about half-past eight, JAMES NEW-
LAND, having an old jacket for sale, was standing on
the step of his master s shop door, in Gutter-lane, im-
patiently listening, amid the matutinal hubbub of the
streets, for that mystic sound which, in the byways
of the modern Babylon, announces the approach of
the wandering Jew. The cry of "Old do, old do,"
rising cheerily in the morning air was soon followed
by the entrance on the stage of Mr. HENRY HART—
the jacket was preduced—the bargain struck—and
the business of the piece commenced in earliest.
"After I had sold him the jacket," says NEWI.AND,
"he asked me where I worked, and I told him. He
then asked me what my muter dealt ia, and I
told him ladies' collars, gentlemen's shirts and fronts,
ladies' habits, and children's made-up dresses. He
then asked me if I had any soiled collars
I could sell him, and I told him I had not. He said
' perhaps you can get some other things if you can't
get collars?' I told him I could get things, but that
I would not do so. Ile then said, 'lf you get any-
thing I'll take it from you, and give you a better price
than any one else.' He then left me."
Such was the opening scene of the sordid melo-
drama ; the seed was sown—the tempter left it to
grow—contenting himself from time to time with
watching the progress of its development. Ac-
cording to the boy's story HART saw him frequently
afterwards, and always with the same quest:on—
" Had he anything to sell him ?" At length
the temptation grew too strong, and New-
LAND, by his own admission, became a thief
We shall again resort to his own narrative, graphic as
it is, with all that minuteness of detail which is be-
yond the reach of invention. This was what occurred
on the occasion of the first act of theft :
I took some children's dresses with me, and after meeting
him I took them into the beershop with me, and Hut fol-
lowed me in. He said, " What have you got there ?" I
told him they were children', dream. I believe I had about
six or eight. I don't remember the exact number. He
said, " What's the use of them—why don't you bring more ?"
He then said, " Wait here a moment; I',l take them and
show them to my mistress." Hart then took the dresses
away, and in about five minutes returned without them. He
said, " I shall not be able to sell them ; it will excite suspi-
cion. You must pawn them." I told him I would rather
take them back and put them into stock again. He then
said, " You must paten them and give use half the money,
or I'll sand you across the water."
The lad still hesitating, the threat is repeated. The
weeds " There is only one step letween you and a
prison" at length did the baguets ; the stolen:property
is pledged "at a pawnbroker's in Redcrou-street,"
who " asked no questions as to where the things came
from ;" the money advanced is divided with HART,
and so ends the first transaction between them.
On the second occasion, HART, who has in the in-
terim worked on his victim by telling him that "he
is a d—d fool for his scruples, and that he (HART) kas
often young men who sell him as much as 21. or 31.
a week," requires of NEWLAND that he shall pawn a
certain dusk and hood, the spoil, as it would appear,
of some other agent in this organised industry of
plunder. Again the lad refuses; again he is driven
to comtliance by a threat—" You have got no spirit
in you, exc!aims Mr. HENRY HART; "you can do as
you like ; either pawn the cloak or I'll split upon
you." The cloak and hood are therefore pawned at
the same shop as the children's dresses; and again the
pawnbroker asks no questions.:
HART, now confident of his power, begins to press
the lad to engage in plunder on a larger scale: on
hearing that NEWLAND is shortly about to leave his
employer's service his remark is, "Yon have got
plenty of time; you could get 201. worth if you liked ;
you run the same risk in getting a shilling's worth as
you do in getting a pound's worth." Accordingly, on
the next occasion of their meeting, a larger quantity
of property is brought, for which HART offers 11.,
while the lad stipulates for 1/. 65.: ultimately it is
6 agreed between them that the latter shall be the
, price. What follows pies the finishing touch to this
picture of imbecile dupery and triumphant craft.
Mr. HENRY HART, with much parade, produces a
handful of gold from his pocket, selects one sovereign
out of about fifteen or twenty, and bands this to
NEWLAND, with three shillings ip silver; the bry
presses for the other two shilling. r HART refuses on
the score of having no more change; betas a security,
puts into the hands of his dupe Me pawnbroker's
ticket for the cloak and hood; and engages to pay the
residue in the evening, when it is arranged that more
plunder shall be brought to him.

NEWLAN D soon finds the value of these wages of sin
—the sovereign has been "sweated ;" of the three shil-
Hogs, one ia refused at the first gin-shop as counter-
feit; the other two are so bad, that (says the witness),
" I easily broke them in two pieces in my mouth ; '
I all are finally thrown away ; atd with this appro-
priate finale the narrative closes.
Now, we do not say either that NEWLAND'S evidence
is in all points to be relied upon, or that he is correct
in his identification of the man who now stands com-
mitted on the charge of one who, although a
dope, was also, by his own admission, an acccm-
, plMe, The final determination of three p9irate reels
with the "twelve good men and true" before whom
the case will bo tried ; but there can be, we think,
little reason to mistrust the substantial accuracy of
the story; atd there is, utforturately, no possibility
of doubting the prevalence of such practices as those
of which NEWL ND alleges himself to have been the
victim. _ _

The root of the evil rests with the parnbroker who
"asks no questions:" with regard to this class of
offenders it may be difficult, but it is surely not im-
possible to devise some regulations which, without
interfering with the exigencies of small borrowers,
should act as a preventive cheek upon the operatiocs
of small plunderers. The preeent state of our crimi-
nal law on this point makes it almost impossible to
touch a pawnbroker, however clearly to the eye of
common s-nse he may have creased that impalpable
boundary line which separates; tae reckless lender on
stolen pledges from the criminal receiver of stall
goods. Among the many minor reforms still re-
quired in the substantive part of oar law, few would
be more salutary than the discovery of some practical
means of facilitating the punishment of those who
advsoced money to lads like NEWLAND, on property
procured through such means as those alleged to have
been practised by HART.