The Express.
London, England, 1866-06-29 00:00:00

THE POLICE COURTS.

GUILDHALL.
William Mikkell and Montague Ambrose, alias Lissa'',
alias Pearson, were placed at the bar on remand, before
Alderman Waterlow, for Anal examination, charged with
obtaining various sums of money from divers persona by
means of false pretences, with intent to defraud them of
the same. This was the money loan case, the particulars
of which have already appeared. Several fresh charges
having been gone into,
Alderman Waterlow said he had had this case before him
a long while, and had given it great consideration both dur-
ing the hearings and between the adjournments, and he
had come to the conclusion that he had jurisdiction, and
that there was fraud intended by the prisoners, and he
had made up his mind to commit them for trial. Bail
refused.

THE SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE IRON TRADE.

BIRMINGHAM, Jura 29.
The preliminary meeting of the ironmasters of
this district was held in this town to-day ; Mr. J. Hawn=
(Thorneycroft and Co.) in the chair. It was moved by Mr.
J. Baguall, and seconded by Mr. W. Barrows (Bloomfield
Works), `That the old sale of prime for all descriptions
of finished iron be adhered to. This was carried unani-
mously. The following report of the committee WU
read :—" At the preliminary meeting held in March last a
new set of rules was agreed upon and ordered to be circu-
lated amongst the trade, one of which stated that all those
firms paying their contributions to the trade funds before
Ist June would thereby become members of the associa-
tion. The amount of call was 21. per blast furnace, and sa.
for each puddling furnace. Only those furnaces were con-
sidered liable that were in repair, and would be likely to
be worked again. The call was made an 112 firms, and
the amount realised from such call would have been about
750/. It was, however, found that several blast furnaces
counted upon were not in repair, and also several puddling
furnaces, which thus were not fairly rateable. They have since
been struck out. The number of firms responding to the
call is 70. The number who have declined is eight, and the
amount which has been received up to the present is 5791.
Members of the committee have attended several meetings
of the Mining Association of Great Britain. The
chairman and Mr. Mathews have prepared evi-
dence to give before the select committee in the
House of Commons on the masters and servants bill,
and several members of the association have prepared evi-
dence on the miners' complaints, which they will submit in
due season. Some time ago, a dispute arose at Messrs.
Drown and Freer's works as to whether the puddlers were
entitled to receive Q. per ton extra for puddling for hoop
iron. This is considered an innovation by the committee,
and they desire an expression oft opinion by the
meeting on this subject to-day. Copies of the
rules of the Associated Ironworkers have been for-
warded to all the ironmasters in the district, as also
a tabulated form of wages paid for puddling in the
north of England—this also emanating from the Iron-
workers' Association—showing the way in which they work
up their details." The foregoing was received. The
question of the extras paid by certain works on the west of
Dudley for puddling hoop iron was fully discussed, and the
following resolution was paned:—" That this meeting,
having considered the question of the advance of sixpence
per ton on puddling hoop and strip iron made at certain
works in this district, are of opinion that there is nothing
to justify such extra price, and that it ought at once to be
- I discontinued." The meeting was very fully attended.
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