The Express.
London, England, 1867-05-27 00:00:00

SELLING A GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENT.

At the Guildhall police-court on Saturday,
William Girling Balls, a tailor living at 2, Wellattect,
3,min:street, was summoned before Slur Benjamin Phillips
to answer the following charge :—" For that you, on the
31st day of October, 111611 and on divers other days in the
said City, unlawfully did receive divers sums of money
from Matthew John Thomas for procuring him an office
under the appointment and control of her Majesty's Poet-
mast se-General," against the statute, Act..

Mr. Peacock proaseutad on behldi of the Poet-office
authorities, and Mr. Jones watched the ease on behalf of
the defendant.
Mr. Peacock stated that this was a case in which the
defendant had used his influence with one of the members
for the City of London to procure a situation for a young
man named Thomas in the General Post-office, for which
he had stipulated that he was to have from him a sum of
*I. The young man got the situation, and as soon as he
did the defendant obtained from hint • promissory note
for 10/. Shortly afterwards he represented that he bad
lost that note, and got another for 30/., and subse-
quently he said he had lost that, and induced
Thomas to give him another for 251., which
he (Thomas) agreed to pay off at the rate of
2/. per month. The young man, however, had after-
wards to pay the 101. bill by instalments; he paid 6/. off
the 30/. ball, and 71. on the 251. bill, when he discovered
that the last had been parted with by Balls to a person
named Wilson, in Begent-atreet. and that he had never
put on the bill the 71. he (Thomas) had paid off it. He
then commenced paying Wilson 2/. per month until March
last, when it was ctamvered that Thomas had purloined
some money letters from the Port-mhos, and on being tried
for it at the Central Criminal Court was found guilty and
was now suffering penal servitude.
Mr. Jones said he was instructed to say that the whole
of Mr. Peacock's statement was true, and that the defend-
ant desired to plead guilty to the charge, not knowing he
was doing wrong.
After some evidence,
Sir Benjamin Phillips fully committed the defendant to
take his trial, but consented to accept bail for hie ap-
pearance—two sureties in 100/. each, and himself in MW.,
with twenty-fours' notice of bail.

TIM NORFOLK WIRDRR.—The prisoner Hubbard
Lingley, who is charged with the murder of his uncle,
Benjamin Black, at Finchani, Norfolk, will be brought
up for further examination to-day at Downham Market.
During the past week the county police have been actively
pursuing their inquiries, end it appears that the prisoner
was in the immediate vicinity of the murdered man when
he was discovered, for on his name being shouted he
answered and came towards them. The footmarks ob-
served near the deceased agreed with the shoes worn by
Lingley, while the shot taken from the body of the mur-
dered man exactly corresponds as to weight and number
with some found in the prisoner's possession. The shot is
not of the description ordinarily used by poachers. When
the prisoner was asked where his gun was he said at
first that it was at his uncle Henry's, but after-
wards he showed the pollee where it was hidden in
Barton Leys Wood. When the deceased was found the
blood was trickling from one of his eyes like tears, and
running down his cheek to his whiskers, and from thence
to the ground, there being beneath his head a pool of blood
a foot across. A little money, Re., which the poor man
was known to have in his pocket, was gone. His watch,
which was a large one, had been pulled to the top of his
trowels fob pocket, but on account of its size the pocket
had drawn up with it, and it would not come out ; the
force used had broken the steel chain from the watch. It
is stated that the prisoner expected that the situation
which the deceased held on Sir Hanson Berney's estate
would have been given to him, and that there was in muse-
guano' an in-feeling between him and his uncle.