The Express.
London, England, 1867-02-05 00:00:00

we erpreso.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
advertisements intended for "The Express," London ?Weft::
Paper, must be at the office, 10, bouveriestrect, by Two
o'clockoffice,
on the dar of publication.

DRURY LANZ.
THIS Evkainm. THE MAN OF THE WORLD. Mr. Phelps,
Me.m. E. Phelps, Barrett, M•lntyre, dc.: Mesdames
&Aloft, Isabel Adams, de.—And NUMBER Mr: OR, HARLE-
quiN AND THE GNOME KING OF THE GIANT MOUNTAIN.

HAYMAN.=
TRW Evian, A LESSON FOR LIFE. Maws. Sothern,
Rogers. Clark, Compton. de. Mrs. Chippendale, Misses Hill. Wright, dc.—WILD DUNDREARY MitItRIED AND DONE
FOR. Mr. Mothern.—And JENNY LIND AT LAST. Miss Burke.

ERTNCIREII.
Tip lllVErtin, DELICATE °ROUND. Mews Vining and
7.0. Mon; DUN Katherine Dodgers.—And TILE sTREILTs OF
LONDON. Messrs. V. Villiers, Shore, Calimein, Yorroster. Cath-
cart, Mellon, and Vining: tin. 11. Marston and Miss Rodgers.

Tina Er=UHL TUE TWO PoLTS. Mr. Widdlcorab —And
ROCOE ET NOIR. Maws. Pechter, Emery, Cowper. Moreland,
Prispatrick. Dsltoo, Reynolds, Lama, Moe, dre.
Sirs. L. Murray, and Mires Uaurade, Grattan, and C. Leclereq.

IfYIAND.
Tors Minn% NUIGHBOU II& —After which will he produced
a Grand Burlesque, OUY YAWll2B.—And A SUIT OF

HOLBORN.
Tills 'Tam, MY TURN NEXT. Mr. Belmove Mmes
Foca' sad Lennon.—And FLYING SCUD. Messrs. Neville, Bel-
mar,. Blake, Voltaire, de. ; Mesdames F. Josephs, C. dminiers,
Osseo Foxes, Jidda, Lemma. Belaxed. to.

BRITANNIA.
Tun Emma, THE PRINCESS Of THE PEARL ISLAND ;
OR, TEN TERRE KINGDOMS Or PEARL, GOLD, AND
SILVE
TIM R. Kra Lane and MTUMID&ir Jacobs.-11rat.rnte
PautomimMta
—And WIDOW'S

MOH WATTS AT LONDON BRIDGE.
1717 DAY —Morning, 211. nm Afternoon, 2h. r
TO-MomoM—Morninii. 311. Mt Afternoon, lb. lYm.

LONDON, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY G.

THE Central Criminal Court has been engaged
five days upon a trial of which it would be diffi-
cult to exaggerate the importance to the commer-
cial and maritime interests of this country. It
would appear that a certain class of felonies may
be regarded as a branch, an illegitimate branch, of
our national industry. From the immense develop-
ment and complication of our mercantile and ship-
ping transactions, a new species of crime
has sprung up, which demands a more
than common ingenuity and audacity in
its perpetrators, but which also fortunately
requires a considerable number of accomplices ; so
that the difficulty of detection which probably
tempts unscrupulous men into conspiracies of this
kind, is practically found unequal to the difficulty
of keeping the secret. Men who will combine to
destroy and cast away a ship for the purpose of de-
frauding underwriters and insurance offices may
possibly be incapable of committing murder and
robbery on shore, but it is not easy to under-
stand where they would draw the line in felony.
The risk of lives in scuttling a ship a thousand
miles from land, may be comparatively a trifling
element in the calculation, since that risk is shared
by one or more of the actual conspirators. But it
is by no means a trifling element in the
case for the consideration of the seagoing
portion of the community, who are ac-
customed to trust their lives as well as their
goods and fortunes to ships on the faith of owners
and brokers, of whom they know nothing but the
names. Scuttling a ship for the sake of defraud-
ing the insurance companies is not simply another
form of the commoner crime of insuring a
house and then burning it down. This ship-
murder—for such it is—haa an ugly resem-
blance to frauds of a more heinous and terrible
description. At any rate, it is a form of felony
which it is all the more important to detect and
punish with the utmost rigour of the law that it
is one of the morbid growths of a great
maritime and commercial system, and fatally
injurious to the credit and confidence which
are the life of a trading people. The pro-
tracted trial which resulted yesterday in the
verdict of guilty against the four accused, was,
it is to be feared, one among many which escape
detection. Briefly, the facts of the case as they
came out in evidence were as follows. Four per-
sons named HOLDSWORTH, BERWICK, WEER, and
DEAN, were charged with scuttling the ship
Severn, for the sake of defrauding the under-
writers and insurance companies to the amount of
between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds.
Hotiviwourn was a professed insurance broker,
having offices in Liverpool and London. BERWICK
was a retired master mariner residing near Liver-
pool, who appears to have followed the

business of scuttling ships for some time
past with an energy stimulated by success.
It was stated that as many as fifteen
vessels had belonged to BERWICK and HOLDEWORTH
either jointly or separately, the whole of which
had been lost at sea, and, as was believed, wilfully.
WEBB, the chief mate of the Severn, had been
specially engaged in that capacity by Brawn lc, and
it was proved that ho had served before as the car-
penter of a vessel called the Jane Brown, in
which BnEwirs and Hotmiwoara were inte-
rested, and had been instrumental in sinking
her. DEAN was acting as clerk to Hotns-
WORTH when the purchase of the Severn
was pending, but afterwards appeared (taking a
most honourable name in vain) as " ALLKOPP and
' " C 0.," and was employed under that designation
in effecting large insurances on fictitious merchan-
dise. As to Captain LEYLAND, who was the
principal witness for the prosecution, the Judge
regretted that the ends of justice had rendered it
necessary that he should be made a witness,
and that he could not be prosecuted. He
was invited by HULDSWORTR to command the
Severn, having previously commanded a vessel