The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-01-22 00:00:00

,MINT PROSECITION.

_ _ ....
LPry Miami was indicted for selling a„
quantity of counterfeit
shillings sini sisper.ccs.
Mesas. BOLLAYD and Law,supported the prosecution, and
Mr. Ant:n.l,ll us attended for the prisoner.
The officers of Worship-street having received information that
the prisoner was a dealer an base coin, employed two men, rained
Trotman and troudluek ; the latter being the son of one of the
°thee's to purchase base coin of him. I to the 23d of December,
Trennan called ct tl:c prisoner's lodgings in .Merlborcugh-court,

Petticoat-lane, and asked him if he had any shillings to selL (U
had on the 9th introduced higtself to the 'prisoner by mentioning
the name of a young man who had bought of him the preceding
week.) nyanis said, that he had not ; but that, if he would call
the following day, he should have some. The next day, Trotman,
Gooilluck, Jan. and four officers of Worship-street, vix.:--Arm-
stror.g, Vann, hlance, and Goodluck, sen., went to the 11akers'
public-house, which is near to the prisoner's lodging; where
° Trotman and Goodlock. jun., were searched, and had no money,
good or bad, in their possession. They then received from the
officers 2 shillings, and one sixpence each, and went to the
prisoner's lodgings, followed by the police, who only lost sight of
them for about a minute, till they got into Ilyaufis room. The
prisoner gave Trotman lg counterfeit sixpences, and a counter-
feit half-crown, and to Goodluck, jun., he gave 10 counterfeit
shillings. Trotman and Goodluck, jun., gave Hymns for this
base coin the money they had received from the officers, which had
been marked. On Trotman and Goodluck coming down from
Hyaline mom, the officers rushed in ; 21ance searched the prisoner,
upon whom he found 9s. in good money-4 shillings of which, and
2 sixpences, were marked, and proved to be the money given dap,
of to Trontan and Ooodluck, jan. Vida
prisoner's lodes., and found a counterfeit bief-aown. .1g
circulation. and a packet of base shillings that appeared to to
bean in the fire. . . . .

Mr. Powell, the Inspector at the Mint, proved the 16 si
the 10 shillings, and the half-crown received by Teo:a:M
Ooodluck, jun., to be counterfeit, cast from different dies. The
half-crown found in the lodgings he also proved to be counterfeit ;
and the shillings found then, Mr. Powell stated to be is an un-
finished state, cast from Mint shillings—Gwilty.

DURHAM EPIPHANY SESSIONS, Jaw. 13.

TRIAL OF A SURGEON AND A MEDICAL STUDENT
FOR STEALING} A DEAD BODY.
John Weatherley, aged 21, and MOWIell Thompson, aged 23, the
resurrection-men lately apprehended at Sunderland, were indicted
upon a charge of opanints the grave in which the body of Elisabeth
Hedlcy was interred in bunderland church-yard, and of unlawfully
and indecently carrying away the hod".
Thompson pleaded guilty, but Weatberley put himself upon
his trial.

Mr. Losn stated the case to the Jury, and the case proved in
evidence woo, that the prisoners being strangers in Sunderland, took
lodginp *me, and made a paint of attending all the funerals that
took plot" owl Were in the habitof loitering about the church-yard.
On the 21M It December last the body of the deceased Elisabeth
Iletiley was bMtred in the church-yard. Her father was about
machining • bariaL-plase is the church-yard, but the purchase not
hubs. Seen essepieted when his daughter was buried, she was in.
tetra avid= pat of the eisurch.eard, with the intention, when
the purchase weecomedract,eff removing the body to another grave.
On the 25th of Nem*, is consequence of the purchase having
been then completed, the grave was opened for the ptutpose of re-
moving the corpse, but on coming to the coffin the body was die.
sovered to have been already taken awn . Suspicion having fallen
on the prisoners, Thompson was apped in the church-yard„
while leaving a funeral he had been attending. He was conveyed
to the lock-up house; but he =hoed it ffiet to give any account of
himself, or to state where be lodged. Jiteninally, however, he agreed
to conduct them to his lodginp,ffirovided be was protected from the
violence of the mob, which the fraowledge of the circumstance et
his having beet) apprehended Mtn* a MCorp naturally collated.
The police Micas were plemedirgnmardis the lodgings with him.
followed by die mob, who reviled and deteorarad hine, Theis
they were likely to meet W . He, pinsithei their op-
mooch, attempted to 114%, be was immedistala puma/ mial
taken, and with his comp conducted to digit ledglngs. Those,
in so inner room, a box ( it was proved W bed or-
dered to by made, but which Thome* seek hien the s) was
found, containing the body irithedsolueed, pod* na sod &rey
So for sending away, adibemed a pow I. Mobs*
were also founds semis of bums Meti, aid omienernment mod
in tooth-drawing. Ahsr the prraoset,Weatbedey, bed been In cus-
tody he said that Thompsea was a fool for brimelog the officers to
his lodgings so soon, as, if he bad had tome time, he would have
thrown the body over the sea-beaks, sad so 4eproyed the principal
testimony against them. These were the lise facts of the cue
to connect Weatherity with the offence charged against him.
The prisoner kiss called upon, read a written defense. He
commenced by noticing how strenuously the Counsel for the prose-
cution had mdeamsared to infinencie the feelings of the jury against
him. The Conned, he remarked, had left no stone unturned by
which he might strengthen his client's ease. Bat be thought the
Learned Gentleman's speech would be considered by the Jury more
sounding thari subetintial ; and that the evidence produced on the
part of the prosecution: instead of proving him guilty of the offinsee
with which hs stood charged, would be found to eraser stongly in
his favour., and would, no_doubt, =ovine. the Jury of his moo-
comic The rekillei UM would confine his remarks te them
draumetairase, wheel It op*he* awe she rely shine that mused
the suspicion of his being concerned in die committing of that
offence of which Thompson had pleaded pithy. The first fact
was—his going with Thompson to take the kdgings, and his lodg.
kg in the same room with him. This, the Learned Conned had
contended (ooupkd with other circumstances which, he should
shorty notice), operated strongly in favour of the presumption that
he was guilty. The prisoner stated he wan a surgeon of seven
years standing; that as he was travelling from Edinburgh to Sun-
derland, where he intended to commence practising as a surgeon,
be met Thompson. lie did not at first recollect -him ; but after
some conversation, he found that he had been his fellow-student at
the University of Edinburgh, and that they had dissected in the
same room—that he disclosed to Thompson his intention of going
to Sunderland, and Thompson, having been recommended the sea
air for the benefit *this health, agreed to accompany him--that on
their arrival at Sundetland they took the room as bad been
stated by one of the witnesses, and they accordingly lived
together. But he would ask the Jury, if, because he lodged in the
same room with Thompson, he was therefore privy to all Thum-
son's transactions ? And if, because Thompson has been guilty of
an offence, he must necessarily be guilty also? Such a concluoion
would be absurd in the extreme ; for if two men lodged ht the same
house, a blacksmith and a joiner for instance, did it follow that the
blacksmith must become a joiner, or the joiner a bleckintith
The.same reasoning, he contended, applied to the present are and
he therefore thought this circumstance ought to have no weight
with the Jury in pronouncing him guilty. The next circumstance
was the finding of the teeth and the tooth-drawer. These he ac-
knowledged were hit own, and were found in the room he had taken.
lie had proved, from the cross-examination of one of the
that they were all single teeth, and the instrument found was used
only for drawing double teeth. This made it sufficiently evident
that he did not keep it for the purpose of extracting the teeth from
dead bodies, as has been insinuated by the Counsel ; for no surgeon
ever used that instrument for drawing single teeth, there being an
instrument used solely for that purpose ; and if there were any sue.
goons present, be was certain, if they would come forward, t
would confirm what he said. The teeth, he again acknowlMge4hey
were his preputy--that he was a dentist, and had bought
them—and there was no law to prohibit him from buying tenth.
As to the finding of the body in the adjoining room, he wounded
that this also wt) no proof of his guilt, as it had been *red be
Niel not taken that room ; and as the key was always hung behind
the door when they went out, so it was very easy for Thompson to
have conveyed the body there in his absence, and which he had by
his plea of guilty acknowledged. The next cireumstance to which
he would draw the attention of the Jury was hip having ordered the
box in which the child was packed. Thompson, he said, bad re-
quested him to order the box for him, as be hod some hardware to
send to his friends in Edinburgh. That he had dens so, and he
could not see how that could enable Orr Jury to And kin gaily
for he considered it as only a frieeffiramn nada, the, beedsbed
friendship from the world, what would become of society P It had
also been proved that this was the mile time lie had ordered any
box. It had also been proved that he rad not call for the box, but
that Thompson called for it, and actually took it away. From
this, he said, it evidently appeared that it was a scheme by which I
Thompson might be able to avoid detection in case he was suspect.
ed, and that the offence might be attributed to him. Such then, he
remarked, were the only circumstances under which the Counsel
for the proseentiesecalled for their verdict, and upon which he had
placed so much reliance. There was another circumstance which he
would briefly notice, not because he considered it as in the least
tending to ctiminaie him, but merely to show the shifts the
Learned Counsel had been put to, to make out a case against him ;
and that was his being seen in the church-yard. They had
brought &mead the sexton, to prove that he saw him there,
and that be asked several questions respecting the manner of bora-
ingthe dead in this country. This, he said, was no uncommon'
thing for strangers to do; they generally enter the church-rude, I
read the epitaphs, and what not. The beamed Counsel asked the
sexton if I did not inquire the depth of the grave, hut the sexton
appearing to have more sense than the Counsel, replied, " that he'
hod no occasion to ask, for he had eyes and could see the depth."
He said this was in itself of so little use to either party, that he
would not take up the time of the Court by further comment, and
concluded by tequesting the Jury to place no credit on such mi.
dance—evidence altogether circumstantial, and which ought never
to be relied upon but in cases of murder; that if they entertained
any doubt, lie demanded the benefit of that doubt, and that he
fully expected the Jury would return their verdict of not guilty, or
otherwise not proven.
The Jury retired, and, after a quarter of an hour's deliberation,
returned a verilics of (:silty.
Weatherley then read an address in mitigation of punishment,
which displayed considerable ability. He contended for the neces.
city of the offence of which they had been convicted, as being of
the greatest inmortance in the study of practical anatomy; and
declared that his fellow-prisother and he were not aittleited by any
sordid motive, but solely from a desire to afford Irailities to the,
student, and thereby rendering an important seri* to the com.
moony. ssh
The Cooler sentenced them to be severally Imprisoned to hard
labour, in the House of Correction, fur three calendar months.

11e,141--We are enabled to state, that hunt's sentence
of death will be commuted to transportation for life. We
understand, too, that the Royal mercy has been extended
to him, upon the condition that lie should make a full con-
fession of all he knows respecting his late associates, and
that he is now actually making such disclosures through
his solicitor, Mr. Harmer.—Courier.

CIIA T II A;I JA N. Is.—The Rattlesnake, the Lively, and
the Rainbow (the latter in dock), are fitting with all expe-
dition. The business of the dock-yard is very brisk; a
considerable number of the workmen arc now employed
the other half (lay in the week, making up the whole six
days. The Ordinary of the Navy at this port were paid a
quarter of a year's wages en Friday last.

HIGH WATER THIS DAY AT lAMDON-BRiDllk•
Morning, 17 min. after & I Afternoon, 49 inin, the b.

Printed at THE BRITISH ➢RESS Offiee, by J. W. Catinox,
181, Strar.4; and PubUAW by It. Cariaiox, gape place