The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-17 00:00:00

(Before the Assistant-Judge.)
.27iontas K.irton, 50, described as a clerk, was indicted
for having stolen 237 yards of silk, value 39/., the pro-
perty of John Hornby, Baxendale and others, his em-
ployers.
. Mr. Logi() (for Mr. Metcalfe) conducted the prosecu-
tion, and Mr. Ribton appeared for the prisoner.
From the evidence of a considerable number of wit-
nesses, it appeared that in the month of February last a
parcel of silk was forwarded from Manchester per the
prosecutors, Messrs. Pickford and Co., and in due course
it arrived at the Camden Station on the 17th, when it
was deposited on one of the vans for delivery to Messrs.
Shoolbred and Co., of Tottenham-court-road, to whom it
was consigned. The prisoner was one of the watchmen
at Camden Station, and the parcel of silk was missed on
the 19th, and the manner of its appropriation' remained
a mystery until its disclosures were made by the witness
whose evidence follows.
Jane Catherine Willoughby—l am a widow, and now
live at Alfred Cottages, Camden-street, Camden-town.
In February last I lived at 26, Albany-street, Camber
well. I know the prisoner at the bar, and I remember
that in February last he brought some silk to me. He
brought three pieces, containing 79 yards each. These
pieces produced are part of the lengths he brought. Ho
asked me to dispose of it for him, and said it belonged
to a distressed friend. This was on the 22d of February.
He measured one of the pieces of silk. I disposed of
some of it to a friend named Hardy—the quantity re-
quired for three dresses. He cut me off a dress, and
gave it to me for my trouble. At that time I had a ser-
vant, named Rosina Gould. I sent her to Mrs. Hardy's
with the three dresses, with a written receipt for the
money. That was while the prisoner was present, and
he was also present when the servant came back. She
brought the money for the dresses-3/. 10s. Mr. Hardy
came to have the name properly written on the
stamp on the receipt, as it had been left blank, and
the prisoner wrote upon it the name of Henry Wil
Lams. The receipt produced is the same, and the-
name " Henry Williams" upon it is in the pri-
soner's handwriting. I asked him why he wrote that
name instead of his own, to which he replied that it was
of no consequence, as they did not know him. He took
the remainder of the silk away with him, except the
piece he gave me, which was 15 yards. I kept that by
me some time, and then pawned it at a pawnbroker's in
Liason-grove.
In cross-examination witness stated that since the
transactions she had been living at the prisoner's house.
She went there about a week after the silk was sold, and
remained eight weeks, or thereabouts. She was in diffi-
culties, and he proposed to her, as a friend, to make her
home at his house fora time ; she did so, and he then
treated her as a lodger, and stopped her furniture for
rent. She had obtained a situation then, and she felt
that she bad been grossly ill-treated in having her
furniture stopped for rent after she bad been asked
to stay as a friend. She after that mentioned the
matter of the silk to several persons, and he bad
treated her so badly that she felt that she should
be an instrument in the hands of the Almighty
to bring him to justice. She was a professor of
music, and an occasional morning governess. She
denied that she had ever been intimate with the pri-
soner, and positively stated that he had never slept with
her. He never slept with her at a coffee-house near As-
tley's Theatre ; she recollected nothing of ever having
been in a coffee-house with him. She was very angry
about her furniture, and could not recollect all she said
of his conduct, and would not say that she had not
threatened to be revenged upon him. She had a quarrel
with the prisoner's wife about the furniture. That quar-
rel did not arise from the wife having discovered that she
was on terms of improper intimacy with the prisoner,
and had been in the habit of sleeping with him. Most
• oertainly not. She had not quarrelled so much with the
prisoner as with his wife, and that was all relating to
h Jr furniture.
The servant, Rosina Gould, gave evidence corrobora-
tive of her mistress's version of the sale of the silk to
Mrs. Hardy, and the latter gave evidence of the transac-
tion in so far as concerned the part he had in it. He iden-
tified the silk and the prisoner's signature on the rec,ipt,
and the silk was identified as that which had been sent
from Manchester in February, directed to Messrs. Shool-
bred, and which was afterwards missed, Information of
the affair basing reached the company's officers, a Mrs.
Brown obtained from Mr-. Willoughby the duplicate of
the silk she had pledged, and the prisoner was taken
into custody last Thursday week at Guildford, where he
was still in the service of the prosecutors.
Mr. Ribton, in addressing the jury, urged that the
identity of the silk was not proved beyond all doubt,
and that other persons as well as the prisoner had oppor-
tunity to take it. He animadverted strongly upon the
conduct of the witness, Mrs. Willoughby, and contended
that it was quite consistent with the evidence to assume
that other persons had conveyed the silk in question--
taking it to Lhave been proved to be the same as was
lost—to her, and that she had made the prisoner an
instrument in its disposal, and that she gave the in-
formation and became a witness against him out of
revenge. He said he was instructed that the questions
he had put in cross_examination, as to an improper inti-
macy having existed between the prisoner and the witness
were well founded, notwithstanding that she had not an-
swered them in the negative, and illustrated what her
feeling, under such circumstances might be by the quo-
ation—
" Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

The Assistant-Judge, in summing up, said he thought

the witness Willoughby was a peTson whose evidence
should net be acted upon without ample corroboration,
and it was for the jury to say whether, looking at the
whole case, she was corroborated so as to justify them
in finding the prisoner guity.
The jury, without hesitating for more than half a
nate, returned a verdict of Guilty.
The Assistant Judge said this was an extremely bad
case ; a worse had not come before him for a lorg time.
The prisoner was a confidential servant, and he availed
himself of the confidence placed in him to commit a seri-
ous theft ; then, according to the defence, and therefore
on his own showing, he, as a married man, visits a woman
with whom he has adulterous intercourse, he makes a
tool of her to dispose of valuable property of which he
plundered his employers, and then brings her to his own
house, where his own wife is living, and allows her to
live there until she is turned out, on the wife discover•
ing the terms on which ho and the woman were. It
was a very bad case throughout, and the sentence was,
'that the prisoner be imprisoned and kept to hard labour
f it two years.
Mr. Ribton applied for bench warrants for the appre-
hension of persons against whom the grand jury bad re-
turned true bills for keeping houses of bad character in
Sheppard-street.
The Assistant Judge asked if it was a parish prose-
cution ?
Mr. Ribton said it was not exactly a prosecution by
the parish, but it had been undertaken by a committee
of gentlemen, of which the Earl of Carnarvon was the
chairman—they were inhabitants of Bond-street and
Hanover-square, and had taken these proceedings for
the suppression of the houses in question, which were a
nuisance to the neighbourhood.
Mr. Sleigh said he was instructed on behalf of the
artier against whom the bills had been found, and as the
prosecution was not directed by the parish authorities, it
would be only right that notice should be given. Par-
ticular houses enly had been selected for prosecution,
and he applied that 48 hours' notice of bail should be
given.
The Assistant-Judge said the warrants would issue in
the usual course, on a recognisance of 1001. being entered
into to prosecute with effect, and an affidavit being put
in that the prosecution was a bona fide one, and that
there w 54 every reason to believe that the accused per-
sons could be at once apprehended.
Mr. Sleigh asked that some notice of bail should le
fixed.
The ssis ta, n e said lie should not go the least.
out of the usual course, and the ordinary notice of bail,
24 hours, 111113 i, be ai yen-
(Before Mr. Witham.)
Alfred Lamborn, 22,
Charles Mann, 19, and William?,
Munn, 21, were indicted for stealing five pieces of lead
and other articles, fixed to a building.
Mr. Metcalfe prosecuted,
From the evidence it appeared that the tenant ofm ea.
house, No. 5, Nassau-street, Soho, took flight to A
rice, without taking the trouble to pay half a year's rent
which was due to the landlord. Sonic weeks afterwards
it was discovered that gas pipes and other articles to the
value of 1001. had been stripped down and carried oft'
from the house. The prisoners were seen removing the
lead in a truck, and information having been given to the
police, they were afterwards apprehended. Damage to
the extent of 1001. had been done to the house,
indepen-
dent of the value of the articles which had been removed.
The jury acquitted William Munn and found the other
two guilty.
Mr. Witham sentenced them each to one year's hard
labour.
Ellen Creagh was indicted for stealing, in the dwelling-
house of Lucy Fitzjames, a 501. bank note, and other
articles, the property of Helen Frances James, and also
for stealing other articles, the property of Wm. Kern
and another. She pleaded guilty.
It appeared from the depositions that a lady named
James lodged in the house of Mrs. Fitzjames, 58, Bur-
hegton-square, and two gentlemen, named Kern and
13jorkstein, also lived there. About eight weeks ago
she went to Paris, and on her return she found that an
iron safe in her bed-room, in which she left a 501. note
and other property when she went away, had been bro-
ken open, and the 501. note and a Si. note bad been
stolen therefrom. The prisoner was servant in the
house, and there being circumstances of suspicion
against her,
a policeman was sent for, and on her box
being searched part of the missing articles were found,
and also articles belonging to the two gentlemen lodgers,
The prisoner produced the 501. note, and offered it to
the policeman as a bribe not to lock her up, and she
admitted that she had spent the Si. note.
Mr. Witham sentenced her to twelve months' hard
abour.
Jane White pleaded guilty to three indictments charg-
ing her with fraud.
The prisoner practised these frauds rather cunningly.
Be some means age became aware that a woman named
Simmons, living in the Chalk-road, had a daughter
who was married, and lived at a distance, and she went
to her (the mother) and represented that the daughter
had met with an accident, and had had her thighs broken
by-being run over by a gentleman's carriage—that she
bad been sent to ask for a little money to procure neces.
Belie!. Believing this story the poor woman, frightened
almost out of her wits, raised thirteen shillings by bor-
rowing from friends, which sum she banded to the pri-
soner, who soon disappeared, and the tale of the accident
proved an entire fabrication. The other two. cases were
exactly similar to the one aboye stated,
Mr. Witham said he never met with a more heartless