The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-02 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING. ADVERTISER.

Sir,—lt really appears to me that the very natural
indignation felt on all sides at the delinquencies of
Messr,:. Straban, Paul, and Bates, and the commisera-
tion entertained for their ❑umerous victims, have led tc,
an excessive measure of punishment being awarded to
them.

Premising that I am not a loser directly or indirectly
by the recent failure—that I have not to my knowledge
any friends who have suffered by it, and that I am
not in the slightest degree acquainted with any of the
offenders or their families, I trust that I may at least be
allowed credit for impartiality, notwithstanding that
I dare, on the present occasion, to offer the sugges-
tion, that Baron Alderson went a great deal too far,
when he gave, as his reason for passing the maximum
sentence of fourteen years' transportation that the
offence was of the worst description contemplated by the
act. It seems to me that in all cases of this kind it is
absolutely necessary to inquire into the motives of the
offender, and to regulate his punishment by the ainouut
of selfish criminality by which he had been actuated.
This principle is, in fact, recognised by Baron Alderson's
judgment ; but was not, as I consider, carried out into
practice by him on the recent trial. So far as the evi-
dence adduced goes, it seems to be proved or admitted
that the primary motive of the delinquents for commit-
, ting the offence laid to their charge in the indictment
was not mere "pelf," or "robbery." If it were, why did
they not abscond with the proceeds of the misappro-
priated securities ? Their immediate object was to re-
stere the credit and statue of their banking house. No
part of the ill-gotten funds was directly or immediately
absorbed by any of the offenders for their own private
purposes ; on the contrary the whole was carried to the
bank account, and disposed of just as it would an I ought
to have been had it really and bona fide formed part of
the partnership capital.
It is quite true that such an appropriation of the funds
was wholly unjustifiable, and no answer to the offence
with which the delinquents were charged, viz , that of
having illegally disposed of Dr. Gritfithe' securities ; but
I contend that the fact of the money having been dis-
posed of in the manner I have mentioned, forms a very
material ingredient in the case, and renders the offence
committed far less reprehensible than it might have
been, and would have been, had the offenders simply
applied the proceeds to their own exclusive personal ad-
vantage. Of course there can be no moral excuse for a
banker who resorts to illegal means for bolstering up the
credit of his concern, and thereby endeavours to avert
i evitable bankruptcy ; but in a criminal point of view
(more especially when such serious consequences as
transportation,. and consequent association with the
worst of felons are involved), there is, it seems to me, a
vast difference between the case of the banker, or other
trader who improperly converts securities, and applies the
proceeds for the benefit of all his customers, in due course
of business, and the one who, after making the illegal
conversion, applies the fund solely to his own private or
selfish ends. It is on the ground, therefore, of its being
quite possible to conceive a very much worse case under
the act than that actually committed by Strahan and his
associates, that the reason given by Baroii Alderson, in
support of his sentence, seems to me to be fairly open to
objection, and the sentence itself to be not strictly just.
I do not here allude in any way to the obvious unfair-
ness of not drawing any distinction between the three
offenders ; they certainly were not all equally guilty ;
bat I ask, in all sincerity, whether such a sentence as
transportation for 14 years would have been passed on
any one of the delinquents had the banking-house of
Strahan and Co. been in perfectly solvent circumstances,
instead of in a state of deplorable insolvency at the time
of the trial ? Supposing the case of the conversion
of Dr. Griffiths' securities to have been just the sane
(and conversion alone, recollect, forms the criminal
offence), but the bank to have been in a position to meet
all its 'engagements (including the replacement of Dr.
Griffiths' securities) would any judge in the land have
inflicted the extreme punishment of prolonged transporta-
Lion ? or, had he done so, would not there have been a
cry of shame and injustice from all quarters?
I can but think that, in such a state of things, the
justice of the case would have been considered, both by
judge and jury, and the country at large, to have been
amply met by some not very prolonged imprisonment in
Newgate or elsewhere, apart from the society of mur-
derers and burglars ; and if this be sa, I confess T. can-
not understand by what process of reasoning it can be
made out that the fact of the criminal offence being
accompanied or folio xed by a bankruptcy, not occasioned
by, but, in fact, delayed by the crime (however ruin-
ous the consequences of such bankruptcy may have been
to a vast body of people) ought to operate to enhance the
amount of punishment for the criminal offence. Bank-
ruptcy is not in itself a crime, and so fir as it either is,
or involves an offence, it is punished, not at the 0d
Bailey, but by the Court of Bankruptcy, and it wad, in
my opinion, to that last tribunal that whatever was
wrong in the conduct of-Messrs. Strahan and Co., ultra
the crime of illegally converting securities, not their
own, should have been left.

Should it be objected to what I have alleged in ex-
tenuation of the conduct, or rather in mitigation of the
punishment of these very grave offenders, that they were
extravagant in their personal expenditure, and, there-
fore, morally as wrong as if they bad more directly,
applied the misappropriated securities to their own pri-
vate end', I can only reply, that it is only shown that
their expenditure became either more or less extrava-
gant after the offence was committed, and that the very
fact of their not making any alteration, for better or
worse, in their style of living, affurds t' my mind very
strong evidence that to the last moment they entertained
hopes (futile though in fact they were) of retrieving their
affairs, and that such being their anticipations the notion
of "pelf" being their on!y motive for conveying the se-
curities is absolutely negatived.

In conclusion, I have only to remark that, however
bad the conduct of these men may have been in specu-
lating in the first instance, continuing business after
insolvency, and finally resorting to criminal means to
preserve a shallow and temporary credit, they are, in a
sense, victims to a popular outcry, and of a not strictly
Just sentence.--I am, sir, yours obediently,
London, Oct. 31, 1855.

A BARRISTER.

THE LATE STORMS.

On Wednesday morning the Norwegian sloop Mouri-
den, Hansen, of Gritnstadt, from Newcastle for Grim-
stadt, laden with coal, bar iron, grindstones, and crockery
ware, drifted on shorn near Newholm Beck, about two
miles to the northward of Whitby. She left the Tyce on
Monday morning. About midnight of the same day the
master, mate, and a man were washed overboard by a
heavy sea, which also swept everything off the deck,
but the man caught a rope and hauled himself on board
again. While beating among the breakers on Wednes-
day morning, before coming on shore, the supercargo
was washed off the deck and drowned. Three of the
crew survived, and are at Whitby. The names of those
lost are B. Hansen.(captain), Anders Terkelsen (mate),
and A. Andersen (Qupercargo). The other four vessels
on shore have not sustained further injury.
A letter from Shields, dated Wednesday night, says
the tremendous gale from the north-east, which com-
menced at midnight on Monday, continued with unmi-
tigated fury more than 24 hours, and the weather is still
very rough, with a heavy sea rolling on the coa-t. Nine
vessels are ashore between the Tees and the Coquet, and
some others have been stranded further south. Toe
crews have been all saved. No vessels can get out of
the Tyne because of the sea that is running at the bar.
Our report from Hartlepool, dated Wednesday, states
that the brig Amelia was safely towed off Middleton
Sand into the harbour of Old Hartlepool by the assist-
ance of two steam vessels. About 8p m, the brig Tees,
from Hamburg for Stockton, was driven on to the Mid-
dleton Sand, and her masts immediately went by the
board. The brig Moor, of Sunderland, having brought
up in the bay, was driven on to the sand close against
the north pier at the entrance to West Hartlepool. The
crew got out by a gangway on to the pier. The schooner
London, from Hamburg, in ballast, arrived in the bay,
and attempted to make the harbour of West Hartlepool,
but having shifted her ballast was driven ashore near to
Seaton Carew. The captain's wife and child were on
board at the time, and they, together with the crew, were
taken from the vessel by the Seaton Carew life-boat.
Shortly after they had left her she broke in two amid-
ships. Telegraphic reports announce the wreck of some
Hartlepool vessels on the Blyth rocks.