The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-12 00:00:00

TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 12, 1852.

rier, und he felt perfectly satisfied that his assailant
would speedily have effected his purpose, as he was on
the point of losing his balance, if it had not been for
the fcrtunate arrival of several other officers, with
whose assistance the prisoner was at length over-
powerel and secured." MORGAN, the intended vic-
tim, esirl that he was wholly at a loss to account for
the savtge conduct the prisoner had exhibited towards
him, as the prisoner was an entire stranger to him,
and he had not offered him the slightest provocation
previously to his seizing him up and attempting to
pitch him over into the pit. In truth, the assault
seems tc have been as unprovoked as it was aggra-
vated.

Those assaults with attempt to murder—for
they were nothing less—were not the only
acts of CHARLES JONES, the prisoner, on
that night and in that place. When he had
grasped LAMBERT, the door-keeper, and attempted to
throw him over into the pit also, an assistant con-

stable of the theatre, named STANNARD, made an
exertion to extricate LAMBERT from the grasp of the
prisoner, who was at that time holding him down by
the hair of his head, and making desperate efforts to
force him over the railing, the prisoner commenced a
similar attack upon him also, and endeavoured to
hurl him down into the pit with such an exertion of
muscular strength that they were both in imminent
danger of losing their lives. These repeated out-
rages were fully proved by the persons upon whom
they were successively committed—by the boy
MORGAN, by LAMBERT the door-keeper, and by
STANNARD the constable. The police report states
that the prisoner's only defence was a vociferous
denial of the entire facts, and a declaration (in
the coarsest language) that the whole account
given of the transaction was a tissue
of lies from first to last. And, to carry out the evi-
dence of the prisoner's conduct, it should be remarked
that while the witnesses were giving their testimony
" ho repeatedly interrupted them, and assailed them
with the foulest invectives."

Thi charges, as made and proved, were three :
That, without provocation of any sort, this athletic
man took a boy of thirteen years, raised him up in
his arms, and attempted to throw him over into the
pit, a fall of 70 feet, the consequences of which
attempt, if successful, would meat probably have
been the lad's death, and serious injury to the
persons in the pit on whom he would have been pre-
cipitated—that he seized the man (LAMBEET) who
bad rescued the lad, struck him several times, seized
him by the hair of the head, attempted to throw him
over into the pit, and was only stopped by the joint
efforts of several policemen ; and that the prisoner
attempted to throw over one of these officers also,
and was prevented with difficulty.
What was the magistrate's decision in this
series of assaults with intent to commit
murder ? Mr. D'EYNCOURT (it is duly re-
ported) " characterised it as a most wanton
outrage." He might have committed the ruffian to
trial on the charge of felony, or he had a power of
summarily fining him Si. for each of the three as-1
ssults, or of giving him three months in prison on
two cases, or two months for the assault on the
policeman, without the option of paying a fine.
It may be a question whether the ruffian had
not done sufficient to be indicted capitally,
but, at any rate, on the evidence against him, a
judge, on conviction in the Criminal Court, would
most probably have sentenced him to transportation.
Mr. VEYNCOHRT punishes this " most wanton out-
rage" by fining him 51. for two of the assaults (quite
forgetting that on the constable STANNARD), " in de-
fault to stand committed to the House of Correction
for two separate terms of one month each, one to take
effect at the expiration of the other."
So, the punishment in Worship street Police-
court for a series of brutal assaults (every
one of which, if successful might have caused
death to one or more persons), is no more than a fine
of five pounds, or two months' imprisonment ! If
this was not a case in which the maximum of punish-
ment was not fully merited, we know nothing of law
or justice. On the same day, when Mr. IYEYNCOHRT
gave what we cannot help thinking a most inadequate
punishment for a very serious offence, a case some-
what similar came on before the Magistrate at Guild-
hall. A fellow named Jos WELLS was convicted
of a violent assault upon MATTHEW GAMBLE, " who
appeared with a dreadfully lacerated nose and his arm
strapped to his side." Without the slightest provocation,
while GAMBLE was speaking with his friend CHASE
in the street on tlse previous Monday night, WELLS
came up, abused both, knocked CHASE down, kicked
him about the hearl and body while insensible, and
then, on Garaßra's interfering to assist his friend,
knocked him down also, and inflicted so much per-
sonal injury as to break his collar-bone, and render it
necessary that he should be taken to the hospital.
assaults—unprovoked, violent, and
most
two a
ted
aggr a the worthy magistrate" (we re-
gret that his name is not given) fined the ruffian 405.,
and in default of payment committed him for 21 days'
imprisonment.
these
v

Justice at Guildhall and Worship-street is some-
what capricious. This WELLS might have been fined
51., or sentenced to three months' hard labour, in
default of paying the fine, for each offence. lie
is let off with 40s. fine, or twenty-one
days' imprisonment, though he was liable to
indictment for unlawfully wounding, the punishment
of which would probably have been eighteen months
or two years' imprisonment with hard labour. This
leniency was a set-off to that of Mr. D'ETNCOURT.
But, if a wretched object had been charged with beg-
ging a penny in the streets, he would have been
punished with three months' imprisonment. There-
fore, it is four times as great a crime for Poverty to
ask a penny from Charity, as it is to break one man's
collar-bone and materially injure another man; or to
commit three assaults, either of which, if carried out
as the ruffian intended, might have terminated fatally
to one or more, obtains two-thirds of the punishment
inflicted on simple mendicity.