The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-03 00:00:00

WESTMINSTER.

A CHOICE OF REFUGE —PECULIARITY or TASTE.—
Mary Starmere, a tall young woman, was charged with
being disorderly at the door of St. Luke's Workhouse,
Chelsea, and wilfully demolishing a pane of plate glass
value 16s.

George Biandford, the porter of the workhouse, said that
last night the defendant came and requested to be admitted.
He gave her an order for admission for the night, but she
refused to accept it,
Mr Arnold—What did she want then ?

Witness—She wanted to be kept in the house. She said
she did not merely wish for the night's lodging, but re-
quired permanent maintenance there.
Mr Arnold—What did she say?

Witness—She said she would either come in for good or
go to prison and nothing else, and then she broke a large
pane of glass. I produce a piece of it, it is half an inch
thick.

Mr Arnold—How did she possibly contrive to break such
thick glass ?
Witness—When she said she would take her choice and
go to a prison, she went and got a brick, and then ham •
mered at the glass until she broke it.

Defendant said that she was ill, and wanted doctor's ad-
vice, and the workhouse was the place she considered the
ought to go to, although she adulated that the had lived a
very profligate life,

Mr Arnold—He offered you an order for admission then,
and you should have taken it. What do you say to break-
ing the glass ?
Defendant—l admit it.

Mr Arnold—l shall commit you for 14 days. I would
give you a longer period, bat then you would have better
food. With the 14 days you will only have bread and
water.

Defendant exclaimed " I can do it on my head."

THAMES,

HOCUSSING AND ROBBING A SAlLOR.—SarahWilliams
and Caroline Fenning, two bloated and dissipated women,
were brought before Mr Paget charged with hocussing and
robbing a sailor named William Youll.

The prosecutor, a respectable man, said he was carpenter
of the ship Wallisch in the West India Dock. He had his
supper last night at the Leopard Coffee-house. Soon after-
wards he met Williams in the street, and was taken by her
to a house in Philip-street, St. George-in-the-East. He
saw Fenning there. A glass of ale was handed to him, and
directly he swallowed it he became insensible. When he
came to himself he was very ill and had no coat and waist-
coat. Both had been removed from his person, while ho
was insensible. They were new and worth £3.
Salina Jennings, needlewoman, said she lived in the house
and saw the robbery committed. While the prose-
cutor was insensible Fanning took off his coat, put it under
her cloak, and followed the other prisoner. The sailor was
then "chucked" out of the house by Mrs. Wallis, the
landlady. In answer to questions by Mr. Paget, the wit-
ness said she had only been in the house ten days, She was
a shirtmaker, and worked for a woman named Miller. She
was not an unfortunate girl. She told the police-constable
of the robbery directly he came on his beat. All the
females in the house wanted to charge her with the rob-
bery.

George Coleman, No. 310 H, stated that the last witness
informed him of the robbery. Ho went to No. 36, Devon-
shire-street, St. George's-in-the—East, where he found both
prisoners. He had not yet traced the clothes. There were
a great many low brothels in Phillip.street. The one, No.
13, where Youll was hocussed and poisoned, was the worst
of the lot. The sailor was not inebriated when he saw him,
but perfectly collected. Sailors were continually hocussed
and plundered in the horrible houses in Phillip-street. He
and other police-constables were continually warning sailors.
They were picked up by such wretches as the prisoners,
hocussed and robbed.

Mr Paget said it was a fearful state of things that sailors
should be plundered so shamefully. He was surprised the
girl Jennings had retained her honesty in such a vile and
low place. He remanded the prisoner for a week.

CLOSE OF THE SALMON FISHERIES.—SaImon
fishing for England and Wales, except by angling,
has now closed. The fence time commenced on the same
day that partridges came in season—on September 1. The
fishings in the estuary of the Severn have far exceeded
anything ever remembered by the oldest inhabitant, taking
the district from the mouth of the Wye up to Tewkesbury
—i.e., as far as the tide extends. Above the tidal way,
owing to the low state of the river fiom the long drought,
the fishings have not been so good. The fishing in the
tidal way is carried on by means of fixed engines (putts,
and putchers), draught nets, and lave nets—small nets
used at the end of poles. Ono occupier of putchers in the
estuary took at one tide upwards of a ton weight of salmon
in his putchers, and a draught net fisher took upwards of
50 fish at one draught, weighing together between 5 and 6
cwt. So plentiful were the fish that recently the skilled
mechanics at some tin works at Lydney, in Gloucester-
shire, all left their work to take to fishing with the lave
net. The quantity of fish in the river, which were pre-
vented going upwards for want of a " fresh" in the Severn,
raised quite a furore of excitement along the banks of the
river, The price at the water's edge at one time was as
low as 4d. per lb., but this low rate soon induced a number
of agents to arrive from different parts of the country, some
as far off as Liverpool, when the price rose to 7d. A rail-
way runs on each side of the river between Gloucester and
Bristol—viz., the South Wales on the one side, and Mid-
land on the other, so that fish could be conveniently de-
spatched to distant parts. The quantity of Severn salmon
brought into Gloucester alone for many days was two tons
a day. A good many flab have been destrcyed by some
deleterious substance from chemical works near Glouces-
ter, which has been allowed to flow into the river. This
and the extreme dryness of the season have deterred the
fish from ascending, upwards, but there can be no doubt
about the large increase of fish in the river this year, which
may fairly be attributed to the operation of the Salmon
Fisheries' Act, to carry out the provisions of which an
association, formed many years ago at Worcester, has
been actively at work.

A BIG FREIGHT.--We noticed in a London paper
lately that a steamer had carried from Southampton a two
thousand ton ft eight, the largest ever carried from England.
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company's steamer Golden
City left Panama on the 25th inst. with twenty-two hun.
drod tons of cargo and seven hundred tons of coal, besides
carrying nearly seven hundred passengers, and having room
for as many more. What does England think of our
Panama steamers r—ranama As7ctr.