The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-16 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

MIDLAND CIRCUIT—IVAnwicK, July 13.
NISI PRIUS COURT.
(Before Mr Justice Keating and a Common Jury.)
HARRISON V. DOWLING.

This was an action which disclosed a very discreditable
phase of sporting life.
Mr Digby Seymour, Q.C,, and Mr. Wills appeared for
the plaintiff—and Mr. Field, Q.C., and Mr Gibbons for the
defendant.

__________.
The plaintiff, who is a horse dealer in Birmingham,
sought to recover from the defendant, the editor of Bell's
Life en London, a sum of £lOO, which had been deposited
in his hands to abide the event of a trotting match for 20
miles between a pony of the plaintiff's, called Daisy, and
another called Potato Bob, the property of a Mr Reid, a
potato dealer at Birmingham.
The case for the plaintiff was that Daisy led Potato Bob
for the first 13 miles of the race, at the end of which Daisy's
driver was desired by the referee to pull up on the ground
that the supporters of Potato Bob were continually getting
in front of Daisy, and impeding her course. Daisy was then
pulled up, and Potato Bob shot ahead until he arrived at
the Castle Donning turnpike-gate. This gate was found
closed and the road blocked up by carts surrounded by
"roughs" who refused to let Potato Bob pass, and threat-
ened the life of the referee. causing a great scene of uproar
and confusion, amid which blows were freely interchanged
.between the partisans of the two ponies. The referee there•
upon said he would give his decision in favour of Potato
Bob unless the gate was opened. This was done, and
Potato Bob and Daisy, which had by that time come up to
the gate, proceeded leisurely to the winning-post, when the
referee announced that he would give his decision at his
owl& house on the following evening. The parties accord-
ingly went there, when the referee announced that both
parties had acted unfairly, and the race must be run again,
The case for the defendant was that the referee had not
told the driver of Daisy to pull up, but that the animal bad
stopped from exhaustion, and that at the turnpike-gate the
referee had giveio an unequivocal decision in favour of Po-
tato Bob. The defendant had adopted this view, and had
handed over the stakes to Mr Reid upon receiving an in•
demnity from him.

A great number of witnesses were called, those for the
plaintiff flatly contradicting those for the defendant upon
every point of the case, material and immaterial; and after
a tedious trial, which lasted upwards of seven hours,
The jury found a verdict for Ihe plaintiff for the amount
claimed, being his share of the stakes deposited in the
hands of the dfif...ndant.

SOUTII WALES CIRCUIT,—IIAVERFORDW EST,
• July 13.
ItiUUDE 6.
(Before Mr Justice Crompton.)
Mary Front, spinster, aged 22, was indicted for the wilful
murder of Rhoda Prout, at the parish of Amroth, on the
20th May, 1864.

The prisoner had been delivered at the Narberth Union
Workhouse of a female child on the 9th April, and left on
the 20Eh May at 6 p.m, The child was healthy but small.
The prisoner was seen about 8 a.m. on the 21st by .tlannah
Davies in the road leading to Amroth Church and Colby-
lodge. She then had a child with her, and, according to
the evidence of a daughter of this witness, who also saw
the prisoner, the child was sucking at the time. The path
in which the prisoner then was led in the direction of an
old coalpit disused and half filled up, about 26 yards deep
and about 150 yards from the place where the prisoner was
met by Hannah Davies and her daughter. The prisoner in
the evening went to the house of her grandmother about
three-quarters of a mile from the pit where the body of the
child was found. She told her grandmother the child had
died in the workhouse, On the 22d of May the child was
found at the bottom of the old coalpit mentioned above, with
extrensive fractures of the cranial bones and considerable
extravasation of blood on the brain. The left thigh was also
broken, and there were several marks of bruises and exco-
riations on the surface of the body. All the viscera were
healthy, but a little pale.
The medical evidence showed that these injuries were in-
flicted during life, and were the cause of death.
When the prisoner was apprehended on Monday, the
23d, she told the policeman, "If they hang me for it, I'll
tell the truth. I threw it, and ran away a short distance,
and then returned and found there was no noise."
After an able address by the prisoner's Counsel, who con-
tended that there was no conclusive evidence that the child
left the workhouse alive, and that it might have died of
convulsions, and that the prisoner was insane at the time of
committing the act,
The jury found the prisoner guilty, with a strong recom-
mendation to mercy on the ground of absence of premedi-
tation.
His Lordship then most impressively pronounced sen-
tence of death.
Tho case has excited the greatest interest, as, we believe,
there has been no capital conviction and execution in Pem-
brokeshire for the past 30 years.

HOME CIRCUIT—CHELMSFORD, July 15.
CROWN Coußl.
(Before Mr Baron Martin,)

The calendar on the whole was extremely light. There
wore only 16 cases for trial, out of which not less than four,
or one-fourth of the whole number, were cases of offences
against women or girls, of which one was a case of actual
rape. There were three of these at Hereford, which offence
appears to be rather on the increase. There was also a case
of administering drugs with intent to procure abortion.
There were two charges against women for concealing
births of bastard children, and one case of child murder.
So that nearly one half of the cases in the calendar were of
that class of offences. The greater number of the remaining
cases (as many as five or six) were cases of arson. The rest
were ordinary cases of robbery, and there was one slight case
of burglary. The first case tried was one of robbery,which
resulted in an acquittal, and the case of burglary was so
slight that the learned judge only inflicted a sentence of 6
months' imprisonment, observing that it was to the credit of
the county that the calendar was on the whole so light and
contained no serious cases of robbery or burglary. The next
case taken was one which appeared to excite a painful inte-
rest in the county,
A young woman named Regina Clarke was indicted for
unlawfully and secretly disposing of the body, with the in-
tention of concealing the birth of a child of which sho had
been delivered at Danbury, in this county.
Mr Walford was for the prosecution—Mr Woollott and
Mr Philbriek for the defence.

The girl, who was said to bo scarcely IP, had been for
some months in the service of the Bishop of Rochester,
whose palace is at Danbury, and her conduct appeared to
have been irreproachable, apart from the particular matter
in question. On the 25th April the dead body of a newly
born infant was found on a cinder heap belonging to the
kitchen offices, and it appeared that the girl had been deli-
vered of a child a day or two before. The girl had been let
out on bail, and now surrendered to take her trial. Her ap-
pearance was such as to indicate that her birth was rather
above her present position. She was fair and delicate, and
her countenance showed sensibility and intelligence. She
was in an agonising state of mind, and when placed within
the bar she almost swooned away with emotion, and could
scarcely be supported even in a sitting posture by the ma-
tron of the gaol. The, counsel for the prosecution, in opening

the case, said it was most distressing, and the learned judge,
observing the condition of the poor girl, suggested to him
to cut short his statement of the circumstances, as they evi-
dently caused mach pain to the prisoner, and at once to call
the witnesses, It appeared from the evidence that the cinder
heap was constantly in use and that the servants were daily
at it; and the body could easily be seen and was seen the
very day or day after it was placed there, and it was on this
it will be seen the defente was founded. The surgeon stated
that he found the poor girl very ill, pale, and almost pulse-
less, and she had evidently been delivered of a child. Its
death, he said, was evidently accidental, and the delivery
might have been so. There was no actual evidence that the
girl put the child's body where it was found.
At the close of the evidence for the prosecution,
Mr Woollett submitted that there was no case of con-
cealment within the statute, and cited from a manuscript
case of Foster and Finlason's Nisi Prius Reports, a case
tried before the learned Baron on the Northern Circuit,
in which he had held that a " penfold"—a sort of pound
enclosed within walls four or five feet high—was not a place
of concealment within the statute.

The learned Judge, however, said that was an open
place, and different from the present. There had been, he
observed, different decisions as to the construction of the
statute ; but there was, he thought, here a sufficient place
of concealment within the statute, if the prisoner placed it
there. In summing up the case, however, his lordship said
there must, under the statute, be a secret disposition of the
dead body, and the question for the jury was whether there
was such a disposition of the body by the prisoner. If she
placed it there with the intention that it should be covered
by the cinders and thus concealed, it would be a case within
the statute. Did, the prisoner place the child where it was
found ? and if so, with what intention ? There was cer-
tainly no direct evidence that she placed the child there,
and it was quite consistent with the evidence that she did
not do so. The father of the child, as to whom there was no
evidence at all, might have been in or about the house, and
he might have known of the birth, though other people did
not know it ; and it was possible that he placed the child
where it was found. The jury must be satisfied before they
convicted the prisoner that she placed the child there or
was a party to the act ; and if they were in any doubt on
that point they should certainly acquit the prisoner.
The jury consulted together some minutes, during which
the poor girl appeared quite unconscious. The jury returned
a verdict of not guilty, to the evident satisfaction of every
one in court.

Two sturdy-looking fellows, named Waller and Monk,
were indicted for assaulting a gamekeeper and doing him
grievous bodily harm.
Mr Shaw prosecuted ; Mr Pearce was for the prisoners.
On the evening of the 9th March the keeper saw four men
on a bank near Holmwood-land, belonging to Lord May-
nard, and he asked them what they were doing there. They
got up, one of them saying, " Knock the old devil down,"
surrounded him, and struck him on the back of the head
with sticks, and he received a severe blow on the spine,
from which he was still suffering. The men then ran off,
and only the two prisoners were identified.
They were convicted and sentenced to 12 months' im-
prisonment with hard labour.
Several cases of arson were in the calendar, as there were
at the winter assizes, and
The learned Baron observed that he feared the offence was
very prevalent in the county.
A labourer named Guyver, aged 50, was indicted for
setting fire to a dwelling-house on the Bth inst.
The evidence was circumstantial, but a boy swore he saw
him creeping along in a field of barley close to the spot just
after the house was on fire.
He was convicted ; and _ _

The learned Judge said he entirely concurred in the ♦er-
diet, and as the offence was so serious and so prevalent, he
deemed it his duty to inflict a severe sentence by way of ex-
ample. The sentence was that he' undergo penal servitude

for ten years.
The prisoner was removed from the bar protesting his in-
nocence, which he continued to assert while the Judge was
passing sentence.