The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-27 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

OXFORD CIRCUIT.—READING, Feb. 26.
(Before Mr. Justice Crompton.)
Robert Wrixton was indicted for forging at Ox-
ford a check for £7O, drawn upon the London and
County Bank at Abingdon. The indictment also
contained a count for uttering the same knowing it
to have been forged,
Mr. Sawyer appeared for the prosecution; the
prisoner was undefended by counsel.
It appeared by the evidence of Mr. Undershell,
banker, of Oxford, that on the 11th December last
the prisoner called at his bank, produced a cheque
for £7O drawn upon the London and County Bank
at Abingdon, signed "Arthur Gledstane," and bear-
ing the endorsements of "Gledstanes and Co., 26,
Austinfriars," and " Gerald F. De Livers," and re-
presenting himself as a member of Exeter College,
requested the witness to cash it, observing that he
was in want of money to pay a bill at the Star
Hotel, and defray the expenses of "going down," a
phrase in use among members of the University, and
signifying leaving at the end of term. Witness,
knowing nothing of the prisoner, or of the persons
whose names were on the cheque, declined to cash
it, but offered, if the prisoner could do nothing bet-
ter with it, there being a branch of the London and
County Bank at Oxford, to present it for him in the
usual way. The prisoner then left, but shortly re-
turned, saying he had missed the train to Abingdon
and consequently could not present it himself as he
had intended, and left the cheque with witness for
presentment. Witness undertook the presentment
and gave the prisoner two blank cheques of his own
bank, to be used as soon as the cheque on the Lon-
don and County Bank should be honoured. The
latter cheque was forwarded in due course to Abing-
don, and returned marked—" No account at the
Abingdon Bank." The prisoner called next day to
know if the money had arrived, which could not,
however, have been the case until the next day.
One of the blank cheques given to the prisoner by
the witness was presented filled up for £lO by the
head waiter of the Star.
A cashier, from the London and County Bank at
Abingdon, proved the presentment of the cheque,
the subject of the indictment, and that there was no
customer of the bank bearing the name of " Arthur
Gledstane : and, further, that the cheque thus signed
was one contained in a blank cheque-book issued
to a customer of theirs named Bullock.
Mr. Bullock, a farmer, near Abingdon, proved
that to accommodate a Mr. Williams, a friend of his,
and a farmer in the neighbourhood of Birmingham,
he had given him four blank checks from the book
issued to him by the London and County Bank.
This was some time between the 21st of July and
the 9th of October in last year.
Mr. Williams proved the receipts of the blank
checks from Mr. Bullock, three of which were filled
up and used by himself.
Mrs. Williams, wife of the last witness, proved
that the fourth check remained for some time in her
workbox. The prisoner was a visitor at her hus-
band's house for some months up to the end of
December, and she missed the check from her work-
box shortly after his departure. It was also proved
by a clerk of Gledstanes and Co. that there was no
person named Arthur Gledstanes connected with
their firm, and Mr. De Livers, an undergraduate of
Exeter College, deposed to the fact that the endorse-
ment of his name on the check was not written by
him .or with his authority.
The jury found the prisoner guilty of uttering
the check knowing it to have been forged, and the
learned Judge sentenced him to four years' penal
servitude.

VICKSBITRG.

The Mississippi flows near Vicksburg through flats of its
own deposit. Those flats vary from 20 to upwards of 100
miles in width. They are subject to an overflow of from
four to 20 feet deep. At the city a breadth of hills runs out
through these low flats to the very bank of the Mississippi.
A narrow apron of overflowed land lies at a few points be-
tween those hills and the river; but in most instances the
channel lies with its whirring current at their very base. A
belt of land subject to overflow lies for a width of about 200
yards between the Mississippi and the base of the " bluff"
on which Vicksburg stands. That hill presents to the river
a contour similar to that of a truncated cone. It rises up in
a rapid slope to a summit 300 or 400 feet high. The streets
of the city are cut into the sides of the hill, and constitute a
succession of terraces one above another. The system of
defences adopted for the position is outside my knowledge,
but must be as formidable as any such system can be in the
case of a profile admitting of a dozen lines of earthwork
around the whole sweep of the hill, each commanding the
other, and all commanding the water approach so com-
pletely as to make a direct advance from the "landing"
utterly impracticable. This bristling hill is but one of a
chain that, equally formidable throughout, embraces the
channel of the Mississippi as far south as Warrenton. This
semicircular sweep of " bluffs" has doubtless been made—
as it may have been very easily—unapproachable at any
point by a hostile force from the river. The flank ap-
proaches to this breadth of hill country are very difficult.
The Yazoo River constitutes the line of access to it on the
north. The naked red clays of the whole region back of
yicksburg are torn by heavy rain-storms into a tangled
network of ravines deep and steep. This favours the de-
fence in general, and makes it from the line of the
Yazoo perhaps irresistible. The weak point of the
communications of Vicksburg lies, however, at the
place where the railway from that city to Jackson, the
capital of Mississippi, crosses on trestlework the
swamp of Big Black River. That part of the railway
is but a few miles back of Vicksburg, and is accessible from
a point
on the Mississippi below Warrenton, by way of the
valley of the Big Black River. In high stages of water, as at
the present, it is approachable by gunboats. In either
case this appears to be the assailable point of the defences
of Vicksburg.
Vicksburg is situated on one of those bends in the chan-
nel of the Mississippi known locally from their shape as
" horse shoes." The city occupies the toe, the range of
hills extending south of it to Warrenton, rising up like a
wall around one-half the circle of that "horse shoe," The
tongue of land within the bend is subject to overflow.
Across this the Federals have cut a canal with the expec-
tation that the Mississippi rushing through will widen and
deepen it to the dimensions of a new bed. " Cut offs," such
as the Federals expect to make in this instance, have been
made similarly at other points on the river. In this case,
however, the soil is stiff clay, and there is therefore grave
reason to conclude that the river will fail in opening by its
own action the shallow cuts into which they have intro-
duced it to the dimensions required. This canal is in
fact set down as a failure. A new cut is being openedi beet
another part of the horse shoe ; but this probably
ewia_y
found, unless carried down with the quicksand, pi
, anny
unavailable. At all events, it will fail to result in a
months. In order to place
change useful for the purposesyonoinf navigation before several
months. physical
conditions of the attackon
Vicksburg it only necessary
to repeat that with the exeption of the breadth of hill
country on which that city is situated all the country around
is a more or less reclaimed swamp. The whole region for
100 miles on every side of the Confederate defences, except
in the rear, is subject to an overflow of from four to 20 feet
deep, and even the rendezvous of the Federal army, pro-
tected temporarily by an embankment that may be cut
through in half-an-hour, must in the present state of the
Mississippi floods be saturated with wet. A further rise in
the water would drive the Federal army to their transports,
and yet immense reinforcements are being forwarded from
Memphis to participate in its desperate and bloody enter-
prise.—Standard.

Importing Tea without colour on the leaf pre-
vents the Chinese passing off inferior leaves as in the usual
kinds. Horniman's Tea is uncoloured, therefore, always
good mike. Sold in packets by 2,280 agent'
MARRIAGE AT THE TURKISH COURT.—The
Levant Herald of the 11th says :—" An incident
worthy of mention, in the dearth of graver news, occurred
at Dolmabaktche during the past week. Raif Bey, ex-
Chamberlain was sent for, and, by Imperial Trade, was
ordered forthwith to marry one of the palace ladies, whom
he had never seen or heard of before. Within ten minutes
after the order was communicated to him the spouse—not
elect, but imposed—made her appearance, and, inside an
hour, the conjugal knot was tiedi"