The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-22 00:00:00

THAMES OFFICE.

Yesterday Mary Compton and Elizabeth Ann Valley,
mother and daughter, were brought before Mr. GREENWOOD,
on a charge of uttering six counterfeit shillings to a pawn.
broker in High-street, Shadwdl.—Ultinutely the prisoners
were discharged.

ALLEGED CLAIMS TO IMMENSE

ESTATES.

The sensation created by the recent proceedings against
Mr. W. A. Campbell, of Wilton-place, who was charged
with stealing a map and procuring numerous deeds, purloined
from the offices of attorneys, to be copied for the purpose of
prosecuting, as alleged, imaginary claims on the estates of a
great many gentlemen, has induced some further inquiries into
the strange matter. It appears that a person of the name of
Cook claims, we do not pretend to say whether truly or
fats ly, to be the htir of Mr. Henry Cook, of Mile-end, who
died about the year 1 7 79, possessed, as asserted, of estates
and property producing a rental of 300,0001. yearly. The
claims of Cook were taken up by a picture-dealer named
Woodburn, who placed the matter in the hands of a respectable
solicitor, named Rankin, which gentleman, on investigating the
grounds of the claim, became satisfied they were not tenable.
Mr. Campbell became acquainted with Cook,. and took
the matter up by attempting to create a joint-stock com-
pany for the purpose of prosecuting the claims to the large
proverty alleged to have been left by Mr. Henry Cook, a Go-
vernment contractor for gun sponges. A statement of the
alleged property was drawn out, in which Cook claimed
estates in the posee,;sion of Sir Robert Wigram, and an
immense property left by Sir George Colebrook. The
ground on which the Bank of England stands was claimed as
part of the Colebrook property, together with several Dock
Companies' ground; and it was farther al'eged that a sum
of 400,0001. had been paid into the Bank of England by the
renters of the property, for the use of the true heir to the
estates. It is already known, in consequence of the pro-
ceedings against Mr. Campbell at Marlborough-street Office,
that a great many copies of deeds, relating to va'ious es-
tates, were surreptitiously made, through the instrumenta-
lityOf Mr. Campbell. By their help, and other plausible
s'atemente a Mr. Pook was induc d to purchase a
share in the venture for 1,4001. Finding, however,
thst a document had been concocted in order to in-
duce him to part with his money, he obtained a true
bill for conspiracy against Mr. Campbell and Butcher, for-
merly a clerk in the office of Mr. T. Rhodes, of Davies-street.
A portion of the property to which claim was laid is situated
in the parishes of Hackney, Shoreditch, and Haggerstone,
and in September last, at a sale of the Nicholl's propel ty by
Winstanley, Cook made his appearance, and cautioned those
who might choose to purchase any of the lots. An assurance
of a clear title having been guaranteed to the buyers, the
sale proceded without further melestation. Half the county
of Berks was likewise claimed b> Cook, and several gentlemen
holding large estates were apprized that proceedings were in
contemplation against them. The filmes were mostly treated
with disregard, but in some instances they succeeded in in-
spiring the occupiers with reasonable alarm. Mr. Walter, of
licrewood-house, Mr. B de Bouvoir, and Mr. Palmer, Holme
Park, M. P., were among those who received ietimation that
claims were about to be prosectred to dispossess them of their
Berkshire eroperty. The proceedings and the expose which
have occurred at the police-office will, however, have the effect
of stopping the extraordinary astern that was recently in ac-
tive operation.

TILE BREAD TAX--A Mr. Michael Irish—whose
not very logical letter, in the Brighton Gazette of to-day,
would lead to believe that, after all, there must be some-
thing in a name—amongst many most extraordinary assn-
tions, and a still more curious process of deduction, tells
us that the manufacturing population is considerably less in
numerical amount than the advocates of fice !rah in corn
put it down at ; and, moreover, that it is in them, the
aforesaid wanufacturers, either a vain conceit; or an un-
principled delusion, to declare that a diminution in the
price of corn will enable them to export their manufactures
at a much cheaper rate than at present. Mr. Irish in-

dulges in some other equally marvellous assertions, and, by
way of a clincher, appends to them a tabular tail-piece in
support of his views. From any mer:t which the con-
structor of the tables may have, it is no detraction to say
that they prove nothing for Mr. Irish's argument (?), since
the age of miracles has passed away, and no one now ex-
pects the parformance of one either by or without tables.
A gentleman from Cheshire states, that such was
the severity of the late storm, that his windows were
covered with salt, and that his woods were white as with
hoar frost, which on tasting, and examination with a micros-
cope, he found to originate in minute chrystals of salt, the
d stance from the sea being 30 miles in a straight line.

A woman, named Winter, residing in Seymour-
place, Church-way, Somers'-town, has been apprehended
on suspicion of having murdered her illegitimate infant, the
body of which was discovered on Sunday morning in the
soil of the water-closet.• A medical examination showed
that the child had been born :live.

Amongst the drunk and disorderlies at Queen-
square Police Office, last week, was a member of the Tem-
perance Society, named Bull, who, while drunk, at eleven
on Sunday morning, went to the station-house and insisted
on being locked up, which he said would ‘ appease his
mind." He was fined a shilling and discharged.
The young girl who drowned herself last week
in the Serpentine, proves to b. a Mary Harrison, niece of
a publican in North A wiley-street. No cause could be
assigned for the act of self-destruction, unless it were that
her friends disapproved of a correspondence which.she car-
ried on with a servant out of place. Verdict—Temporary
insanity.

SHREWSBURY RAILWAY.L—An important meet-
ing—important both in its object, and in the highly respect-
able company who assembled to discuss it—took /lave last
week in the Guildhall in this town, in pursuance of a rc-
qusition to the Mayor, to sanction a Deputation being sent
to Dublin, to obtain the assistance of the merchants of that
City in carrying a line of Railway from Snre,.vsbury to Port
Dynllaen, and erecting a Harbour of Refuge at that place
for the shelter of vessels overtake,' by storm on the east,rn
coast of England. The chief Nobility and Gentry of the
County were present. at the meeting. including Lord Cli.e,
Lord Hill, Lord Dungannon, Hon. It. Give, Hon.
Kenyon, Sir R. Hill, Sir B. Leighton, Sir F. Hill, Sir J.
Edwards, and a long list of Gentry —Shrewsbury Chronicle.
At the meeting of the E'.sex Magistrates at Hal-
stead, on Tuesday, William Jones, a gentlemanly-looking
young man, was charged with working an illicit still io a very
great extent. The proofs against him consisted of several
neighbours recognising his voice loan uninhabited house in
which the still had been found at work. The Magistrates
fined him in the lowest penalty of 30/., and committed him to
prison for three months. The prisoner prayed that his hair
might not be-cut off. The Magistrates said, that Lord John
Russell had sent a general order that the hair should to cut off
close to the skulls of all men and women sent to -prison, and
that they had not the power to interfere. This circumstance
and the denial to him of any but the scanty prison allowance,
seemed greatly to affect the prisoner.—Chelmsford Chronicle.
QUACKERY.—CURE. OF Coss um PTioN.—The
following is taken from a letter addressed to the Editor of
the Medical Gazette :—Some legislative enactment may Iro-
bably regulate ere long the sale of patent or secret med'ciacs,
so as to prevent or diminish the mischief, nay murders, tolr-
rated merely for the sake of the paltry pittance of 50,0001., as
an additional item in the revenue of this vast empire. The
notoriety of St. John Long and Morison will soon remain a
mere matter of history. Dr. Jam' s Johnson, at the West-
minster Medical Society, stated the mode pursued by a cer-
tain physician in " cwing" consumptioh. This physician in-
structed his patients to inflate and distend the lungs by mecha-
nical expansion, by which force Dr. J. believed that inflam-
mation around the tubercles was increased, and their develop-
ment in many cases hurried. lly had seen patients dying with
consumption, whom that physician, two or three days before
death, buoyed up with promises of recovery. Most practi-
tioners have had opportunities of confirming the oblervationsof
Dr. Johnson.

Yt:sterday an adjourned inquest was proceeded with
by Mr. Carter, the Ccroner, at the George Lin, Morton,
Surrey, on the bodies of the two unfortun.tL sufferers; Richard
Mills, agod 40, and William Hutton, aged 13, who perished at
the late dreadful fire at the Crown Inn, Merton, which oc-
curred on Thursday morning last. Verdi( t, " That the de-
ceased persons were accidentally burned at the late fire at the
Crown Inn, in the parish of Merton ; but how or by what
means the said fire originated there was no es.idence to show."
THE TEA TRADE, MONDAY.—The tea trade is
not very brisk. The deliveries last week amounted to
372,8001b5. The public sales are progressing much the same
as previously.