The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-03 00:00:00

BURGLARIES lir SHEFFIELD.

tfuring the past week the operations of a gang
of burglars in Sheffield have excited considerable
attention in that town, On Tuesday morning a
dwelling-house lin tyre,street, occupied by a gen-
tleman named Murfin, entered tinderetrettmstances
Which show great determination and recklessness
on the part of the burglars. The back window,
which looks into an Unlighted lane, was strongly
secured with an iron bar, "catered" in the ordinary
way. The burglars got 61'er this difficulty by
breaking off the circular head of tad cotter with a
jemmy, but then they encthintered a furtiicr ob-
stacle. The window was in three sashes, and was
nailed up so that it would not slide. The burglars,
however, were resulted on entering the house, and
in the most daring and reckless manner they drove
in the whole of one side of the frattieWork of the
window. Singular as it may appear, the great noise
which this operation must have caused did not dis-
turb any of the inmates of the house. Having
effected an entrance, the robbers had to pass over a
sink, and in doing so one of thelt kicked over a
metal bowl, which fell with a great clang upon the
floor. The noise awoke Mrs. Murfin. She aroused
her husband, who ran to the head of the stairs and
called out to his sons to bring their pistols as there
were robbers in the house. Instantly a grad noise
was heard down below, caused by the efforts of the
burglars to escape through the broken window.
This they succeeded in doing before the watchmen
arrived, but in coming down the lane they met an
officer, knocked him down, and prevented any fur-
ther attempt on his part to follow them. Had
they not unintentionally themselves given an
alarm, the burglars would have succeeded in carry-
ing off a large amount of property. The next at-
tempt, supposed to be made by the same gang, was
marked by the most extraordinary escape from
the hands of justice that has taken place for some
time. In William-street, in one of the suburbs, a
Mr. W. H. Flower keeps a grocer's shop. The shop
is at the junction of two streets, and at one front
is a large trapdoor, level with the pavement, com-
municating with an extensive store cellar. It
appears that about half-past two o'clock two bur.
glars had succeeded in raising this door, and were
busily engaged in ransacking the stores in the cellar.
They had a confederate outside to give warning of
danger, but as they had replaced the trapdoor after
obtaining an entrance there was little chance of
discovery. However, the watchman on the beat, in
making his rounds, passed close to the corner of
the shop, and the burglars in the cellar, no doubt
mistaking his footsteps for those of their accomplice,
opened the trapdoor a little to reconnoitre. The
watchman saw the movement, and instantly, with
great presence of mind, jumped on the trapdoor and
pressed it firmly down. He then gave an alarm.
Here was a situation from which it seemed impos-
sible for the burglars to escape. They were hope-
lessly caged in the cellar, and the strong fastenings
of the doors leading from the cellar to the back part
of the premises barred all escape by the rear. In
three minutes their fate would have been sealed, but
at this critical juncture the aceomplice alluded to
crossed the road, and went up to the officer. He was
well dressed, had a large Inverness cape on, and
seemed a respectable man. He asked the officer if
he could assist him in any way, and was told to go
and watch the back of the house. Strangely enough,
however, this easy task appeared to be especially
repugnant to him, and he told the officer that he
would do " anything in front," but would not go to
the back. By this time several of the neighbours,
who had been alarmed by the noise, opened their
windows, and cried out to the watchman to look
after the back,of the house. He seems, very incau-
tiously, to have listened to the advice thus given,
and telling the man who had spoken to him to take
his place upon the trapdoor, he hastened round the
corner to the rear of the premises. The moment he
had gone the man on the door was seen to stoop
down, and persons aver that they heard him call
out " Halloa !" three times to the men imprisoned
below. In another moment the door was raised,
two men emerged from the cellar, and went off at
score up the street, their deliverer following in mock
pursuit. Just as the party had vanished the
officer came back, and was joined by Mr. Flower
and several of th* neighbours, but the birds bad
flown. The extraordinary evasion of the robbers,
when they seemed to be so securely in the grasp of
justice, created the greatest chagrin. One of Mr.
Flower's neighbours gave chase to the men, but was
baffled, after a short run, in a lane at the back of
William•street. On descending into the cellar Mr.
Flower found that the burglars must have been for
some time engaged in preparations to "convey" his
property to themselves upon an extensive scale.

LAW IN 7'ELLIG BR CB, Feb. 1.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER.

(Sittings at Nisi Prins, at Westminster, before Mr.
Baron Martin and a Common Jury.)

lIALDANE AND ANOTHER V. SIR E. LANDSEER.

Mr. J. 0. Griffiths was counsel for the plaintiff,
and Mr. Sergeant Ballantine and Mr. Francis for
the defendant.
This was an action to recover a sum of £2B 14s.
6d. for goods supplied. The defendant paid £l7 16s.
6d. into court, and pleaded, except as to that sum,
never indebted, and tender before action brought.
The plaintiffs are tailors, carrying on business at
29, Old Bond-street. and sought to recover from the
defendant, Sir Edwin Landseer, the celebrated
artist, the sum of £lO 18s., the price of a surtout
coat and dress coat supplied to him.
One of the plaintiffs was called, and stated that
defendant gave them an order for the coats in ques-
tion, which were at once commenced, and when
basted together were taken to the defendant's house
and tried on, and found to fit remarkably well, with
the exception of one or two trifling alterations. The
coats were afterwards completed, taken home, tried
on, and the surtout coat left, of which no complaint
was made, and the dress coat brought back to be
lowered in the collar, which being done, the coat
was returned on the following day. On the 11th of
July the defendant wrote a note to the plaintiffs,
saying, " Pray send or call here, as you will agree
with me that I cannot wear the last coat sent home."
The plaintiff attended accordingly, and the defen-
dant still complained of the collar being too high.
Another alteration follewed, and then Sir Edwin
found fault with the fit of the surtout, complaining
that the collar was so high that it rubbed against
the hair of his head. The collars of both were then
lowered. Still complaints were made by letter, the
defendant saying that after numerous alterations
and many trials neither of the coats could he wear
without being uncomfortable and feeling faint, and
that he should return them unless theycould be made
to fit and button in the right place. The plaintiff
said that if he made any further alterations he must
be paid for them. The defendant replied that he
would not keep the coats, but the plaintiff declined
to take them away. The defendant sent them
back by his servant, and on the 22d of July the
plaintiffs wrote the defendant the following letter:—
" We beg respectfully to send you the two coats,
having altered them according to the direction you
last gave. The alterations you speak of as being
unsuccessful arise, we think, from your own fault.
The coats when first tried on fitted remarkably
well, but if you will place your body into unreason-
able positions it will require something more than
human science to fit you. We have most unwillingly
made the alterations you have required, believing
them to be unnecessary, and we now find it im-
possible to please you. With reference to your
desire that we should take the coat back, we cannot
think of doing so."
Upon cross-examination the witness said that the
alterations had damaged the coats. They fitted
well now, but fitted better at first. Mr. Alfred
Montgomery introduced the defendant to them, and
told him not to let them make a coat for him on
any account. The alterations that were made cost
£2 or £3 journeymen's wages.
Mr, Serjeant Ballantine, among the few remarks

he made to the jury in opening the defendant's
case, said that the case was defended en principle,
and on that only. The coats never fitted, and were
repeatedly altered and botched in order to try and
mahe them do so. The public stood a chance at one
time of lasing one of the most eminent artists they
had, because hie tailors thought proper to put him
into a coat which held him like a
,Tice. The mere
fact that sa much money bad been expended on the
alterations showed at once that the coats never
could have fitted.

Sir titandseer was swot,' and said that he ordered
the coats in question, and wk:s obliged to have re-
peated alterations made in the co:-1 ars of them. That
the plaintiffs expressed a desire to i.7ake a coat for
him, in consequence, as he thought, of Mr. Mont-
gomery's insinuations. The coats did not now.
The whole sitting of them was so contrary to e.2ro-
fort, and so disagreeable generally, that he objected
to them. When he sat down the collar went up
into his hair. He was bound to do the plaintiffs the
justice to say that some other clothes, including
shooting coats and trousers, made by them for him
fitted remarkably well, All he required was that
the coats in question might be made to fit, and
offered to refer the question of " fit or no fit" to any
tailor or ono of the plaintiff's customers.
When cross-examined by Mr. Griffiths, the de-
fendant stated that he might have said, "Mont-
gomery says that you are not so happy in your coats
as in your trousers. You shall mako me a morning
and an evening cost." The coats pinched him under
the arms, and were generally very uncomfortable.
The coats being in court, Sir Edwin was asked
lby the plaintiff's counsel to put them on, which he
readily assented to do.
It was objected that Sir Edwin might have in-
creased in size, as the coats were made in 1858, but
he said that he weighed now within 11b. of what
he weighed then.
One of the jurymen, being a tailor, was requested
to go round to the witness-box and examine the
coats en the defendant's back, A very short exa-
mination seemed to satisfy him.
After the learned counsel had made a few re-
marks to the jury on behalf of their respective clients,
His lordship summed up, saying that there was an
obligation upon a tradesman charging, as the plain-
tiffs appeared to have done, a full west-end price, to
supply a suitable article. The coat ought to be a
properly fitting coat, and the question for the jury
was, under all the circumstances, whether the plain-
tiffs had fulfilled that obligation. They had seen
the coats on, and could judge for themselves.
The jury found a verdict for the defendant.

THE ABOLITION OF THE &HUTTING'S
OF 211 E NATIONAL DEBT.

The press, so often styled the Fourth Estate, so Often
professedly despised, yet really all-powerful when employed
to elicit truth or expose injustice, did good service to the
community this autumn when it made the English public
thoroughly acquainted with the Act of Parliament of last
session, passed to abolish the shuttings of the national
debt, and to enable. the holders of stock to purchase or sell
the same at all times of the year. The stockholders
have no sooner obtained the knowledge of the
power thus given than they have availed them-
selves 01' it; and in the late shutting of the Three
per Cent. Console in December, the transfers averaged
at least the largo ntunber of 500 per day on each
of the public days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday, representing in the week the sale and purchase of
an almost fabulous number of thousands of pounds of
stock. The State has chosen to confide to the Bank of
England the management of thlt important public depart-
ment, the National Debt. About £800,000,000 sterling of
capital are there invested, divided amongst 280,000 stock-
holders. The Bank of England is held responsible that
the real proprietor of stock transfers it, and that the half-
year's interest is correctly paid, with the exact amount of
income tax deducted. Should the stock be fraudulently
transferred, or the dividend erroneously paid, the Bank of
England is obliged to return to the proper party that stock
or that dividend, however large the amount, and however
ingeniously the fraud may have been executed. It is
tberefore evident that great care must be taken to employ
proper officials, because the Bank can only see and act
through them, ana much vigilance ought to be used to
adopt a perfect system of accounts, because large unde-
tected en ors, designedly made, might create embarrassment,
and would involve great loss. Hence the extreme reluct-
ance to enter upon an entire change of system, and to
make throughout the different stock offices great alterations.
Nevertheless in 1844 that large and almost perilous under-
taking was entrusted to, and successfully accomplished by
the untiring perseverance and moral courage of one man,
who appears to have had two objects in view, of which the
chief was to abolish the shuttings of the national debt, so
that the stock proprietors should be allowed always to have
control over their money. •Up to this period their capital
was locked up from 32 to 36 days every six months—nearly
one-fifth of the year—and it often happened that inconve-
nience and loss, almost amounting to ruin, was thus occa-
sioned ; for urgent applications to permit a transfer were
generally refused, and this was particularly the case towards
the end of the shutting period, when this indulgence was
most wanted, from the trouble and inconvenience each
transfer gave ; so that for many years one transfer per day
during the period of closing is probably, on the average, a
greater number than was actually allowed to be made. No
person transfers his stock unless to do so is advantageous.
The necessity to transfer may be seen by the daily number
of 300 transfers last month; and this power must confer
benefit upon those who avail themselves of it, and this
benefit, being a money benefit, will ultimately be repre-
sented in the price of the stock. Now, it is under-
stood that the estimate made at the time (1844)
of this money value was from 1 to 3 per cent.
on the price of the stock, and taking it at the lowest rate,
the abolition of the shuttings of the national debt adds
eight millions to the value of the English funds. The au-
thorities of the Bank of England in the spring of 1845, hav-
ing made all the necessary arrangements, and, as above
shown, being alone responsible, communicated the plan to
the Government of the late Sir Robert Peel, asking for a
short act of Parliament authorising it. This reasonable
proposal was, after some hesitation, refused, but the author
of the scheme, in his published letter to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, dated Paris, February, 1861, states "he is
quite certain no one knew better than Sir Robert Peel the
vast importance to a commercial country of the constant
availability of the capital of the national debt." But
even this very decided opinion hardly expresses the whole
case ; and, if we are correctly informed, Sir Robert
Peel not only was aware of its importance, but actually
opened :a negotiation with that gentleman, through
an able and conscientious man who happened to be known
to both, with the object of carrying the plan that session,and
the remarkable proposal then made would have been ac-
ceded to if the true reason for making it had been given.
On this being substantiated, another instAnce is furnished
of that which has been so often asserted—the excessive
timidity of this statesman, a timidity very few can explain.
The second object was a double one—to give additional profit
to the Bank of England by decreasing the expenses of the
national debt, and to benfit the employee by allowing a
small fee to be charged for the transfers made in the
shuttings. The first part is accomplished, and many thou-
sand pounds are in this way annually received by the cor-
poration, but the second has not been carried out, and the
public are allowed to make transfers during the shutting
as at any other time. On the passing of the act of parlia-
ment the governors of the Bank of England took for the
Bank proprietors the small fee charged for transfers on
private days, Monday and Saturday, and which from time
immemorial has been divided amongst the employes, and
compensated them by adding to their salaries the average
amount the fee had latterly produced. But we
have heard the fee proposed to be charged during the
shuttings would have produced an additional £5O per an•
num to each person, and we allude to it hoping that some-
thing may yet be done for officials whose duties require
both judgment and intelligence, and that the funded
proprietors and the Bank of England, with the price of
its capital 242 per cent. should not alone benefit
by the scheme. At 40 years of age with the present habits
of London, it may be questioned whether any of these offi
cials should have less than £lOO per annum, for we could
scarcely name any government department where an error
in judgment would involve more disastrous consequences or
greater pecuniary loss. It must have been a great disap-
pointment to the gentleman who had laboured so hard to
carry this public scheme in 1845 to find the government from
whom he expected honour and support fail him at the last
moment, and refuse to authorise the plan. It must sorely
have vexed him to see arrangements, made with the object
of benefiting the officials, turn out to their detriment from
circumstances he could not possibly foresee nor in any way
control. But all this annoyance has passed away, and the
adoption and success of the plan must, we presume, give
intense pleasure. Might not the Government and the Bank
of England act together in this business ? Nothing can be
worse than a combination to injure, but nothing is more
honourable than a combination to do an act of justice and
confer a well-merited reward.—Civil Service Gazette.

FOREIGN NAIL PACKET -UST.

MAILS DUE.

Australia and Mauriti;,;iaSouthamPton. Feb. 18.
via Marseilles .. Feb. 13.
Brazil and Cape Verds, by British packet. Feb. 3.
Cape of Good Hope, Ascension, and
sSt.llelena .. March 3.
China, Penang, and Singapore, via outh ampton.Feb. 1.
via Marseilles ...Feb. 13.
Falkland 151and5.......
Gibraltar, via Southampton
India (Calcutta), and Ceylon, via Southampton.. Feb. 1.
via Marseilles.... Feb. 13.
India (Bombay), via Southampton ............Feb. 10.
via Marseilles ................ Feb. 4.
and Aden, via Southampton...... Feb. 1.
Lisbon .....................................Feb.. 1.
sMeawltfao,unEgYtt
via Marseilles ........Feb........ 4.
.. Feb. 5
.............Feb. :1.
byeyncei. U.S.
in.
ffSa.d pi
aanc ket
U. S. and British N. America, by Brit. packet.... Feb. 5,
Oporto and Vigo
W.C. of Africa, Madeira, and Tb packet. Feb. —.
e.. Feb. 10.
Bahamas, via New York
Mexico Feb. 13.
All parts of West Indies, including Chili Peru,
California, and British Columbia,. ' Feb. 13.