The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-08 00:00:00

CENSUS OF SCO7LAND.

The report which has been issued from the Cen-
sus-office of Scotland with the population tables,
just published, states that it has been ascertained
that there are no less than 787 islands around the
Scottish coast, taking as the definition of an island
that it shall be of sufficient extent to afford pasture
to a sheep. 5.39 per cent. of the population-
-164,994 persons—were found residing on the 186 of
these islands which are inhabited by one or more
persons. In all Scotland there are about 100 per-
sons (99.7) to a square mile; 6.41 acres to every
person ; but the country is so rugged and mountain-
ous that it is very questionable whether more than
a third of it could ever be rendered arable. The
county of Edinburgh has 746 persons to a square
mile ; the county of Sutherland only 13. The natu-
ral rate of increase in Scotland in the ten years
1851-61, by excess of births over deaths, is believed
to have been 14 per cent. ; but the population found
there in 1861 was only 6 per cent. more than in
1851, so many are the Scotehmen who go elsewhere
to better themselves or their fortunes. This large
emigration takes away more men than Nvoiaen, and
the proportion of females to males was greater in
1861 than in 18M, having risen to 111'2 females to
100 males—a greater excess of women probably
than in any European country, and such as
must bo prejudicial to the prosperity of the king-
dom. In England there were only 1052 females
to 100 males, but Scotland sends out nearly twice as
large a portion of her people as emigrants, and sup-
plies more than twice as large a proportion to the
mercantile navy. But by far the most interesting
liportion of these tables is the return of the house
accommodation of Scotland. It shows that 7,964
families, more than 1 per cent. of all the 666,786
families of Scotland, were found last year living in
single rooms which had no window. But it is re--
marked that if the room was a cottage with an
aperture in the roof or wall, to answer the purpose
both of window and chimney, it had free ventila-
tion, and Was more healthy than thousands of the
cottages with windows or of the close rooms of the
towns. 226,723 families were found living in one
room each with one or more windows, but often a
mere apology for a window. Thirty-five per cent.
of all the families iu Scotland—more than one-
third—are living in one room. A still larger number,
37 per cent., nearly a quarter of a million of fami-
lies, live in only two rooms, leaving only 28 per
cent. living in houses With three or more
rooms. This would hsve seemed incredible if

it had not been ascertained on actual inquiry.
From the greater fatality of epidemic and contagi-
ous diseases in Scotland than in England it is
thought probable that the proportion of families
living in only one or two rooms is considerably less
in England. In Scotland the census enumerators
found 34,948 families, with four persons in each
family, living in one room; 27,519 families, five in
a family ; 19,503 families, six in a family ; 12,136
families, seven in a family ; 6,212 families, eight in
a family. Glasgow is the greatest city in Scotland.
How is its population housed ? Only one family
in four in all that vast city have as many as three
rooms to live in; 4,024 families, with five persons
in each family, have only one room to live in ;
2,450 families with six persons in a family, 1,256
families with seven persons in a family. Paisley
and Dundee offer high-paid work, but compara-
tively few of the working classes can be expected
to be living in four rooms and upwards; yet only
874; per cent., 1 in 12, of the families in those towns
occupy three rooms. Who could have believed all
this ? It will certainly be felt to be very startling
this revelation of the enormous numbers of the class
by which mainly the empire is increased living in
conditions so demoralising.

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS, July 7.

The July Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the
county of Middlesex commenced this morning, at
Clerkenweil, before Mr. Bodkin, Assistant-Judge ;
Mr. Payne, Deputy ; Mr. Pownall, Chairman ; and
a bench of magistrates.
The calendar contains the names of 53 prisoners,
of whom 18 are charged with misdemeanour, and
35 with felony.
The Assistant-Judge delivered the charge to the
grand jury.
Alfred Valentine Gunnell, 31, clerk, was indicted
for embezzling money to the amount of £2O Bs.,
received by him for and on account of the Commis-
sioners of the International Exhibition.

Mr. Poland prosecuted ; the prisoner was not de
fended.

The prisoner, it appeared, was a store-clerk at
the Exhibition, and was employed to sell books,
principally catalogues, and it was his duty to ac
count to the chief storekeeper every day, at closing,
for the amount he had received. There was a defi-
ciency found in the stock entrusted to him to the
amount stated in the indictment, and he absconded.
He was apprehended in Kensington-gardens, by
Sergeant Thomas, of the F division of police, and
though at first he did not deny the charge, he said
when at the Exhibition in custody that he had
been deficient in his accounts some weeks, and
that Mr. Simmons, the foreman storekeeper in that
department, had his I 0 U for £l5, and had given
him vouchers for deficiencies. The prisoner had
books to the amount of £2O Bs. in value, and every
evening had to account for the difference between
what he had remaining, and hand over the money
he had received, to make the figures £2O Bs., and
then his stock was replenished by the amount he had
sold. Mr. Simmons denied the prisoner's assertions
in toto, and said he never signed any voucher know-
ing that the prisoner was deficient in his accounts,
and never took his I 0 U for any ammout whatever.
The prisoner made the same defence to-day.
The Jury found him Guilty.
Sentence was deferred until next session.
Robert Harrison, 42, described in the calender as
a gold-lace maker, was indicted for feloniously
breaking and entering the dwelling• house of George
Seeker, and stealing therein 235 breastpins and
other jewellery to the value of £BOO, his property ;
he was further charged with receiving the same,
feloniously knowing it to be stolen. He was fur-
ther charged with receiving 4 spoons, the property
of Charlotte Blackburn ; for the feloniously receiv
ing a watch, the property of John Morgan ; a watch,
the property of Thomas Bruce Gardyn ; a watch,
the property of Francis Higging ; a watch the pro-
perty of Charles Newman ; and also other articles
of value, the property of divers persons, knowing
the same to have been stolen.

Mr, Kemp prosecuted; Mr. Tayler defended.
The prosecutor, Mr. Seeker, it appeared, is a
jeweller, carrying on business at 119, High-street,
Camden Town, next to an unoccupied house. On
the morning of May 29 it was found that the party-
wall between the two houses had been cut through,
Mr. Seeker's shop entered, and jewellery to the
amount of about £BOO stolen therefrom. On June 9
Sergeant Evans, of the G division, proceeded, from
information he had received, to the house of the
prisoner, 66, Wynyatt-street, Clerkenwell, which
had been watched, with another constable, and, on
meeting the prisoner in the passage, he said he was
an officer, and wanted to speak to him. Evans
then took him into a parlour used as a jeweller's
workshop, and told him the nature of his errand,
and that from what had been ascertained it was
believed that he had received a number of watches
on the previous Saturday, which had been stolen.
The prisoner said he had not; but on the officer
telling him he should search the place, he inquired
what sort of watches they were he was inquiring
about. Evans said he should not tell him, but he
had a list. Then he commenced the search. The
prisoner said, " Wait a bit, as my wife is dressing,
and I'll show you what I have got." They went
upstairs to a back bed-room. The prisoner knocked
at the door, and asked some one inside to give him
his box, upon which a female opened the door and
handed out an ordinary box, such as watchmakers
use, rather small, but containing seven drawers.
On the box being unlocked and examined, it was
found to contain a number of watches. The pri-
soner begged that they might not be mixed, and
produced six or seven the bows and pendants of
which had been twisted off, and some had the name
plates taken off, from which it was to be inferred
that other name plates were to replace them. When
asked where he got them from, he said he did work
for many persons, but he did not know where they
lived, or their names. The officer then told him
that they had been brought by a man in a horse and
chaise on the preceding Saturday, and said it was
strange he did not know where that man lived. To
that the prisoner replied it was no business of his ;
he did not know where he lived. On a further
search being made, ten more watches with broken
bows were .found, several of them partly taken to
pieces, some rings and chains, a valuable chrono-
meter, the original number of which had been
erased, and another substituted. The real name of
the maker remained, but as the number had been
altered, it could not be traced to whom the maker
sold it. Evans found over 200 gold and cameo pins,
part of the property taken from Mr. Seeker's, and
which were identified subsequently by those by
whom they had been made for him, and him alone.
The case for the prosecution having been closed,

Mr. Tayler addressed the jury at length and con-
tended that whatever suspicion attached to the pri-
soner, the evidence did not conclusively show that
the prisoner had any knowledge of the fact that
these articles had been stolen, and that it was but a
fair assumption that he received them in the ordi-
nary way of business as a working watchmaker and
jeweller to repair, as was a common thing in the
trade, from persons whose names in most instances
were not asked, but who called for them at a speci-
fied time. The learned counsel then contended that
the identity of the pins was not made out, called a
number of witnesses who gave the prisoner a very
high character for honest and straightforward con-
duct, and said they had entrusted him with watches,
&c., to repair, they were always punctually re-
turned, and great confidence was reposed in him as
a tradesman. They were tradesmen themselves,
and sent work to him. Among them were—Mr.
Snell, 114, High Holborn ; Mr. Parker, 19, Long-
acre; Mr. Parfitt, 61, Spencer-street, Clerkenwell ;
Mr, Denham, Goswell-road, and ten or twelve
others.

Mr. Kemp, in reply, said that, admitting—which
was no doubt true, according to the evidence ad-
duced on behalf of the prisoner—that he had borne
the character hitherto of an honest man, there could
not, he thought, be a doubt that he had used that
character as a cloak under the guise of which he re-
ceived these stolen pins and watches for the pur-
pose of altering them to prevent identification when
they were disposed of. Ho thought the jury could
adopt no other course but to find the prisoner guilty.
His Lordship then summed up with great minute-
ness, fully placing the ease before the jury.
The jury immediately found the prisoner guilty.
His Lordship said he did not think it necessary
to try him on any other charge.
Mr. Kemp said in one case the property was part
the
of some taken in a burglary in Regent's-park
:tn
Friday before the prisoner was taken ; the watched
and
had been stolen on Epsom Downs on the Derby
nOoa
dk
os
udbatysst,o al
ennd,
ha a gdr
be ae
et
nq
fuoaunnt
di t y
inohf
ios tph esrs
epsrsoi po
ne 1: t Y )
watches against him, and should a
Sergeant Evans said he had sixtheevnecmansoerseofhsetohlaedn
no doubt.
ith wout going into the
His Lordship said that
other cases there was y were about to adopt.
the Court in the course
quite en proved to justify
might have been considered
h thethe jury, and
He quite agreed verdict of -
with the learned counsel, that how-
ever use of it to carry on this
remark of
also in the
ever good his
by other persons,
most nefarious _
system of receiving stolen property.
charhaectmer
Under all the circumstances, the sentence of the
Court was that he
be kept -
In penal servitude for
the space of ten yea .
mt.. Kemp said thers
grand jury had in a present-
went called attention to the conduct of Evans and
the other officer in. the case as very praiseworthy,
and deser,ing of much commendation.
ilia Lordship said he could not order a reward, •

but would direct that; th eir conduct should be re-
ported to the commis sio ners through the inspector
on duty in the court.
Mr. Payne preside(' i in the Second Court, and a
number of minor cast s were disposed of.