The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-28 00:00:00

THAMES.

DARING ROBBERY BY COSTERMONGERS. —John Hurd
and James Jennings, costermongers, each about 19 years
of age, were brought before Mr. Selfe, on remand, charged
with entering a dwelling-house in the day-time and steal-
ing a table cover, a satin skirt, and other property valued
at £4.

It appeared from the evidence of Mrs. Rosa Myers, the
wife of Napthali Myers, of No. 19, Bedford-street, Step-
ney, that she was keeping a house for invalids for the
Baroness Rothschild, who maintained them at her own ex-
pense. On Monday, the 13th inst., l'Slra. Myers left home,
and was away for three hours. On her return she found
the parlour window open and the room in great confusion.
The articles named in the charge sheet, which she valued
a t £4, were missing. The prosecutrix had left her parlour
window a little open when she left home for the purpose of
ventilating the room. The evidence against the prisoners
was positive. Ellen M'Grath, a respectable Irish girl only
10 years of age, and living with her mother at No. 18, St.
John's-place, Stepney, went out on the 13th instant to
fetch a half-pint of milk, and saw both prisoners leave,Mrs.
Myers' dwelling, each with a bundle in his possession.
They ran down the street and went into separate houses of
ill-fame in the neighbourhood. The name of Jennings
was on one house, and Bachelor on the other.
When Hurd left the house of the prosecutrix
he spoke to the girl and begged of her not
to Fay anything. It also appeared that when the
prisoners were taken into custody they were put into a cell
with many others, and the girl picked them out from many
others. They had been in custody before, and were persons
of indifferent character. _ _

The prisoners, in defence, said they knew nothing of the
robbery, and were not in Bedford-street on the 13th inst.
Mr. Selfe said he was quite satisfied with the statement
of Ellen M'Grath, and committed the prisoners for trial.

Among the wonders of art criticism that we all
hear this year in unexpected places, we came upon some.
the other day from a nest of critics in a corner of an ()ram.
bus. A young Creole pronounced emphatically and deci-
sively that a certain work was by far the finest picture in
the Exhibition. " I don't remember who painted it," he
said, " but it's a full length of a lady showing a red petti-
coat." " Ah, yes," said a thin, pale mechanic, " I know .
a Gainsborough." "I think it was--she had laced boots"
(c early, his notion of a chef. d' ceuvre was Mr. Grant's por-
trait of Mrs. Gaskell.) " I remember it well," said the
mechanic, " that's a Gainsborough," and then proceeding,
as a good Briton, to enlighten the stranger, " Gains-
borough," he said, "we consider the best of our English
artists. Other men, Reynolds for example, give you colour
and shape, but he gives you the real thing, a very fine
painter is Gainsborough. We" (it was the we national
with an air of positive assumption never surpassed even by
the we critical) "we consider him the best painter now
living." Whereupon a fat, motherly woman opposite,
with a market basket under her dirty shawl, chimed into
the conversation, also for the instruction of the foreigner,
saying, " I don't myself think very much of Reynolds, his
colour is beautiful, but, then, you know, he is very much
cracked, and he wants soul." Were these impressions
from South Kensington? or were they echoes from that
learned penny daily which, in a fine slashing leader, told
the other morning how "we have heard of an imperium
in imperio, but here We have imperii in imperiabus ?"