The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-26 00:00:00

when suddenly robbed of his purse by a woman

passing by, and immediately afterwards set upon
by three ruffians, manifestly her accomplices! Mr.
BIRT was the hero of this little incident : and we
honestly commend to her MAJESTY'S lieges gPner-

ally the adoption at once of a system of Birting, by
way Of retaliation to the savage marauders. It
will be the most effectual means, we are satisfied,
of at once putting down this brutal system of
Garotting. The case was simply this—for it is
really worth giving exactly as it was related
by the reporter at the Mansion House, whither
the accused were brought before the bench on
Saturday. Their intended victim, one Mr. EDWIN
JOHN BIRT, belonging to the Examiner's-office in
the Customs, stated that " about a quarter-past 7
o'clock he was in Church-passage (a narrow, dark
alley, leading from Fenchurch-street, underneath
the Blackwall and North London Railway to
Crutched-friars), and had his purse in his hand,
taking some coin out, when he was suddenly
away,
nlyac-
costed by a female, who, snatching his purse

darted off down the alley. He followed, but
suddenly the prisoner HART came out of a door
way, where lie concealed himself, and, stopping
him, asked ' what his game was.' Pro-
secutor not liking the man's appearance,
turned round to get away, when he was confronted
by two other men who were close behind, and who
instantly seized him by the throat, and endeavoured
to throttle him, at the same time his coat was torn
open to get at his watch. Getting away from their
grasp, he struck out with a heavy-loaded stick, hit-
ting at them indiscriminately. He felled one of
the men by a blow on the head, who called out,
'Oh GoD ! my head, BILL.' What became of him
he could not say, for he followed the two prisoners,
who tried to escape; but he kept up with them,
hitting at them with all his might. He at length
secured HALL, and some passers-by pursued LEAT
for nearly a quarter of a mile, when he ran into a
constable's arms, and was secured." Both the
ruffians captured were eventually, as a matter of
course, committed for trial : regret being expressed
at the same time by the presiding alderman, that the
woman and the man whose head had been hammered
were not also themselves taken prisoners. Such in
brief was this really exemplary instance of sum-
mary punishment administered to/ Garotters—a
system of punishment that we fain would once
more hold up to general imitation, upon every pos-
sible' opportunity, under the name, style, and title,
of Birting!
In illustration of the flagrant audacity character-
ising some of these assaults at the hands of
Garotters, here is another case-in-point of
very recent occurrence indeed, a case thus briefly
related by our chief morning contemporary :
"In Sloane-street, Chelsea, a respectable woman
was standing with her husband and two friends,
waiting for an omnibus. They were at the
Knightsbridge end of the street, and, consequently,
in one of the most open tnd well-frequented places
to be found in the metropolis. In fact, besides that
the party were four in number of themselves, the
whole neighbourhood, we are told, was ' thickly
crowded' at the time. Could a highway rob-
bery be thought conceivable under such circum-
stances ? One would certainly say not, but it
actually occurred, and with the most incredi-
ble characteristics of audacity. The lady, while
standing at her husband's elbow, was suddenly
seized by the throat with great violence, while her
brooch was torn from her shawl, and her shawl
from her shoulders. As soon as she could manage
to scream, one of her friends, who was ' not more
than two yards from her at the time' came to
her rezone, her husband joined, and a policeman,
who himself was 'not more than 40 or 50 yards off
at the time, in uniform,' took the robber into
custody. The whole case astounded even Mr.
PAYNTER'S experienced mind. He said these ruf-
fians 'seemed to be getting more and more daring,'
as indeed they do. ' Here was a respectable
woman, surrounded by her friends, garotted and
robbed under the very eyes of the police, in a
great thoroughfare, one of the busiest in Lon-
don. It really was , outrageous.' " The latter
being the words of the adjudicating magistrate.
Another instance must suffice for to-day—other-
wise (these crimes being of such terribly frequent
recurrence) we might fill column after column with
miserably apt illustrations. The prosecutor, in the
instance we are now referring to, thus tendered his
evidence in the Police Court at Marylebone :

" I am," he said, " a jeweller's assistant, and reside at
17, Holles-place, Haverstock-hill. On the 12th of this
month, at about 11 o'clock at night, I was in Maitland-park.
The road led from liaverstock-road to the Maldon-road. I
was crossing the park when a man stepped in front of me
and asked for relief, saying, 'Would you please to relieve a
poor distressed fellow ?' I raplied that I had no money
with me, and never carried any. I only saw one man.
Scarcely had I said this when the man seized me with
both his hands by the throat, and at the same instant I
received a tremendous blow on the back of my head. I
think the blow was given with the fist. It partially stunned
me, and the effect was that it made me ill. I have been un-
der the doctor's hands ever since. The man at the back of
me put his hands in my pocket and took my purse out. The
man in front released my throat with one hand and seized
hold of my watch-chain, which broke as he attempted to
pull it from me. My purse contained two sovereigns, 18s.,
a pair of coral and gold earrings, and some coral beads. I
had a struggle with the man in front of me, and saw some-
thing flash in his hand like a knife. He put it to my throat,
and I threw myself back. The instrument cut my collar
and grazed my throat. I called out ' Police,' and tho men

ran away."

Are these atrocious crimes any longer to be
tolerated ? Are the Garotters- to run riot in our
metropolis—almost pith impunity, as they have been
doing for months P We cannot but feel at length
perfectly well persuaded that the evil has at last
attained a magnitude and a flagrancy that call
imperatively for what they will obtain, the vigorous
interposition of the Legislature.

So then the party conflict of next Session is to be
over reduction of taxation. So we are told, and
we could wish it to be true. We do not, however,
believe it. Tories will be miserable volunteers in the
battle for reduced taxation. Mr. DISRAELI—Whose
chief Tory quality is ambition for office—would be
willing to reduce taxes, or raise church rates, or do
anything else that would place him in power,
not so the wary old Tories, without whose
aid he can do nothing. Economy is, in
their eyes, the cardinal sin, expenditure the car-
dinal virtue. It is their instinct. Never were they
mere surprised than when their leader, last session,
proposed to reduce our " bloated armaments," and
cut down our expenditure, say some five millions.
Re very well knew that was the road to office, but
they as well knew that taking office on these terms
m the independent :as taking unfurnished lodgings. They grumbled
in theßouse of Ldoernd
from
were silent. as he spoke. The only cheers were
there, and the landlords members.tahouthought
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whether gentlemen actually belonging to " the
mentionthei r dis gricr Tory, could not conceal
at the earliest DERBY as their spokesman,
Lieutenant's blunder, rectified his
ever since it has been
proclaimed throughout the country by the Tories,
that they are not the men to e grudge what is ne-
cessary for the national honour:,
National honour
and an expenditure which finds occupation for