The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-25 00:00:00

CENTRAL
NE W CRIMINAL COURT.
RT
(Before the COMMON-SERGEINT3
George Barton, 19, tailor, William Barton, his
father, and Hanbury, an elderly-looking man,
were indicted for stealing a quantity of parchment
and paper, valued at above 201., the property of
Messrs. Chaplin, Horne, and others, the well-known
railway carriers.
Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Bodkin appeared to prose-
cute, and Mr. Cockle defended the younger prisoner.
The facts of the case, which have been fully re-
ported within the last few days, were these :—The
elder prisoner, Barton,'who is a well-known old thief,
and had evidently carried on the same game as the
present for some time, had been in the habit, in 67n-,
junction with the other prisoner, of stealing lawyers
parcels thit had been sent by rail, and the plan
adopted on this occasion was this :—He had watched
the porter carrying the parcels (which being deeds
and papers were tied up in a particular way with red
tape) from the prosecutors' cart, which delivered
them in town after their transit by rail, and
having made up some false parcels to represent
them, he sent his son on the morning of the 27th of
September to Messrs. Gregory and Falkner, and also
to Home, Loftus, and Young, two well-known firms, to
effect the substitution of the one parcel for the other.
The parcels being left at an early hour and before
business commenced, the younger prisoner came,
attired like a porter with a book in his hand, and the
fictitious parcel, and asking if his fellow servant
from the railway had been there, said, " Oh, he has
made a mistake and left the wrong parcel,"and having
obtained possession of the one just left, gave the false
one in its place, leaving word that when the porter,
who was supposed to have made a mistake, called
again, he was to come on to him at some public-house
he named. In this instance they had returned the
parcel anonymously, the deeds not being of any value
to them, and there not being a probability of a reward
being offered for their return, the younger Barton
being then in custody.
The jury found them all Guilty.
The COMMON SERGEANT said they evidently thought
that the parcels contained money. The lad, who had
been instigated by his father, he should order to be
imprisoned for six months ; Hanbury, who had aided
in the offence, to seven years' transportation ; and the
elder Barton, who was the prime mover in the affair,
to fifteen years.

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS, Oct. 24.
(Before Mr. Sergeant ADAMS Assistant-Judge, and

a Bench of Magistrates.)
JUVENILE DEPRAVITY.—Edw. Toghill, 11, and
Edw. Shae, 11, were indicted for having stolen
nine silk handkerchiefs, the property of John
Hitchcock.

Mr. Hughes defended the prisoner Tognill.
It appeared from the evidence, that the prosecutor
keeps a shop, No. 139, Edgeware-road, and that on
the evening of the first Saturday in the present
month, between seven and eight o'clock, the two boys
were seen by a policeman, who had been watching
them for n9arly half-an-hour, to stop at the shop in
question, when Toghill went in while Skae remained
on the outside, looking through the window. Pre-
sently the former came out again, and at once ran
across the road and went into White Lion-passage,
-whither he was soon followed by his companion. The
policeman, D 95, followed them into the passage, where
he took Toghill into custody,but not until something
had fallen from him. Another policeman, who was
near, having seen something dropped by the prisoner
Toghill, picked it up, when it proved to be the hand-
kerchiefs in question, which, on the boys (with the
property) being taken to the prosecutor's shop, were
identified by the prosecutor as those which he had
just lost.
Mr. Humus having been heard on behalf of
Toghill,
The Learned JUDGE said the facts were so few,
and the case was so clear, that, he did not think it
necessary to recapitulate the evidence.
The jury at once returned a verdict of Guilty
against both prisoners.
The Learned JUDGE said that it might appear
somewhat strange to the jury when he informed them
that that little boy, Tcghill, was one of the most
notorious thieves in London. There was, however,
another part of the present indictment as affecting
that bay, upon which, with a view to another pro-
ceeding, he must take their opinion. The prisoner
Toghill, in addition to the theft, was further charged
in the indictment with having been twice previously
convicted. Evidence would now be laid before the
jury to support that part of the indictment, and that
having been done, then he would ask them whether
that portion of the indictment had been sustained.
Mr. Maude, the deputy clerk of the peace, was
then sworn, when he produced the two previous con-

victio ns.
Lockyer, one of the officers of the Westminster
House of Correction, next proved that the boy at the
bar was the same boy as had been sent to that prison
under the convictions which had just been read.
The first time was on the 17th of August, 1847, when
he had been sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment
and to be once well whipped ; and the other time
was on the 10th of the same month, in the present
year, when he had been sent for one month, and also
to be: well whipped. On those occasions he had
come under his own name of Edward Toghill, but on
the 25th of August, 1848, he had been sent to that
prison fur three months, under, as in the last named
instance, a summary conviction, and to be well whip-
ped, when he came in as " James Smith."
The Learned JUDGE—Then he has been twice
summarily convicted to your prison at Westminster ?
Lockyer replied in the affirmative.
The Learned JUDGE then said that the questions
which arose out of this casa were of so much im-
portance in a public point of view, that he was
extremely glad to find that the boy was represented
by counsel. It happened that this was the first
conviction which had taken place in that court under
the new Act, and therefore, anticipating that such a
conviction would ensue, an application had been
made to the Secretary of State for the Home Depart-
meat, for the purpose of settling a point upon which
the Court had held some doubt—namely, as to
whether by the recent statute the jurisdiction of that
Court of Sessions had been taken away in such cases.
The reply to that application had been, that the
jurisdiction of the sessions had not been taken away.
However, notwithstanding that answer, such was the
state of the law upon the subject that he was most
anxious that the opinion of the Learned Judges
should be obtained in the matter. He saw that
the question was surrounded by so much diffi-
culty that he was desirous for the question to lee pro-
perly and fully argued before the Court above, for he
was greatly puzzled as to the mode of proceeding
under the statute. There was an Act which gave the
power of transportation for life in cases where evi-
dence was produced of two previous convictions. That
was the 7th and Bth of George IV., c. 28, s. 11, and
what he wanted was, that the whole question should
undergo a full argument, in respect of that and the
last Act ,before another tribunal.
Mr. Ilnanns was inclined to think that that Act
had been repealed as to the mode of giving evidence
of former convictions.
The Learned Junou.—Yes, that was so; the 6th
and 7th of William IV., c. all, no doubt repealed
that portion of the 7th and Bth of George IV., as to
the mode of giving evidence as to previous convic-
tions, for under that statute evidence of previous con-
victions was not to be given in the charge, or even
read to the jury, until after the finding of that jury of
a subsequent felony, except when evidence as to
character was given. But the difficulty which pressed
upon his mind was, as the law at present stood, whe-
ther he ought not to have sent the whole question
which the indictment raised to the jury at once, and
that he should not have left the one question only—
namely, the guilt or innocence as to the theft charged,
but that he should have called upon the jury to have
determined by their one verdict the two questions
which the indictment had raised in respect of the boy
Toghill. He would, therefore, with a view to the
matter being properly settled for the future guidance
of these sessions, grant a case to the Learned Counsel
in the matter of that boy, whom he would remand
until the next sessions, in order that the Learned
Gentleman might consider the course he should take.
Now, as to the other boy, Skae, he had been sum-
marily convicted as recently as the month of August
last, and he had also been convicted three or four
times previously. It was quite clear that he was a
very bad boy.
Mr. HUGHES said that he had had an interview with
the father of Toghill, who was a very respectable man
in his rank of life. He was the foreman at a tailor's,
and person. was a very industrious That father had
informed him that his son, so long a s he was with him,
was an exceedingly good boy, but that he had
managed to get hold of some bad connexions, and then
when he left home he was into these ' acts. The
truth was that he wasethe scapegoat of older
thrown
thieves, who havinghim
to into the scrape, es-
caped themselves, and left him get onasie might.
solicit the
The father had requested him toCourt‘ that
in any sentence it might pass upon his son it
so arranged as that the boy might be taught some
trade or handicraft, whereby he might, when his term
of punishment was over, be enabled to earn an honest
livelihood.
The Learned JUDGE—Just so ; the son to be
taught a trade, but not at the expense, or by the
efforts of the father, who had neglected him. He
could not conceive a more atrocious case than this
was. Here was the foreman to a tailor, with a good
situation, with only three children, so recklessly
neglecting one of those children, who as yet had only
reached the age of 11 years, as that in little more
than two years he had been committed to prison no
fewer than eleven or twelve times, and by the various
terms of his imprisonment of those two years he had
spent fourteen months in gaol, and now that father
bad instructed his counsel to say that the child bad