The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-05 00:00:00

CRIMINAL COURT.—(T HIS. DAY.)
OLD COURT.
These sessions, the- sloth et tt:e present Mayoralty.
oOmmenced to-day before the Rec •rder. A lderm-ei Gabbs,
Bit. Chapman Marshall, and Sidney. the Sheriffs, &e.
According to the calendar as at press nt issued, th, re
are 219 prisoners for trial. Among the chares there
is one for murder, one for child steeling, seven for bur
glary, twenty for unlawfully uttering ceunterreit coil..
Cutting and with intent. six; emle zzlement, seven; for
gery and uttering ferg-ed instruments, nine; housebreak
jag and larceny, three; larceny, sixty-nine; larceny
a dwelling-house, ten; larceny from the person, twent)
four; larceny of servants, thirty-eight; letter-stealing,
one; manslaughter, two; misdemeanors, nine; receiving
stolen goods,-four; robbery, four; and robbery and felo
Piously assaulting with intent, one.
• The grand jury having been chosen and sworn,
The RE:corms:it proceeded to deliver his charge to
them. lie said that the calendar contained a list of
219 prisoners, a number which it was to be apprehended
Would be considerably augmented in the course of the
week, and before tiee termination of the labours of the
grand jury. The district over which the judgment of that
Court extended comprehending the whole of the county
• Middlesex, the ei.y and county of London, and
part of the counties of Essex. Surrey, and Kent, was
considered to contain a population approaching to nearly
two millions. Within that t ict the extremes of
wealth and poverty co-existed, and with them all the
temptations to I,ce and crime which multitudes pent up
in crowded habitations retired from view, real and
unsatisfied wants, oil examples, and uninstructed and
uneducated friends, could produce. It was, therefore, no
matter of astonishment that the grand jury of the
metropolitan district. should be assembled twelve times
in each year, awl occupied a week at a time in the pre-
liminary investigation of charges of every description
in the trials of off, rcPs of every kind, and that the
Court should also be occupied in the trial of charges of
every degree of enormity. The calendar presented
accordingly from session to session as in
the present instance, cases of murder, man•
slaughter, rape, robbery, cutting and wounding,
child-steeling, forgery of svritt,n instruments,
offences relating to the coin, larceny of every descripti, n
from the person, by servants, in the dwelling-house, and
of every shade and degree of distinction, and upon those
charges the grand jury were required to institute a pre.
liminary inquiry, to a'certaiu whether, upon the shewing
of the prosecutor and his witnesses, thete was such a
prima Ade case made as that it should be considered
fitting that the party accused should be put upon his
trial. There were those who had not hesitated to affirm
that the functions of a grard jury might be safely dis-
pensed with ; that this element in the administration of
public justice, the intervention of the country gentleman,
collected from the diffet eat parts of the c euniry,might be
safely excluded from the present system, and tribunal,.
erected to dispense among the people the criminal law of
the country. lie hoped and trusted that no grand
jury, summoned for the discharge of its high
and important duties would effect so little in furtherance
of the objects for which grand juries were instituted as
to encourage an opinion of its inutility to gain ground,
and to lead men's minds to the cenclusion that the hur
tied and preliminary inquiry conducted before the com-
mitting magistrate would be a sufficient warrant to place
any party accused at once upon his trial. The duties et!
the grand jury in many cases were undoubtedly plain
and simple, and frequently imposed upon the m the ne-
cessity of at once remitting the case from their investi-
gation to that of the petty jury ; but in all cases their
knowledge of the world seas brought to bear upon the
circumstances of each individual case, upon the working
of the system of the laws of the country, as applied to
adults, as applied to juvenile offenders ; capital and
secondary punishments ; transportation, imprison
went, their modes, their uses and abuses ;
The presentments of grand juries were not confined t.
bills found or ignored ; the prevention of crime, as well
as its punishment, entered into their humane and en-
lightened consideration ; their attention was directed
from time to time to the want and absence of systematic
education and restraint of the young in parochial dis-
tricts, the want of temporary homes, and occupied hours
of children, to the fact that many parents were called
away to their daily labour, the only means of subsistence
for their families, and grand juries contrasted the severitt
of punishment to which the young were liable with the
temptations to which they were exposed. The neglect
of parents might Le in part remedied by providing
education, restraint, and discipline to the children of
those parents during the hours of their necessary
absence and emi-loyinet,t from home, and those asylu-nn
provided the parents and guardians might be fairly called
upon to give security for the good behaviour of the
members of their families ; on the same principle ma-
gistrates might be empowered to dismiss the charge of
a first or trivial offence, on ti.e security of a master,
friend, or parent for the got d behaviour of a juvenile
offender. Sentences might be respited on the same
conditions, and a preventive system might be made to
supersede, what to strict minds might now appear a
harsh or vindictive systt m, disproportionate to the moral
guilt and aze of the offender. These were, however,
considerations to ia hich the Legislature must then be
fully alive, and the great second try punishments now
hitherto adopted' attended, according to circumstances,
With complete success or signal failure ; transportation,
with all the modifications of which it was susceptible.
penal or reformatory, must be inquired into, acted upon
ay experience, and dealt with as the most comprehensive
scheme, and the greatest experiments for good or for
evil, Is it effected the objects of punishment or reform,
and the character and the interests of this great country
and her colonial empire. The cases about to be brought
before the grand jury, though many of them bore a serious
aspect, yet, upon a careful perusal of the depositions,
did not, in his opinion, present any difficulty in point of
law, or in the application of the law to the facts disclosed.
There was a charge of murder, and also one of rape,
which would require to be put in the course of investi-
gation before the petty jury, and in order to avoid pre-
judice, he would confine himself to that observation as
regarded those cases. With regard to the charge of
child-stealing, that crime was defined and punishable
under the provisions of the 9th of George IV. Under
that statute the offence was punishable either by trans-
portation or imprisonment. In the case of cutting and
wounding, the instrument used, the act whether pre-
meditated or otherwise, the apparent provocation,
were all important ingredients in considering this case,
the intent being the gist of the charge constituting the
imputed felony. There were also several charges in the
calendar affecting the coin of the realm, others of obtain-
ing money under fale pretences, and of uttering forged
instruments, all of which it was the duty of the grand
tlry to deal with as they thought right. The cases of
larceny were numerous, but required no particular re-
mark from him. The Learned Judge, after shortly al-
luding to several other cases in the calendar, remitted
the grand jury to the discharge of their duties, observing
that if in any of the cases they found any unexpected
difficulty, the Court would render them any assistance
they might require. •
The Court then proceeded to swear in the petty jury.

WORSHIP-STREET.-(THIS DAY.)
A few days ago, a poor man, named Crowley, appeared
at this Court as complainant against a ruffian named
Chambers, who had broken his jaw. The case was fully
proved against the prisoner to be one of a most savage
and brutal description, and the latter was ordered to pay
a fine of 21. 10a. to the Queen, the Magistrate, however,
suggesting to the complainant that it would not, perhaps,
be imprudent, if he were to petition Sir George Grey
upon the subject. Chambers took the hint, and this
Morning he presented him ;elf at the office with an answer
to his petition from the Home Secretary, directing,' the
sitting Magistrate to hand to the applicant (Crow-
ley), who is still suffering acutely from the injuries he
received, the amount his assailant was mulct in, viz.,
21. 10s.

Crowley, who appears to be a quiet inoffensive man,
having received the money awarded to him, made his
grateful acknowledgments, and ihichdrew.

TEE REVENUE.—The accoun s of the quarter's
revenue will not be made up until to-night. We an:
glad to leatn'that they will exh bit a highly satisfactory
result. The Customs will show a considerable increase
over the corresponding quarter of last year. This pros
perous condition of the Customs duties is the more
gratifying when we take into account that no part of
the amount is made up of duties on the importation of
foreign corn, is hich formed so large a portion of the
revenue of the quarter ending the sth of January last,
during which quarter the 4s. duty, the lowest in the
reduced sliding scale, was in full operation. The present
flourishing condition of the Customs revenue is at once
the best imication of the healthy condition of our
foreign commerce, and the most conclusive testimony in
favour of the extensive reductions made to carry out the
principles of free trade. The Excise, too, holds its
ground, proving that, in spite of the partial distress and
destitution that prevail, and the dearness of so many
article: of necessary use and consumption, there is ne
diminution of employment, and that the working classes
are still in a condition to indulge in excisable articles.
The Property-tax shows no material alteration. These
are the great sources of income, and are all in a satis.
factory state. The Stamp Duties, too, prove that trade
is active, although they want the large railway transac-
tions of last year. The total amount of the receipts
for the year ending the sth of April, 1847, will afford
a very gratifying comparison with the year ending
April 5, 1846, or with any recent annual returns:—
Observer.

JENNY LIND AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE.--After a
great deal of coaxing and coercion, Jenny Lind arrived
safely on the stage of Drury-lane Theatre on Friday
evening, to the great delight of the manager, who had
been under serious apprehensions that " Jenny" would
not have fulfilled her contract uith him, or that she
might have walked off to another establishment.. Our
raiders must not suppose we refer to the famed Swedish
nightingale. The " Jenny Lind" in question is the
female elephant of Mr. Hughes's mammoth establish-
Itent, who has acquired that name in coesiquence of the
reluctance her elephai tine majesty dir„layed for some
days past to enter the theatre. All the delicacies " Jenny
Lind" loved so will were tried in turn to induce her to
follow the male, who runs about the theatre, up and
down platforms, like a kitten ; but after exhausting a
grana.y in corn and a refinery in sug:r, the suuviter in
mode was abandoned for the J ortitr in re, and by break-
ing through a wiudow in Lade Russell street, " Jenny
Lind," atter some pointed retnurks from the keeper,
walked on the boards with great dignity, to make her
debut this evening.
NEW TowNs.—A contract for one thousand houses
has lately been entered into, to be built at Stritrerd,
chiefly for the convenience of persons in the employment
of the Eastern Ctunties Railway, who intend to remove
their workshops and manufactories there, and to call it
Stratford New Town. Prt parations are also being made
for the erectionof a large numberot houses on an eligible
rite near the next station on the line at Ilford, to which
the name of Ilford-on-Railway will be given.