The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-08 00:00:00

TT! E SUN. LONDON. MONDAY, FEBRUARY P., IQ4I

t flk the money without making any further demand, or
s lying anything about n❑ engagement f‘or six weeks, or
any other period._

The Le:trned Counsel did not call a❑y Witnesses.
Mr. Justice COLERIDGE having summed up the ev
dence, the Jury returned a verdict for the defendant.

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.

OLD COURT.

Richard Moore, aged 30, a person of very respect-
able appearance, was indicted for feloniously uttering a
forged note of the Salop Bank for 51., well knowing
the same to be forged, with intent to defraud Messrs.
Glynn and Co. There were five indictments against
the prisoner.
Mr. Doane appeared as counsel for the prosecution,
and Mr. Charles Phillips for the prisoner.
Mr. Doane, after stating the facts of the case, called
the following witnesses :
Thomas Cooke stated that he lived at No. 358,
Strand, and kept billiard rooms there. Witness knew
the prisoner. He was at the rooms on the 31st of
December last. He came in with a gentleman who
was in the habit of frequenting the rooms. The pri-
soner played at cards till about three o'clock in the
morning. At one time he had won money, but after-
wards continued to lose. The prisoner produced some
country notes. Witness did not see any other
person with such notes. In the course of the
evening witness lent the prisoner 38/. in Bank of
England and country notes, which had previously been
paid to gentlemen in the room by prisoner. None of the
country notes had been produced before the prisoner en-
tered the room. Witness lent the prisoner the money, and
received an I. 0. U. for it. Prisoner gave his address,
" Wright's Hotel, Strand." After the prisoner had left
the rooms, a gentleman paid witness some 51. country
bank notes, which he had taken from the prisoner.
Witness gave cash for nine of them. He kept the
notes until the following morning, when, in consequence
ce: some information, he went to Messrs. Glynn and
Co.'s, and afterwards to Messrs. Bush and Co., solici-
tors, where he found his wife was detained in custody.
In the evening, the porter at Fricour's hotel, St. Mar-
tin's-lane, brought witness a letter from the prisoner.
(The letter was here produced, and identified by the
witness.) Witness went there afterwards with Forrester
the officer, and the prisoner was then taken into cus-
tody. Cross-examined—His house is not a gaming.
house. It is not frequented by disreputable characters.
Hazard and cards are played there. It was kept
open all night. On the night in question the
prisoner played at 100. Witness did not know
the names of the gentlemen with whom the
prisoner played. They were in the habit of
frequenting his house, perhaps four nights in the week.
They were not regular gamblers, to his knowledge.
Believed people could cheat at 100. Had heard so.
Never saw it done. Played that night and lost. The
prisoner won at the beginning of the game, but after-
wards lost his winnings, and all the money he had be-
side. The prisoner lost 601. Witness was not in the
habit of sitting down with the company to play. The
prisoner left off play between three and four o'clock in
the morning. He did not know the addresses of the
gentlemen who played with the prisoner. Witness re-
ceived a letter from the prisoner in the morning, which
he afterwards gave to Mr. Bush, the solicitor for the
prosecution. It came by post.
Mrs. Cooke, the wife of the last witness, stated that
on the morning of the Ist of January her husband gave
her five 5/., country bank notes to take into the City to
get cashed. She took one of them to Messrs. Glynn
and Co.'s, and got it cashed. Two others she took to
Messrs. Barclay and Co.'s, and on requesting they
would cash them she was detained. An officer (For.
rester) was sent for, and she gave him the other notes.
Mr. Jahn Neesom, a clerk to Messrs. Glynn, Hali-
fax, and Co.; Robert Davis, a clerk in the Salop Bank ;
James Smith, a clerk in the Ross and Archenfield Bank ;
and Mr. John Aldis, a clerk in the Yarmouth and Suf-
folk Bank, proved that the notes were forged.
Daniel Forrester, the officer, stated that he was sent
for to the house of Messrs. Barclay and Co, on the let
of January. He saw Mrs. Cooke there, and detained
her, but afterwards went with her to her husband, from
whom he received some .information. In the evening
Cooke came to witness, and he and a man named Chap-
pell wont with witness to Fricour's Hotel. Witness
saw the prisoner there in the coffee-room. Witness
took him to a private room, and then told him that he
was an officer, and that he apprehended him for
passing forged notes. He said they were not forged,
they were fictitious. Witness put him into a coach,
and while there he said he had lost a great deal of
money. He had been ruined, and had taken those
steps to try to get it back. Chappell (who was a waiter
at a gaming-house) said " We have had none of your
money. You are a winner of us of 51." The prisoner
replied, " No, only 41. 10s." Witness received from
Mrs. Cooke two country bank-notes while she was at
Messrs. Barclay and Co.'s.

Mr. Bacon, of the firm of Messrs. Perkins and Co.,
engravers in Fleet-street, stated that he was in the
habit of engraving country bank-notes. The note pro-
duced was engraved from one of his plates. It was an
India proof taken from a genuine plate. It is usual
to take impressions on India paper, and those intended
for circulation were afterwards pasted on thin backs.
The others, which were for specimens, were on India
paper only.—( Witness here produced one of the notes
on a thick paper back.) An India proof in the state
in which it loft witness's office would not take ink. The
note produced had originally been pasted on thick
paper, which would make it stronger as well as take
ink. It had been afterwards taken off the thick paper.
By the Judge—When a new bank is about to be
established, the parties send to engravers for specimens
of notes. Those produced were, no doubt, specimens
that had been sent from witness's office to some
banker's who did not take care of them. Notes placed
on thick backs could easily be separated from them
afterwards. Since the present affair witness had never
sent out any notes as specimens that were not stamped
with the word " specimen."

The letter the pr:soner sent to Mr. Cooke was here
put io and relit. It acknowledged that the notes he
had paid him the night before were fictitious, and ho
had in ignorance taken them from an old school-fel-
low ; it cautioned Mr. Cooke against putting them in
circulation, and promised to exchange them for good
ones es soon as he was able.

Mr. C. PIIILLII'S addressed the Jury at great length
on the part of the prisoner, whom he described as
member of a highly respectable family in Ireland, and
said he had taken the notes question from a gentleman
in payment of a bet, and that the day after the pri•
soner had paid them away at the gaming-house, his
friend informed him that the notes were fictitious, upon
which he immediately wrote a letter to Mr. Cooke, cau-
tioning him against putting the notes in circulation.
Mr. Justice CowlA:6 summed up the evidence, and
the jury retired to consder their verdict. After an ab-
sence of an hour and a half, they returned into Court
with a verdict of guilty, but recommended the prisoner
to mercy on account of h s having endeavoured to pre-
vent the circulation of the notes immediately after he
had put thorn off.

Tho prisoner was again indicted for forging and utter-
ing two bank-notes, one for 10/. and the other for 5/.,
with intent to defraud the Directors of the Boston Bank.
In this case the prisoner paid away the notes in a
gaining-house in Liecester-square, where he lost, on the
night he did so, ;JSO/.

The Jury again returned a verdict of Guilty.
Mr. Justice COLTMAN sentenced the prisoner to be
ransported for fifteen years.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MAN SION-HOUSE.

THE WEST MIDDLESEX ASSURANCE COMPANY.—
Sir Peter Laurie came to the Justice Room while
he Lord Mayor was sitting, and called his Lordship's
attention to a great number of written and verbal com-
munications which he had received on the subject of the
atrocious frauds which he stated from the chair of the
Mansion-house, a short time ago, had been committed
by the individuals who called themselves " The Inde-
pendent West Middlesex Fire and Life Assurance Com-
pany." Since he had made that exposure as a Mag;s-
trate of the City, a vast deal of information had come
to his knowledge relative to the conduct of the manager
of the concern, principally through the medium of the
sufferers, and he was compelled to declare, that in all
his experience of wholesale villany, he never had heard
of any frauds which bore comparison with those prac-
tised by the fellows who conspired together to rob of
their whole means of support a great number of indus-
trious and aged and debilitated men and women.
The LORD MAYOR asked whether the cases of the
persons who had been so plundered were in the hands
of solicitors, or whether the managers of the Dompany
wesreirtio,. u
be found
?replied that the houses of Farquhar
and Co., in Broad-street, and of Bigg and Co., at the
\Vest-end of the town, were engaged by a number of
the claimants ; but he believed the directors and mana-
gers of the company were on the Continent. He had
every reliance upon the energy and ability of these
solid
citors, who, he supposed, had got hold by this time of
some property which had been purchased in the Edge-
ware-road, to the amount of some thousands, by one of
the directors, with part of the money which had been
received from some of the unfortunate annuitants. From
what he had beard from Mr. Farquhar, lie had every
reason to suppose that before the partners took flight
they shared considerably above 250,000/., and he be.
lieved that the annuitants who hail paid in most of
that money were many of them rendered completely des-
titute by the insolvency of the mock establishment.
The LORD MAYOR feared that, under existing cir-
cumstances, the office of a Magistrate, as regarded the
parties accused, could not be made available beyond
the mere unlimited exposure of the transaction, in which
he knew the press wonld most willingly assist.
Sir PETER LAURIE suid that he would read a letter
which he had just that moment received from a gentle-
man of Cheltenham. It was nothing in comparison
with some communications which he had received in the