The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-06 00:00:00

CRIMINAL COUR_II.77(THIS DAY

OLD COURi.
(Before the COMMON SERGEANT.)
Thomas Roberts, aged 25, described as a gardener,
was indicted for feloniously cutting and wounding
George Hester, with intent to do him some grievous
bodily harm.
The prisoner was not defended by counsel.
It appeared from the evidence of the prosecutor, who
is a maltster and brewer at Fulham, and whose face was
partially covered with sticking-plaster, that on the
morning of the 20th of February last the prisoner en.
tered the prosecutor's public-house in a state of intoxi.
cation, and became very noisy. The prosecutor at-
tempted to put him out, and succeeded in ejecting him
from the house. As the prisoner went out the gate
post caught his knee and tripped him down; he then
pulled out his knife and began scraping the dirt off his
clothes, and whilst he was doing that be struck the pro
secutor, who was standing by, in the faee with the knife,
and inflicted a severe wound.

A man standing by corroborated the prosecutor's
statement.

The prisoner, in his defence, admitted that he struck
the prosecutor with a knife, but denied that he did it in-
tentionally, and pleaded that he was in liquor at the
time.

The COMMON SERGEANT told the jury that people
c.,uld only judge of a man's intentions by his acts, and
fl was in evidence that the prisoner struck the prosecutor
in the lace with a knife.

The jury fouLd the prisoner Guilty, but recommended
him to mercy; and

The Commost SERGEANT sentenced him to imprison-
ment for nine mouths with hard labour.
Sarah Crosby, a tidy good-looking young Irish girl,
aged 18 years, was placed at the bar, charged with felo-
niously stabbing, cutting, and wounding John Smith,
with intent to do him some grievous bodily harm.
The prosecutor, a policeman, deposed that about eight
o'clock on the evening of the 31st of January, he
whilst on duty, walking past the Refuge for the Desti-
tute, and the prisoner was coming out of the door, she
having been there seeking a night's lodging. It would
appear that the rules of the society are that the reci•
pients of its bounty can only sleep in the house one night.
The prisoner had slept there on a previous occasion,
and on being told that she could not stay in the house
over night again, she began to create a disturbance,
which the prosecutor came up to quell, and during a
scuffle whith ensued the prisoner pulled out a penknife,
which she had concealed in her bosom, and stabbed the
prosector with it under the arm, inflicting a punctured
wound half an inch deep.
The prisoner made;a long statement to the jury, in
a rich Irish brogue, denying that she had inflicted the
wound upon the prosecutor, and complaining that he had
used her unnecessarily ill, having, among other ill-
treatment, kicked her in the breast.

The jury found the prisoner Guilty, and
The COMMON SERGEANT, in passing judgment, told
her that it was absolutely necessary for the safety of
society that the lamentably frequent offence of stabbing
with a knife should be put down, and he thought her's
was a very proper case of which to make an example.
It would only have been common gratitude on
her part on coming to this country in a
friendless and penniless condition, to have deported her
self in a peaceable and becoming manner whilst partici-
pating in the bounty of the Refuge for the Destitute;
but, instead of that, she was found creating a breach of
the peace, and on the prosecutor, in the discharge of his
duty, attempting to put an end to the disturbance, she
bad deliberately stabbed him with a knife. The sentence
of the Court was that she tie transported for seven years.