The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-21 00:00:00

The business in this court was over at seven o'clock.
CROWN COURT.—(Before Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.)
David Roberts was Indicted ior burglary on the 20th
o! May last in this city.

Mr.'Greaves and gr. Gray were for the prosecution;
and Mr. Cooke for the defence.

The prisoner is a young man of nineteen, and at the
time of the burglary was footman in the service of the
prosecutor, a Mr. Manta, an elderly gentleman, who re-
sided in a place called " the Commandery," in this city,
his household consisting of his wife and daughter, two
servant-women, and the prisoner. The house is large,
having a long hall running from one end to the
other, with a door at one end leading into the garden,
and at the other, to the carriageway. The drawing-
room and kitchen were on opposite sides of the hall
passace. On the morning of the robbery the
_cook got
up about five o'clock, and was surprised to find the doors
at both ends of the hall open, and secured so with mats,
her master's pocketbook a few yards outside the door
leading into the garden, and two silver candlesticks,
which had been left in the drawing-room over night, a
little further out. She looked up to her master's window
aid found it, too, open. She, thereupon, ran to the pri-
soner's door, and knocked him up. He was tan minutes
in dressing, and when lie was dressed he went to his
master's door and knocked at it, and told his master that
the house had been robbsd, who thereupon looked
particularly at everything about him, and found
that the window had been opened, and also
the door of his bedroom, and that his purse,
containing notes, gold, and silver, to the extent
of 901., had been taken. He thereupon expressed his
surprise how such a thing should have been done, when
the prisoner explained to him how easily a person on the
outside might have brought a ladder to the window (it
was on the first floor), and with a common dinner knife
open it, and pointed out the marks of a ladder on the
gravel below. The cook found, about the same time, a
dinner knife, that had been placed in a drawer in the
kitchen on the previous night, lying on the dresser in the
kitchen; and it was afterwards discovered that the lad-
der used by the burglar was the prosecutor's own. This
ladder lay in an outhouse near the door leading from the
hall to the garden; and the premises were so constructed
that if a stranger had used the ladder he must have taken
it round the house through the street, and then taken it
back again by the same direction; whereas an inmate
could with ease, and without observation, carry it in by
one end of the hall and out by the other. The prisoner
was not at first suspected; but he almost imme-
diately affected to be indignant at suspicions which he
said his master entertained of him, and on this ground
left the prosecutor's service in less than a week. In a
very short time he was found to be spending
money at a most extravagant rate, changing 5/. notes
in every direction, and spending half-sovereigns as
if they were coppers. He was then taken up,
and five 51. notes were found on him, and another
was traced to him. None of the money traced to him
was identified as the prosecutor's; but it so happened
that the notes lost by the prosecutor were all Bank of
England notes except one of the old Worcester bank,
and another of Farley's bank, and the sovereigns lost by
him were all old Victorias, whilst one of the notes traced
to him was of Farley's bank, and all the others were
Bank of England notes, and all the gold coins traced to
him were old Victorias. It further appeared that the
prisoner had ample opportunities of knowing where his
master left his money at night. The prisoner had
borne an excellent character for honesty.
Mr. CooKE, in addressing the jury for the prisoner,
contended that everything connected with the burglary
indicated the conduct of an experienced thief, and not
that of a mere innocent country lad, and submitted that
he was not called on to explain how the prisoner came
by the money with which he was found dealing till a
clear and otherwise unanswerable case was made out,
and that on the whole the prisoner was entitled to an
acquittal.

His LORDSWIP summed up.
Verdict—Guilty.

Sentence—Ten years' transportation.
This was the last case in this court; it occupied
several hours, there having been 33 witnQsses examined
on behalf of the prosecution, and was over about five
o'clo)ck.

Mr. Sergeant Allen assisted yesterday, and also this
morning in trying criminal cases, and Mr. Alexander
did so to day.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
MANSION- II 0 IJS E._
A boy, not 14 years of age, named Wm. Barber, who
is employed by Mr. Lee, of Leadeuhall- market, was
charged before Sir J. Pirie, by Mr. Thomas, the Se-
cretary to the Society for tne Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, with ill-treatiag two cats. The prosecution was
instituted at the suggestion of Mr. Cook, the C,,mmon
Councilman for the district in which the market is
situated.
The boy was seen, at an early hour in the morning,
amusing himself with dragging a cat along, which ap-
peared to suffer greatly from such rough treatment.
Expostulation, instead of abating the cruelty of the pri
soner, provoked him to more fierce violence, and he not
only lifted up and dashed the poor animal upon the
pavement, but leaped upon it and appeared to enjoy its
last agonies. Soon afterwards the brutal young fellow
was seen worrying another car, to finish whose existence
he had whistled for the help of a dog.
The case was considered to be peculiarly worthy of
the attention of the society, on account of the extraordi-
nary brutality of a boy of' such tender years.
Sir Joux Pisan expressed surprise at the statement,
and asked whether the.defendant was under any parental
authority.
The defendant's father stood forward and expressed
deep regret at the misconduct of his son, who had, he
said, been already sentenced by Mr. Lee, his master, to
the penalty of suspension for three weeks.
Sir J. PIRIE said, the notice which Mr. Lee had taken
of the offence was very creditable to that gentleman ;
but it was also the duty of the magistrate to prevent re-
petitions of such brutal conduct as far as was consistent
with his functions. The sentence, therefore, upon the
boy was, that he should pay a penalty of 21. 10s. and
costs, or go to Bridewell for seven days.
The father of the defendant said, it was out of his
power to pay the fine. Mr. Lee had already suspended
the boy, but had promised to take him back at the end
of three weeks in_consequence of his previous most ex-
cellent conduct.
Sir J. nem could not in such a case reduee the
amount of the penalty, and the defendant was committed.
WORS HIP-STREET.
A young man named Henry Bolingbroke was charged
with a desperate attempt at self-destruction.
Mary Anne Pryme stated, that she and the prisoner
had lived together as man and wife for a considerable
time past, and that latterly the prisoner had been re-
duced to a state of extreme distress and mental depres-
sion in consequence of his inability to procure employ-
ment. Witness had occasion to leave home on the pre-
ceding evening, and on her return at a late hour at
night she was horrified at finding the prisoner stretched
upon the bed in a state of stupor, and bleeding profusely
from a frightful wound in the upper part of the left
arm, evidently inflicted with a razor which was lying
open at his side. Nearly a quart of blood had poured
down upon the floor and became partially coagulated
under the bedstead, and there was almost an equal
quantity in a basin on a table by the side of the bed.
She immediately alarmed the other inmates of the
house, who called in two policemen and procured the
attendance of Mr. Mather, the divisional surgeon, who
dressed the wound and analied proper restoratives, and
the prisoner, for his own security, was conveyed to the
station-house.
Police. constable Watts, 115 G, stated that upon being
called in and interrogating the prisoner as to his motives
for the commission of the act, he sullenly evaded the
question, and pointed to the wall, on which the
initials of the preceding witness were distinctly traced
in blood, and followed by the words, " You are the cause
of this."
When called upon for his defence, however, the pri-
soner, who displayed the deepest despondency, said that
he had been reduced to the greatest destitution from
want of employment, and that that was the immediate
cause of his attempting his life, but that other circum,
stances, which he declined mentioning, had also combined
to render him weary of existence.
Mr. BROUGHTON said, it would be manifestly unsafe
to entrust the prisoner with his liberty in the frame of
mind he then exhibited, and he should therefore remand
him and direct his immediate admission into the infir-
mary of the prison, where his mental and physical state
would be properly attended to, and that in the course of
a week, when thoroughly recovered, he could be brought
up again,.and he would then consider what should be
done with him.
The prisoner offered no observation, and was removed
in the van.
Ellen Moriarty, alias Macarthy, who stood charged
upon suspicion of having caused the death of her land-
lady, a middle-aged woman named Catherine Lawson, in
llenrietta-street, City-road, was brought up for final ex-
amination.
No additional evidence calulated to throw light upon
the means by which the deceased came by her death was
now adduced than that brought forward before the co-
roner and at the previous examination at this court, and
the prisoner having declared that she had neither offered
any violence to the woman Lawson nor taken any of her
money, as alleged by some of the witnesses, and that the
reason of hor getting out of the cab before it reached the
deceased's door, and subsequently denying that she bad
ever been in the cab at all, was entirely the fright and
confusion she laboured under at finding herself suddenly
in the presence of the corpse of a woman she had just
before spoken to.
Mr. BROUGHTON said, that although the cirearn.
stances were undoubtedly suspicious, and had been
in some degree strengthened by the prisoner's own
t h h
dubious conduct, he did not feel himself justified
in sending her for trial on so serious a charge
upon the insufficient evidence which had been ad-
duced, and he should therefore discharge her, as it was
beimprobableen stated
that
hh
aa
tt
she
ey jhuardy
beenwould n convict;before
r e convicted,
but wouldeu
g
warn her to be careful of her future conduct, as it had
of minor offences.

CLERKENWELL.
James Wilson, a young man, was finally examined,
charged by Catherine Trussell, aged 23, with having
committed a rape. Mr. VV akeling, of St. John's-square,
attended for the prosecution; and Mr. Lofty, of the firm
of Lofty, Potter, and Son, of King-street, Cheapside, for
the prisoner.
The prosecutrix, a fine young woman, deposed that
she is niece of Mrs. Howe, of the Nag's Head, Gray's
Inn-lane, with whom she lived. The prisoner lodged
there, and mixed with them as one of the family. On
Thursday night, whilst she was in his bedroom, he came
up stairs to bed, and began to undress, saying he did not
mind her. She was about to leave, when be threw her
on his bed and effected his purpose. As soon as she
went down stairs she informed her stint and her cousin,
and the prisoner was turned out of the house, and a
warrant was applied for.