The Sun.
London, England, 1840-05-12 00:00:00

CRIMINAL -::.-..:':,r7:::-r. (75:1-I,Ls •...;.,:%.';'.)

OLD COURT,
Thomas Laroche, aged 2J, was indicted for assaulting
upon the Queen's highway, Gaarlotte Augusta Charles,
putting her in fear, and taking from her person a reticule,
handkerchief, and other articles, her property.
Mr. Ballantine appeared for the prosecution, and Mr.
Payne defended the prisoner.
Miss Charles deposed that on a Thursday afternoon, in
April, she was walking near St. Giles's Church, where
she observed the prisoner, who ",tares" at her, and the
was certain he was :he same person. When she had walked
a short distance, the prisoner came up to her, and seized hold
her reticule, but the string being tied round her arm, he
could not get it away until it broke by the violence he
used, and the prisoner then ran away with he reticule
and its contents, a handkerchief, purse, a sovereign, and a
shilling. ."3`,e gave information of the robbery, and the
prisoner was apprehended tvo hcurs afterwards, and she
immediately identified him as the same person who had
robbed her.

The witness wan cros -examined by Mr. PAYNE, but she
persisted in her statement that he was the man.
A police constable proved that he appreheAcd the pri-
soner from the description given by the prosecutor. He
denied that he knew anything of the robbery, and sail
that he was in bed at the time it was committed, in another
part of the town. None of the property was found.
Mr. PAYNE addressed the Jury, and calied a witness,
who said the prisoner had worked tor h:m for five years.
The Jury found the prisoner Gu;lty ; the Foreman at the
same time said that the Jury were sorry that they were
compelled to return such a verdict.
The COMMoN SERJEANT—Sorry ! gentlemen. It is
your duty to do so, if you think he is the man who com-
mitted the offence. Why should you be sorry?
FOREMAN—We are sorry at being compelled to place a
fellow-creature in the situation he will be placed by a ver-
dict of guilty.
CoMMON SERGEANT—YOU do not place him there.
Ho has placed himself in the situation by his own mis-
conduct.

1,, jury then returned their verdict in the usual form.
The COMMoN SERGEANT observed that upon the evi-
dence then., cou!d be no doubt that this was a proper ver-
Wet. It was a monstrous thing tha a lady could not ...mil;
along the streets in such a metropolis as this without being
,übj,-,ct to such an outrage as the present : and it was the
duty of the Court to mark their sense of it by directing
him to be transported for ten years.
Thomas Morris was i.,,iicted for stealing a wooden bowl,
containing ss. in silver, the property of Matthew Wode,
t and Robot Lacey stood indicted for aiding in
the theft.

It was proved that Morrie had stolen the tn)ney by
ivaning over the bar of the puoiic-house, and it VOR3 at-
N:smpted to be shown that he had handed it to the other
prisoner.

Lacey was acquitted, and Morris was found guilty, and
sentenced to Seven years' transportation.
Cornelbis Mine!' was indicted for stealing ss. the pro-
perty of John Levi.

The prisoner entered the shop of Levi, while Levi was
it (hurler, and took the money from the till.
He was found guilty, and sentenced to six months'
hard labour,

Juseph Harris was indicted for attempting to pick a
gentleman's pocket of a handkerchief.
The prisoner, who was a young lid, and who hld been
before punished for a similar offence, was found guilty, and
sentenced to ten years' transportation.

MONEY and COMMERCIAL NEWS

CITY, TWELVE O'CLOCK.
The Ranger Packet has arrived with the Jamaica mail,
faded, from St. Thomas's April 1; Cape Henri, April 5.
By the above packet we have received Jamaica Papers to
the 31st March.

(From the Morning Journal.)
" We published in our last a message from his Excel.
lency the Governor to the Houle of Assembly, on the sub-
ject of the import duty on British manufactured goods.
This message is accompanied by sundry correspondence
which has passed between the Secretary of State for the
Colonies and the Board of Trade. From this correspond.
ence we conclude that there is still a great unwillingness
in the mother country to impose a duty on British manu-
factured goods."
Captain Higginson brought down three Messages from
his Excellency the Governor, embodying copies of de-
spatches received from the Government to his Excellency,
relative to the above subject, to the advAntages of trans-
portation in lieu of local imprisonment, and to the grant of
a hulk as a prison ship.