The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-13 00:00:00

WORSHIP-STREET.

John Larney and James Lepine, one aged but ten
years, and the other scarcely a twelvemonth older,
and both diminutive for their respective ages, were
charged with committing a series of robberies at the
shops of various tradesmen in the neighbourhood of
Hackney.
Police-constables Clarke and Francis, of the N
division, were passing through the Cambridge-heath-
road at five o'clock on the preceding evening, when
they met the two prisoners, who were evidently
trying to avoid observation, and noticing that Larney,
the youngest, had something bulky secreted beneath
his jacket, they stopped and searched him, and dis-
covered a lady's shawl, of a valuable description and
nearly new, rolled up in a bundle, while concealed in
his trousers were a new pair of women's shoes and a
pair of French clogs. Larney accounted for his
possession of the articles by stating that they had
been given to him by his componion to carry for him,
and :the other said that he picked them up in the
street, but from subsequent inquiries they had ascer-
tained that each of the articles formed the produce of
a separate robbery.
Mr. James Abbott, a dyer, in Mare-street, Hack-
ney, identified the shawl, which he said was worth at
least two guineas, and stated that he had seen it safe
behind the counter less than two hours before the
prisoner's apprehension, and the theft had been com-
mitted so cleverly he had no notion he had been
robbed until, to his surprise, the officers brought the
shawl back for his identification.

Mr. Richard Cole, a haberdasher in Sussex-place,
in the same neighbourhood, recognised the shoes
produced as his property • they must have been stolen
about the same time as the shawl from Mr. Abbott's,
but, as in that person's case, he was not aware of his
loss until asked if the shoes were his.

It was intimated by the constables that if a remand
were granted they should be able to establish one or
more other charges against the prisoners, one of
whom had been before in custody, and the other wa
known to have been for a long time past a most inde-
fatigable young thief,:and generally effected his robbe-
ries without suspicion by watching the shopkeeper
out of his shop, then darting in with a box of lucifer-
matches, which he presented for sale with a distressed
tale and face if detected, and if not, disappeared with
whatever he could lay his hands on.
Alderman, the gaoler, proved that Larney, young
as he was, had been twice previously convicted of
felonies, and each time sentenced to a lengthened term
of imprisonment, both of them having occurred since
the month of March last.

The prisoners now mutually recriminated upon each
other, each declaring that his confederate had stolen
the goods and handed them to him, while the other as
stoutly denied it, and
Mr. HAMMILL at length ordered them both to be
committed eupon the two cases at present gone into,
and directed them to he brought up again for the pro-
duction of the others deposed to by the officers.
A morose-looking fellow named Joseph Jebb, a
marine-store dealer in Spitalfields, was next charged
with the following brutal conduct to his wife :
The wife, whose clothes were much stained with
blood, and who exhibited a fearful triangular cut
across one of her eyes, sufficiently deep to admit the
end of a finger, said that her husband had been for
a long time past in the habit of beating her cruelly
with a rope as thick as her wrist, and having on the
night before refused to allow her to go to bed, and
compelled her to sleep on the floor, on the following
morning suddenly seized her, without the slightest
provocation, by the neck, beat her about :the head
with his fists until she was stunned, and finally struck
her a blow in the face, which produced the cut then
visible, and which she felt satisfied must have been
inflicted with some instrument. Her husband was
then proceeding to beat her with the rope before-
mentioned, but was deterred by a neighbour whom
her cries of " murder " had alarmed, and she availed
herself of that opportunity to escape into the street,
and place herself under the protection of the police.
The prisoner generally denied all that had been
stated against him, but the magistrate gave no cre-
dence to his assertions, and sentenced him to pay the
full penalty of 61., or two months' imprisonment, and
in addition to put in bail for his good behaviour for
the next three months.
He could not do either, and was carried off in the
van.