The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-22 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

HEAVY SENTENCES AT DUBLIN.--The judges presiding
in the Dublin Commission Court (Morris and Lawson)
awarded several very heavy sentences, showing a determina-
tion to cope with the increase of serious robberies and crimes
with violence that have occurred of late. A man who
robbed two ladies, and presented a revolver at a policeman
who chased him was sentenced to penal servitude for five
years. A woman who had been eight times convicted of
stealing received seven years' penal servitude. A man
who had been four times in gaol was sentenced to the same
term of imprisonment for stealing a pocket-handkerchief,
Another man, a burglar, received seven years.

LIABILITY OF A COMPANY UNDER BILLS OF EXCHANGE.
—This question has been raised during the hearing of the
case of the Devonport Steam Flour Mills Company in the
Chambers of Vice-Chancellor Stuart. Two directors of
the company endorsed a bill of exchange for a quantity
of flour of the value of £362. The bill was
dishonoured, and the directors in question had
to pay the money, the repayment of which
they now claimed, the company being under
a winding-up order. The chief clerk held that the direc-
tors could not recover. The articles of association pro-
vided that no bill of exchange should be accepted, except
at a special meeting of the directors. There was no evi-
dence of any such meeting, and consequently the bill
was invalid. The directors must claim upon the bill, and
not in respect of goods sold and delivered ; and the former
being bad, they had no remedy.
EXTENSIVE ROBBERIES, A MILL MANAGER.—Thomas
Redfearn, a man respectably connected and employed
at the works of Messrs. M. Oldroyd and Sons, Dews-
bury, as manager of the cloth-drawing department, was
charged at the police-court in that town with stealing a
quantity of valuable cloth, the property of the firm. For
some months past pieces of cloth have been missed, but
though some of the workmen were suspected, no one thought
the accused was the thief. However, on Friday he was
seen to secrete a piece and to go away, but he was fol-
lowed, brought back, and his house searched, when in a
garret a large quantity of cloth was discovered. When
charged in the usual way, he said it was no use denying
what he had done ; he had taken cloth from time to time
for months past. The justice committed him for trial,
and refused to grant bail.
BOTTOMRY BONDS.—The Judical Committee of the
Privy Council heard an appeal from the High Court of
Admiralty in a cause of bottomry. The owner of the
Panama had not appeared, but the validity of the bond
was contested by a mortgagee. In the month of May,
1868, the appellants, Messrs. Barron and Harrison,
of Liverpool chartered the ship for a voyage to
Cuba and back. The vessel, having set sail,
put Into Queenstown in distress, and her master
having previously thrown overboard about thirty-five tons
of coal, part of her cargo, sold about forty tons more, and
remitted the proceeds to his owner. On arriving at Cuba
the master became in need of considerable sums of money
for ship's purposes, but neither he nor his owner bad
any agent or credit there. The charterers' agents there.
after deducting the value of the ceal, advanced all that
they were bound to do under the charter party, which was
considerably less than the vessel required, and for the
balance they took a bottomry bond on behalf of the
appellants. The owner and the appellants lived in
Liverpool, and the charterer's agents, before taking
the bond, telegraphed to the appellants, who,
however, never communicated with the owner, and
it did not appear that the master had given him any
notice. The Admiralty Court pronounced against the
bond because the bondholder had given the owner no
previous notice of the execution of the bond. Their
lordships were of opinion that the bond was invalid.
Without expressing any opinion as to the obligation of a
master to give notice to a mortgagee before giving a
bond, they considered that in this case the bond
was,nevertheless, invalid. It had been pressed in this case
that the owner was insolvent, but it did not appear that
he had been judicially declared so. Their Lordships
thought that until this were so he would be entitled to
notice, and when he had been found insolvent the commu-
nication should be to the assignees.—The appeal was
dismissed with costs.

Two inhuman parents, named Thomas and Alice
Maguire have been before the Liverpool magistrates for
cruelty to their child. In a room, destitute of furniture,
the child, two years old, was found lying on some dirty
chaff, the little creature being dirty and wasted so much
as to appear only eight months old. The parents were
out, but shortly came in drunk. Mr. Raffles has remanded
them.