The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-21 00:00:00

CORONER—It is very evident to me that you have
been tampered with in the most unjustifiable manner,
and it is confidently stat-d that yollr master is the person
who has interfered with you. It appears that your
master is a person named Wisbey, and at the present
onent sitting in this room as a member of the jury.
Mr. Wisbey declared :hat he had said nothing to the
boy further than counselling him to tell the truth.
Mr. Spencer, a juryman, said—Mr. Wisbey, it seems
to me that you allowed your servant to take a liberty
with you which no servant of mine would dare to tube
with me. When that boy, John Chesham, left this
room on the last inquiry, he touched you on the arm,
looked up in your face, and smiled. You then said, " Well
done, boy, you did it very well."—(Much sensation
among the jury.)
CORONER (to Wisbey)—l have no doubt you made
that remark to the boy, and that could not have been
done without an object. It was a strong remark to
make, because it was the conviction of all present that
the boy had committed perjury. Has any one men-
tioned the subject to you ? Wishey—No.
CORONER—Not either of the Newports ? Wisbey—
No ; I never spoke to them on the subject.
CORONER--Have you not been up there occasionally
of an evening to talk about this subject ? Wisbey—
Yes, I may have been up there to talk about it sometimes.
CORONER—Was anything said about the boy ?
Wisbey—Not that I recollect.

A Juror—Did Thomas Newport say ant•thing about
arsenic? Wisbey—Yes, ha said something about it,
but I forget what.
Mr. Spencer, a juryman, expressed his conviction
that the conduct of Wisbey had been di,graceful, an i
that his criminality had been increased by the fact that
as a juror he had sworn to do justice.
Mrs. Chesham, the mother of the accused woman, upon
being recalled, declared that she had never said she was
not going to tell the jury all she knew about the deaths
of the two boys.

Mr. Spencer, a juror (addressing the witness), said—
Mr. Newport told me you had said so in the presence o:
fifty people._

Mrs. Chesham—lt is false, and Mr. Newport dares not
come here and make that statement while I am present.
The CGRONER said it now became his duty to offer to
the jury a few observations respecting the very import-
ant and mysterious inquiry in which they had been en-
L'aged, prior to the consideration of their verdict. They
had it clearly proved that the deceased Joseph Chesham
died on the 19th January, 1845, and his brother James
on the 2211 January, but three days afterwards. It had
also been provM beyond dispute that both these children
had died from the effects of arsenic, and it would be the
duty of the jury, if possible, to say how or by whom the
poison had been administered.

The evidence having been read over, the Court was
cleared, a•id the jury remained for a long time in deli-
beration, „hen

The CORONER said—From certain circumstances
which have h en disclosed, and of which until just now
I was perfectly iznorant, the jury as well ns myself feel
that a further aljourn aunt is necessary, in order that
videnco may be obtained, which will in all probability
prove of a very important and conclusive character.
The investigation was adjourned for five weeks.

A GANG OF SWINDLERS.
CAUTION TO MANUFACTURERS.
From the following particulars we are led to believe
that a family who have for many years been "dropping
upon" the merchants of Manchester, with great assiduity
and no less success, are trying another district and
another name. Having occasion to call on a friend, at
Littleborough, on business, last Thursday, our informant
found that a person of respectable appearance had been
there passing himself off as Mr. Henry, of the firm of
James Henry and Co., of this town, and, under such
pretence, obtaining samples of goods manufactured at
Littleborough and in the neighbourhood, which, on being
obtained, were taken to a car he had with him and car-
Tied away. Two cases were made out distinctly in which
this had been accomplished, and there is little doubt that
the parties victimised are not the only sufferers, though
at present other cases have not come to light. In one of
these instances an invoice of the goods was received, and
thus the affair assumed the complexion of a contract
debt, but in the other there was no such invoice passed,
and, therefore, a piece of swindling was complete. In
the one case four pieces of flannels, worth about 81. or
10/., were obtained ; in the other, three pieces of finer
texture, worth about 11/. or 12/. One of the persons
who had thus unwil tingly given up his goods to this Mr.
Henry. determined to pursue the fellow, and tracked him,
in company with a friend who entered into his feelings
heartily, and a police officer, to Halifax, where the
scheme developed itself. There the gang (for there can
be no doubt of more than one individual "conducting
the business") had, about five weeks ago, taken a ware-
house in a back street, but so situated with respect to
a train street, that in speaking of it they could say i: was
behind such a street, naming a well•knewn thorough-
fare, and thus gain a further appearance of respecta-
bility of position from the locality of the ware-
house. This pl ice Mr. Henry had had five weeks,
and had scarcely entered or been seen in it five
times since ,he took it, and when examined,
it was quite empty, the sample goods having taken their
departure to other premises. Farther inquiries showed
that there was another firm (suspected to be the same)
carrying on an equally advantageous business, and their
warehouse too was empty: in this second case the faci-
lities for transfer of goods were greater than in the first,
for there was a back door, which the other premises had
not. But the enterprising fellows hal not confined their
attention to Lancashire only, but seem to have practised
to some extent upon the unwary among the manufac-
tures at Nottingham, from which place large and heavy
bundles of lace and hosiery have been received per
railway. With the material thus obtained a shop was
opened for the sale of bankrupt stock, and an old woman
was employed to dispose of it; but this ramification of
their scheme has been closed, having no doubt proved a
highly profitable concern for the two months it was
open. One link in the chain of circumstantial evidence
proving these to be a pack of swindlers at work, is the
great eagerness displayed to get the various parcels into
their hands as they arrived per rail. A person was on
the spot almost- always, and teased the railway porters no
little respecting the goods, so much so, indeed, that it is a
wonder that in a town like Halifax suspicion was not ex-
cited, and the motions of the worthies watched. That they
are adepts at their work, and determined to stop at
nothing to compass their end, is proved by the manner
in which they victimised a too-confiding member of a
religious body. The unwitting man was called upon,
business was transacted, and an invite to breakfast given
and accepted ; the table was well spread, and, as it was
the host's practice to ask a blessing upon his food, the
swindler, knowing his man, with all the coolness imagin-
able, gratified the honest soul, by stringing together for
the occasion a number of very appropriate terms, eat his
breakfast, and then walked off with his ill gotten sam-
ples. These are the particulars we have at present, but
we understand the matter is in the hands of the indefa-
tigable gentlemen who conduct the business of the Man-
chester Guardian Society ; ani we would further im-
press upon our contemporaries in Halifax, Bradford,
Leeds, Wakefield, Nottingham, Derby, and other manu-
facturing towns, the duty of making the circumstances
known. If the party are they whom we suspect them to
be, we know them well ; they are very old birds--in
common parlance, they know a point or two, and are not
likely to be caught readily, so that the greatest security
to manufacturers will be found to ba cautiousness, and
the avoiding of ail connexion with such persons.—
Manchester Courier of Friday.

TEE MODERN TASTE FOR ANTIQUE FURNITURE.
—1 he furniture and the panels of rooms, in the Louis
XIV. style, of which there are so many examples in
the shops of deal rs, are remarkable for a degtee of
elegance to which at this day we seldom approach. It
is not only in their forms that these are to be admired,
but some of them have great beauty of design in the
arrangement of different kinds of wood and other
materials. We do not allude to the imitation of leaves
and flowers, by woods of different colours—a, curious
branch of art still practised, but which has never in our
mind a satisfactory result, but to the geometrical pat-
terns formed in the veneering. Mahogany and rosewood,
or mahogany and ebony, are frequently combined with
great taste, in a manner now seldom attempted, except
in professed imitations of old works.—The Builder.

of washing. himself with. He had often been in baths
before, but had never been complained of. He denit d
doing any intentional harm.
0 her evid,rice ww, then gi yen.. confirmatory of the pre-
ceding, io rppect, to the arnwmt of damage, and the pri-
soner was ordered to pay 4/. He did so, aid liberated.

POISONINGS AT CLAVERING.
ADJOURNED INQUEST. —The adjourned inquest into
the deaths of Joseph and James Chesham, the children
alleged to have been poisoned by their mother, was re-
sumed on Saturday morning at half-past ten o'clock,
before C. C. Lewis, Esq , the coroner, at the Fox and
Hounds.
The following evidence was adduced, in addition to
that which has already appeared in The Sun, respecting
this singular case:—
Mrs. Ann De.trdes was recalled—She hail omitted to
state that one day as she was passing Chesham's house,
the accused woman accosted her, and said, " I count I
shall seen hang upon Chelmsford gallows, and be buried
beneath it." This was after the death of the children.
Since that event Mrs. Chesharn had appeared wild and
cornired. her eves always appeared as though they were
starting out of her head, and she was constantly crying
about h r tioys.
Charles Cole, a labourer, was called, and manifested
great reluctance to bi ing sworn, repercediy declaring
that he "Know'd nothing about it." Having at length
been prevailed upon, he deposed, in answer to the coro-
ner, that he had had some conversation with John
Ch-shain, the see nd son of the accused woman, but
what passed on that occasion " had quite slipped out of
his memory."
James Low, a rateatcher, repeated his testimony that
the woman Chesham had asked him fer some arsenic,
but whether that was before or after the death of the
children he could not recollect, although he thought it
was before. He did not give her any, because he thought
he should not get paid for it.
A juror asked the surgeon who had attended the boys
whether fe had ever given the accused woman reason to
believe that the boys had died from inflemmatiori of the
lungs ?—The vurgeon said he had not.
Susan Green s!ated that on the Thursday night, pre-
vious to the last sitting of the jury, she heard the boy
John Chesham talk to Cole about the evidence he was
to give on the inquest. The boy replied, "Oh, I know
what to say, for my master has told me." Cole works at
Mr. Thomas Newports.—(Sensation.)
The boy John Chesham was conrronted with the wit-
ness, and denied that he made such a statement. He
said, " Coie spoke to rue, and told m to mind what I
said at the inquest. I mede no reply." No persuasion
or threats could induce him to say another word on the
subject.