The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-17 00:00:00

EDINBURGH CHARTIST TRIALS,

THE CASE OF CUMMING.
The High Court of Justiciary proceeded on Wednes-
day with the trial of James Cumming, shoemaker, who
was charged with the statutory crime of contravening
the Crown and Government Security Act, and :with
the offences at common law of conspiracy and sedition.
As soon as the Judges had taken their seats on the
bench,

The LORD ADVOCATE rose and said that, after due
consideration, he had come to the resolution to abandon
the case against the prisoner, who was accordingly dis-
missed from the bar.

It is understood that the Lord Advocate was reduced
to the necessity of taking this course from the imper-
fect manner in which the case had been got up by
some of the officials. One of the principal charges in
the indictment was that Cumming had taken the chair
at a meeting held in the Trades Hall of Edinburgh
for the purpose of enrolling a national guard, the
object of which was to compel, by force and violence,
an alteration of the laws and constitution of the
realm, by procuring and using guns and pikes in order
to levy war. It has now transpired that the Cumming
who was in the chair at this meeting was not the priso-
ner, but a near relative of his ; and the mistake, it is
said, of confounding the one with the other arose not
from any fault on the part of the policemen who were at
the meeting in plain clothes, but from the circumstance
that, in taking their depositions, the officials had, by
some singular oversight, omitted the important step of
allowing the policemen to identify the prisoner. Seeing
that without this material point it would be difficult to
establish such a case as would be sufficient to obtain a
verdict against the prisoner on such an indictment, the
Lord Advocate, with a wise discretion, resolved to de-
sert the indictment altogether. This must have been a
very disagreeable duty to his Lordship, when it is con-
sidered that a severe legal contest, which lasted for a
couple of days, had been previously undergone by him-
self and the other Crown counsel, in order to establish
the relevancy of the indictment. The other charge
against Cumming was, that he had written a letter to a
person in Glasgow, which, by some mistake, had fallen
into the hands of another party, giving an account of
the clubs in Edinburgh, the number darms that they
had got, and the warlike spirit which animated their
measures.

AS7RONOMICAL INTELLIGENCE.—Saturn has lately
been appearing in public without his rings, and has occa-
sioned much animadversions among the other planets,
who accuse him openly of having pawned them!
(Shabby I)—Punch.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
ROLLS' COURT, Nov. 16.
THE ATTORNEY•GENkRAL V. THE MAYOR AND CORPO,

RATION OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
Mr.. TURNER (with whom was Mr. MAULE), on behalf
of the Attorney-General, asked leave to file exceptions
to the answer of the defendants. A demurrer had been
put in, and had been overruled, and the time for filing
exceptions had expired.
Mr. BETHELL (with whom was Mr. RANDELL) said
that this was an application to the discretion of the
Court. An answer had been put in, and no exceptions
taken. As that had not been done it was too late to
complain that the answer was insufficient.
Lord LANGDALE said he did not wish to impute a liti-
gious objection to the defendants; the question was not
whether he should grant an indulgence to the Attoraey-
General, but whether he should deprive him of his right.
lie considered this as an application of course, and must
grant it.

SHERIFFS' COURT, Nev. 16.
(Before Mr. Under-Sheriff BURCHELL.)

HOLMES V. THE SOUTH-WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY,

In this case, which had not concluded when our report
left, the jury retired at four o'clock, and, after an ab-
sence of snore than an hour, returned into court with a
verdict for the plaintiff for the full amount, 61. Os.,
on the ground that there were no specific fines in
the rules.

The Learned UNDER-SHERIFF, on the suggestion of
Mr. Helps, asked whethor, in the opinion of the jury,
the plaintiff had broken any of the rules.
Several members of the jury said that they found that
he had not broken the rules; some others said the ques-
tion was not decided.

The verdict was then recorded as given. The case
occupied the Court until past fire o'clock.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
GUILDHALL.
Yesterday Mr. Char's Mayer, of 26, Mark-lane,
merchant, was summoned before Mr. Alderman Gibbs,
under the following circumstances:—
From the evidence of Mr. Lewis Hermanny, of Ham-
burgh (through his 'interpreter, Mr. Charles Sturm, of
St. Bennett's-place), it appeared that in the early part
of September last the defendant entered into an arrange-
ment with the complainant to be supplied with gold
chains, brooches, trinkets, and other things, to the
amount of between 5001. and 6001. At the time it was
agreed that he (the defendant) was to take half on his
own responsibility, for which he gave two bills, of three
and six months respectively, and the remainder were
to be forwarded overland to Calcutta, and if not dis-
posed of then they were to be returned at the end of
twelve months. The articles were forwarded on the
Bth of September, by the John Bull steamer, but
shortly after, in consequence of the bills returning to
Hamburgh from London protested, he brcame anxious
about his property, and at once came to this country.
When he called on Mr. Mayer he said he should
like to have his property back, upon which the
defendant said he could not have it as it had
already been shipped on board the Colombo, Captain
Ritchie, for Calcutta. The complainant then asked for
something as a collateral security in case the bills were
not taken up; when Mr. Mayer gave him a warrant for
two cases of goods, which he represented were worth
1501., but on going to examine them afterwards they
were found to contain nothing but bunting. The war-
rant was given to him on Monday last, and on Tuesday
the defendant said that as he had been at so much trouble
coming over he would pay his expenses, and give him
201. On Tuesday afternoon he discovered that the goods
were lying at Nicholson's Wharf, in the name of Brown,
and that when they were so deposited a delivery warrant
was given which would enable the parties to sell the
goods i❑ this country. Under those circumstances the
defendant was summoned.
Mr. Humphreys cross-examined Mr. Hermanny at
some length, but did not succeed in materially altering
the above facts.

Alderman Gums asked Sir. Humphreys what deflonee
he had to make?

Mr. Humphreys said he contended that the goods
were not obtained under false pretences, and even sup-
posing they had, the transaction took place at Ham-
burgh, which was not within the jurisdiction of the ma-
gistrates here. Whatever happened in London, or
anywhere else, was not a false pretence if used after
the goods had been obtained. If at the time of ob-
taining,a false representation had been made, then it
woul d b
e very different; but there was no proof of that.
If any proceedings were taken at all it should be at
llamburgh. He also wished further to impress on the
mind of the Alderman, that according to the law of evi-
dence laid down in " Archbold's Criminal Proceedings,"
any false representation of what shall be done hereafter
is not in law a false pretence, but a mere promise of
future conduct. To amount to false pretence, the misre-
presentation must relate to some existing or past fact.
Alderman GIBBS intimated that it approached the
51st section of Peel's Act, which forbade an agent to
appropriate to his own use the goods of a principal. Ile
should like to hear from the persons at Nicholson's
Wharf all that had taken place with respect to these
goods; and therefore the case stood remanded until to-
morrow (this day), but he should require Alr. Mayer to
enter into his own recognizaece of 200/., and one surety
of 1001., for his appearance.
The required bail being given, the defendant was
allowed to depart.
BOW-STREET.
ROBBERIES BY A SERYANT.—Yesterday a young fe-
male. named Anne London, who had been within the last
few days in the service of Mr. John Cooke, of Cumber-
land-grove-place, Camberwell, was brought up in the
custody of Thompson, a serjeant of the F division, and
placed at the bar, charged with the following robberies:—
Mrs. Fulley, landlady of the Salisbury Hotel and
Coffee• house, in St. Martin's-lane, stated that the pri-
soner came to lodge at her house on Monday week last,
and left on the Saturday following, without, however,
giving any notice of her intention. There was no other
lodger in her house at the time, end in the afternoon she
missed the time-piece produced, value 305., from a room
iu the upper part of the house.
llcury Wood, pawnbroker, G 4, High-street, Blooms-
bury, said that the time-piece was pledged to him on
the 11th :instant for 3s. by the prisoner, who gave the
name of Anne Smith, and said it was her property.
Serjeant Thompson proved that when he apprehended