The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-26 00:00:00

COURT OF ALDERMEN.

THE GLOUCESTER, ABERYSTWITH, AND
CENTRAL WALES RAILWAY.
A Court was held on Saturday for the purpose of
hearing and determing upon a complaint made against
brokers of the City of London. The proceedings,
which occupied the Court till six o'clock, attracted a
number of gentlemen who have been engaged in the
railway share market.
Alderman COPELAND presented the following memo-
rial to the Court:—
" The humble petition of Joseph Franklin Rose, of
60, Stamford- street, in the parish of Christchurch,
in the country of Surrey, Showeth,
" That on or about the 10th day of October, 1845,
your memorialist employed Messrs. Rochas and Son, of
No. 6, Bank-chambers. Bartholomew-lane, sworn bro-
kers, to purchase for your memorialist 100 shares in the
Gloucester, Aberyatwith, and Central Wales Railway,
at the then market price, which shares they bought
accordingly, and charged your memorialist for the same
the sum of 312/. 10s., being a premium of 1/. 15s. per
share, as appears by the ticket delivered to your me-
morialist.
" That about the 14th day of October, 1845, your
memorialist again employed Messrs. Rochas and Son, to
purchase other 100 shares at the then market price, in
the same railway company, which they also bought and
charged your memorialist for the same the sum of 3501.,
being a premium of 2/. 2s. 6d. per share.
" That your memorialists paid the above-mentioned
sums for the said shares in the said company, at the
respective times of the purchase thereof, and received
scrip for the said shares, in the belief that the purchases
were bond fide made by the said Messrs. Rochas and Son,
as brokers, and at the prices charged to your memorialist.
"That your memorialist, subsequently wishing to be
informed of whom the said shares had been purchased,
made application both personally and by his solicitor, to
Messrs. Rochas and Son, to produce their books, or
copies of the same, in which the purchases of the said
several shares were entered and recorded. That not-
withstanding such application, the said Messrs. Rochas
and Son refuse to comply with the requisition of your
memorialist by withholding the information required in
respect to the purchase of the said shares, as aforesaid,
which information your memorialist respectfully submits
he is entitled to receive, and that the Messrs. Rochas
aid Son, are bound to give, in pursuance of the obliga-
tion imposed upon them by the condition of a certain
bone given by the said Messrs. Rochas and Son, to the
Corporation of the City of London, under and by virtue
of which they are constituted and empowered to act as
sworn brokers of the said City of London.
" That your memorialist, under the foregoing circum-
stances, is induced to pray the aid of your Lordship, and
Aldermen of the City of London, to compel Messrs.
Rochas and Son to submit their book or books, contain-
ing the original purchase of the said shares in the said
railway company, for the inspection and examination of
your memorialist and his solicitor, and also to satisfy
them that the same shares were fairly and honestly pur-
chased by the said Messrs. Rochas and Son, and that
they were themselves not the holders and sellers of the
said shares, or any part thereof, and otherwise to aid
your memorialist in the premises as to your wisdom shall
seem meet and proper,
"And your memorialist will ever pray."
Mr. Rochas, ja appeared at the bar to answer the
charge, and stated that his father, the head of the
firm,
w
was in Switzerland, and that the duration of his absence
was uncertain.
Mr. Bramwell, the barrister, attended for the de-
fendants. Mr. Rose attended, with his solicitor, to
prosecute.

Mr. Bramwell, when the memorial was read, sad
that in order to put an end to the business, and to save
the time of the Court, he was ready, upon the part of
the defendants, to let Mr. Rose examine the books, and
to give him all the information he required ; those books,
and that. information having been withheld only because
the application had been made through an attorney in
the first instance.
Mr. Rose's solicitor said that both he and his client
had applied for the books and the information both per-
sonally and by letter, but they received no satisfaction,
and to the last letter not even an answer was returned.
Alderman COPELAND said it was too late to make such
a proposition. The Aldermen sat in that court to see
justice done. The complainant had applied for what
the bend of Mr. Rochas, sen., showed he was entitled to.
The court must proceed with the investigation.
Mr. Rose was then sworn and examined by the RE-
CORDER.—IIe stated in detail what the memorial con-
tained in substance, and stated that he employed both
Mr. Rochas. sen., and Mr. Rochas, jun., in the purchase
of the shares, and he paid for them on the presumption
that the purchase was a bonafide one.
The REcoanwn, perceiving that Mr. Rochas. jun ,
had not entered into bond as a sworn broker, observed
upon that fact, and said that the tickets were signed
Rochas and Son, of which he desired an explanation.
Mr. Bramwell said it would be absurd to attempt to •
conceal the fact that Mr. Rochas, jun., was not a sworn
broker. It was decidedly wrong in that gentleman to act
as a broker without being one ; but he had acted in
ignorance, and therefore, as far as that was concerned,
he was at the mercy of the Court. That circumstance,
however, had nothing to do with the subject of the
complaint, Which was ready to be rectified by the ex-
hibition of the books.

A long cross•examination of Mr. Rose was then com-
menced by Mr. Bramwell upon the particular transac-
tions which had taken. place.
Lieutenant-Colonel Bateman stated that he accom-
panied Mr. Rose to the office of Rochas and son, and
gave a detail of the conversation which took place
on the subject of the purchase of the shares, and refusal
to give the necessary information, or to show the books
containing accounts of the dealings.
Ultimately the Court came to the following decision :
—" That the City solicitor be instructed to put Mr.
Rochas', sen., bond in suit for permitting his son to act as
broker without having him admitted, and for refusing to
give the information which he was under obligation to
on the application relative to the shares ;
give by his bond, and in accordance with the duties of a
shwut"tnhabroker,thequestion of Mr. Rochas', sen., suspsnsi,m
or diSmissal from the office of a broker be postponed until
that defendant should have an opportunity to appear
before the Court. And, also, that the City
solicitor be
instructed to proceed against Mr. Rochas, jun., for hav-
ing acted as a broker without having been admitted."
The case, as might be expected, excited a great deal of
interest and curiosity.

EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF
MURDER AND SUICIDE.

- -
On Wednesday, the 30th day of September last, George
;Maley, of Great Gonerby, in the county of Lincoln,
labourer, brought to his father's house, at that place, a
girl named Mary Hill, aged about nineteen, who stayed
with him there till Thursday, the Bth instant, and on
that day, during his absence, she left the house. On
finding that to be the case, he left home the same even-
ing, saying he should be back in an hour and a half,
but never returned. On the following Tuesday morning,
the 13th instant, information was given to the police at
Sleaford, about fourteen miles from Great Gonerby, that
a man had poisoned himself at a beer-shop there called
the Plough, and an inquest was held on the body on the
following day by Mr. George Kewney,
one of the coro-
ners for Lincolnshire, when the deceased was identified
as the George Healey before named ; and from the evi-
dence it appeared that he hail come to the Plough on
Sunday evening very wet and without a hat, and said
that his hat had blown off in Belton fish-pond, which is
twelve miles from Sleaford, and he had fallen into the
was a good deal in bed, hut came down
occasionally ; and at various times of the day employed
different little boys to fetch him two pennyworths of
laudanum, which he put into a sodawater bottle which
and water
on in
Monday trying to get it out. He stayed at the Plough,
he had borrowed, saying he was going to take physic.
In the evening of Monday he was sitting with the com-
pany in the house, drinking and amusing himself, when
three boatmen came in, and one of them said to one of
the company, " That's the fellow we pulled out of the
river last night ;" on hearing which he withdrew from
the room and went to bed, and in the morning was dis.
covered dead, and the sodawater bottle under the mat-
tress with the remains of the laudanum in it, and a small
phial which he had sent for the poison, to disarm suspi-
jcion, in his pocket. After hearing the evidence, the
ury returned a verdict of felo de se; and the Coroner
directed the police to look out after the girl, as the man
was a very bad character, and she had not been heard
of since she had left her father's house. On Thursday,
the 15th instant, the body of a woman was discovered in
the river Witham, in the lordship of Harroby, close to
Grantham, and immediately adjoining the garden of Mr.
were brou to light. It appeared that after Healey
Kewney, the coroner, fourteen miles from Sleaford, which
turned out to be the body of the woman in question, and
had evidently been in the water some days ; and an in-
quest was held before the same coroner on Friday, the
16th instant, when the most remarkable circumstances
ght
left his father's house he went to Lincoln in search of
the girl, and not finding her there he returned on Friday
to Fulbeck, about 11 miles from Grantham, where he
discovered she was with an aunt. He then went to the
constable's house, and in his absence borrowed the con-
stable's staff and handcuffs, stating he was the constable
of Great Gonerbv (which was totally false), and was
going to take a woman into custody for stealing silver
spoons and sugar-bowls, at Great Gonerby. He then
charged two respectable persons in the village to assist
him in the Queen's name,
saying he expected resistance,
and went to the house where the girl was, where by main
force he took her into custody on this pretended charge,
and conveyed her in the Lincoln carrier's waggon to
Grantham, where he took her to a respectable public
House, the B Man gave her supper, and had her
locked up all night, stating he should take her before
the magistrates in the mornin Accordingly, in the
morning of Saturda g.
y, the 17th, at nine o'clock, he
requested the landlord to take care of the hand-
cuffs and staff till his return, and left the house
with the girl, saying he was going to Mr. Mariner's,
the clerk to the maaistrates. Instead of this, which
of course he never intended, he called at the Blue Pig,
another public-house in Grantham,
the constable of Pulbeck, puts up, and left word t tittle
Mr. Morris would find the staff and handcuffs at t
Blue Man, where he had left them for him, and thence
1 to the field through
lie and the woman were traced
the girl
where Mr. Aloririst,
which the river Witham runs, where this body of_
.v,„r
was found, and where they ware seen to take, tot rimr.
side instead of the footpath ; and at I 0 o'clock d I
out of
Bothei way, the occupier of such field'
picked
up
phe body
was found, a hat with a
the river, within 10 yards of the spot where . f .
it,y
lentified as
which, on the inquest on the woman, vv?"'111'
o'clock on
belonging to Healey ; and between 10 ana
who knew
the same day Healey was met by a persont.il direction of
him, on an unfrequented road, in
to the waist,
SlcafOrd, without a hat and wet up
d the reason of
101(1 he said, on being
glove and Handkerchief in
d in his road
fish-pond (through which he had passe
being without a hat; that it hail blown off in Belton