The Sun.
London, England, 1848-04-24 00:00:00

CHELSEA BOARD.

During the pastyeartbere have been under medi-
cal examination at Fort Pitt 3,191 men belonging to
the different regiments serving abroad. These men
were sent home from the East Indies and other
colonies to be pensioned off. Of that number 2,669
were placed on the Chelsea Board ; 433 were found
fit to join their respective depots; and rights_ seven
died in the hospital. So great a number of invalids
in one year has not passed that board for some
years.

POLICE IN'I'ELLIGENCE.
MANSION-HO USE.

On Saturday a young man, whose name appeared
upon the warrant on which he was apprehended as
Bonniface Chrystie, was brought before the Lord
Mayor in the custody of John Forrester, the officer,
charged with having been concerned in a conspiracy
to commit extensive fraud by imitating the current
coin of the Republic of Colombia.
Mr. Peachey, of the house of Oliverson and Co.,
solicitors to the Colombian Government, attended for
the prosecution.
John Forrester produced a warrant signed by Mr.
John Burke Davis, a magistrate of Warwickshire,
for the apprehension of the prisoner, to whom a
parcel containing spurious coin had been forwarded
by the North-Western Railway. The warrant
charged the prisoner, who is no more than twenty
years of age and a resident in London, with having
been one of the persons engaged in the offence.
The officer here produced a large parcel containing
about 3,000 pieces of the spurious coin.
The prisoner said his real name was Garredo, but
ious
say
bitetoil
he had received parcels in the name of Bonniface
Chrystie (as we understood him).
Mr. Alexander Fletcher identified the prisoner, and
stated that the prisoner had received parcels and let-
ters in the name of Bonniface Chrystie, directed from
Birmingham.
The parcels, it appeared, had been directed to a
house in Lombard-street, with a clerk in which the
prisoner was acquainted.
John Forrester said, his object was to take the pri-
soner to Birmingham as soon as possible, and he
should therefore be obliged to Alderman Gibbs to
give him permission to do so.
Alderman Gums—Has the prisoner anything to
say.—The prisoner—l have merely to say that I
should be obliged to you to remand me till Monday or
Tuesday next, as I shall by that time be enabled to
get papers ready, calculated to show that I have been
merely acting as an agent and interpreter in this
remanded.
objectionnd
mightto
have
ee
tthhee
opp prisonerort
u
tomatter.faConsul,ct ry
Birmingham t
holadt a lut hde ear ner a
dare
wirirt.rpaneasacchteiyonhsaodf
nthoeki
•
The spurious coin is a piece of yellow metal, of the
nreirTyahonefdpeprdrie,iopinanerironrwgdasetrhetthheeaxatp
size of a half-sovereign, with the impression of the
arms of Colombia of 1832 and of lERM Popayan.
It is believed that 10,000 of them at least have been
struck off.
MARLBOROUGH.STREET.
A tall, aged man, very respectably dressed, was
charged hanenshwoeaanitodclercyaanmpsoprytoaheopais
entrfragostt:: masbteeenna
sending
oli
ntstgoaotmtidhs
oee.
by a gentleman residing at Thompson's
Hotel, Berkeley-square, with collecting a mob in
Oxford-street, under the following peculiar circum-
stances :
The gentleman said, that seeing so respectable an
individual covered with placards, parading the streets,
he conceived he was not in a state of mind to be al-
lowed to go at large, and he applied to a constable,
and eventually caused the defendant to be brought to
the court to be questioned by the magistrate.
Mr. BINGHAM wished to know what was the pur-
port of the placards on the back and front of the de-
fendant and round his hat, and was told that the front
placard was headed, "To the Rich. Failure of the
Potato crop.—The wet season will produce another
failure of the potato crop ; and then, Lord have mercy
on the poor." On the placard at his back was as fol-
lows A Scale of Prophecies for 2;290 years,
price twopence; to be had of the bearer." On the
hat was, 6, _Prophecies fulfilled.—James v. 9."
Mr. BINGHAM asked the defendant if he had any
friends to whom he could apply ? The defendant
said he was independent of his friends. He could
produce the first testimonials from parties in London
and in Scotland. If the magistrate sent to Mr. Wil-
liams, No. 52, Regent-street, he would receive rea-
sonable satisfaction. He wished to know why he had
been taken into custody, t and asked to have the name
of the gentleman who had given him in charge.
Mr. BINGHAM said, he should perhaps render the
last proceeding unnecessary by a few words which he
intended to address to him. In London a man might
preach as much as he liked, and pretty nearly what
he liked. A man might also advertise anything he
had to sell bow and in what manner he liked; arid,
strange to say, the more unusual the way he preached
or advertised the more certain he was to attract pub-
lic attention. But, then, the liberty of preaching and
advertising must be taken with this qualification—
that a man either preaching or advertising must take
care not to inconvenience persons or block up a public
thoroughfare. Now, if a man of the defendant's ap-
pearance chose to hang a placard on the front and
back of a good coat—the same way as placards were
seen hung on a beggar's coat—it would naturally follow
that such an unusual act would attract a good deal of
public notice, especially if the party walked about
the streets of London. If the defendant had not
actually broken the law,. he had gone sufficiently far.
to justify the proceedings that had taken place. With
this caution he should order the defendant to be dis
charged this time.
The defendant wished to know where he was
entitled to walk without molestation to exhibit his
warnings.
Mr. BINGHAM—Why, on a very cold or a very wet
day you may walk in the middle of Hyde Park. I
don't think you can do much harm there.
The prophet was then set at liberty.
WORSHIP-STREET.
Amongst the remanded cases appointed for re-
examination at this Court on Saturday, was one
preferred against a well dressed man, named Henry
Southcombe, who was charged on the preceding
Wednesday with having,by false and fraudulent re-
presentations, obtained a large quantity of expensive
household furniture from an upholsterer named Cut-
bill, in Worship•square, Finsbury, and who was
liberated upon entering into his own recognizance to
; • •>, „, ,
GiAO
usual manner, but did not appear ; and

Mr. Vann, the solicitor, who was accompanied by
several tradesmen, anxious to prefer charges against
him, intimated that there was not the remotest pro-
bability that he would ever again present himself at
that court, as he (the solicitor) was furnished with
evidence which would conclusively establish the fact
that a widely-ramified conspiracy had been carried on
by Southcombe and others to obtain goods from
tradesmen in various parts of the metropolis to an
enormous extent. Amongst the sufferers who were
able to establish clear cases of fraudulent collusion
against the parties were Mr. Miller, a furniture dealer,
in Old-street-road, from whom goods had been ob-
tained to the amount of 811.; Mr. Parkinson, an iron-
monger in Oxford-street ; Messrs. Townes and
Packer, the pianoforte manufacturers, and various
other tradesmen, all of whom had parted with their
property upon the faith of similar representations and
by like devices. After the goods had been sur-
reptitiously removed from the west end, diligent
inquiries were made to find them, an.i it was
at last discovered that they had been in the first
instance carried off to the house of a carman at
King's-cross ; but it appeared that the instant the
prisoner Southcombe had been liberated at this court,
he went straight to that place and rapidly removed
them again to a house in IVinchester-street, Penton-
vine, where he had advised his clients to proceed im-
mediately, and take forcible possession of all they
could identify, or in a few hours the property would
again disappear. In the meantime, however, he was
instructed to apply for the issue of warrants for the
apprehension forthwith of all the parties concerned in
the conspiracy, as he considered it monstrous that
they should be allowed to escape justice any longer
and carry on such a wholesale system of depredation
with impunity.
Mr. ARNOLD repeated his opinion as to the insuffi-
ciency of the law to meet such cases, and though he
concurred in the propriety of the course intimated as
to the forcible re-possession of the property so obtained
by its owners, and that the parties, if indicted for
conspiracy, should be proceeded against in a superior
ceurt, declined granting the warrants for their appre-
hension, as they might be given into custody when-
ever they could be met with.
Mr. Vann thanked the magistrate, and withdrew
with his clients, but returned in the course of two
hours, by which time Southcombe had still not ap-
peared, and reported that the tradesmen upon pro-
ceeding to the house in Winchester-street, could hear
nothing of Southcombe, and had been told by a
woman who answered them, that no such property
had been deposited there; but upon their expressing
a positive determination to force their way in, she
reluctantly admitted them, and then each one select-
ing his own, and by mutual assistance, they succeeded
at length in recovering two waggon loads of their
goods, which they had carried off triumphantly,
whether legally or not, though a large amount of
property still remained undiscovered.