The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-03 00:00:00

I ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.
OXFORD CIRCUIT. Hereford, Aprill.
^.size business was nearly brought to a close last
Tim,
,:zes being left for adjudication this morning,
night, only five
and they present no topier; of public interest. The following
had not concluded yesterday, when it became necessary to
close and forward our dispatch :
CROWN COURT.—(Before Mr. Bari's!' PLAIT.) •
Benjamin Skyrnal, aced 20, was indicted for 12ring
gun at William Hughes, on the 13th of last Auj -rievous
uuponost,
the Queen's highway, with intent to do him some a loaded
tr
bodily harm.
Mr. Greaves and Mr, Huddleston prosecuted ; the pii-
soner was defended by Mr. Skinner.
From the evidence of the prosecutor, who is a cattle and
pig dealer, living at St. Margaret's, it appeared that on the
day in question he had been at Hereford, and was on his
return home in the evening, when the prisoner, whom he
previously knew by sight, came up to him at a place called
the Slough, in the parish of St. Margaret, and entered into
conversation with him, walking by the side of his horse,
until they came to a garden belonging to a man of the ni2ole
of Colman, when Skyrnal stopped, and appeared to be taking
something out of the hedge ; meanwhile Mr. Hughes rode on
about 100 yards in advance of the prisoner, whom he heard
running after him, whereupon he reined in his horse, and at,
the same instant a gun was fired, and his (the prosecutor's)
hat fell upon the neck of the horse. He recovered it, and
immediately galloped off. Very shortly after this Mr. Hughes
procured assistance, and finding the prisoner still at the spot
whence the shot had been fired, he charged him with having
attempted his life,
and secured the man at the bar, who ob-
served that it was a person of the name of John Davis who
had fired the gun. The prosecutor had sold about 50/. worth
of stock in the morning, and had that amount about him at
the time of the attack.
Additional evidence was adduced corroborative of the
prisoner's guilt; a little girl, to whose father the gun be-
longed, proving that she had lent Skyrnal the gun to shoot
birds with about the time in question, and the gun was
found the same morning after the occurrence above detailed,
ten or twelve yards from the place where Mr. Hughes was
fired at.
The prisoner was convicted of firing with intent to do some
grievous bodily harm; and a previous conviction for felony
having been proved, he was sentenced to fifteen years' trans-
portation.
As soon as their Lordships have disposed of the few re-
maining cases here they will proceed in the course of the
afternoon to Monmouth, and open the commission for that
county, where seventy prisoners now await their trial.
The following is an analysis of the Monmouthshire calen-
dar :—Violating the person, 7 ; housebreaking, 4 ; cutting
and maiming, 2 ; forgery, 3 ; sheep-stealing, 9 ; killing
cattle, 1 • highway robbery, 6 ; stealing from the person, 5;
minor Pffences, 30; manslaughter, 2; firing stacks, l—
total, 70.

WESTERN ClRCUlT.—Taunton, April 1.
The commission for holding the assizes for the county of
Some Mr. Justice
w Erie.opened
rrh
ein l e tow
btu% IN;
nnes3s, s
at esrdhaays
ba fte
eenr at oboen
e, a
sb ye
all round
ytahnonesfelcataihurr
lgceyuhoi
ete2,eroinsc3peer;sxi
prisoners
neammelircesail
oryfduoelsrirlgy,
thlrti:a
wounding,lat h. t ere being only 19
cases in the cause list. The calendar, however, is very heavy,
atheeur
summary
n;beingnmrThetem t followingin6g ;
tarson, i
4; mur-
der,burglary, ; housebreaking, 3 ; rape, 4; horse-stealing,
1; sheep-stealing, 6 ; robbery, 4 ; bigamy, 1; bestiality, 1;
larcenies, 60; embezzlement, 3; entering inclosed land by
night, 7 ; concealment of birth, 1.
.To'in Hake and Daniel Hake were indicted for burglari-
oulv breaking and entering the house of William French,
ats Otterford, and stealing therefrom several knives and other
articles, his property.
Mr. Cox was counsel for the prosecution.
t'irtolg b
m teheenevpidroepnecrelyit aeplopseeadredatthnaitgbtht!e pornosetbeuetofro'sllobwouinsge
ba
morning it was found that a panel of the door had been
broken through, and that a quantity of knives, in which the
prosecutor dealt, had been taken away. From some infor-
mation which had been received, suspicion attached to the
prisoners, who were brothers residing in the neighbourhood ;
they were apprehended, and the stolen property was found
upon them. John Hake confessed that he had broken into
the !louse.
The jury found both the prisoners Guilty.
Sentence-4°bn Hake, transportation for 15 years; Daniel
Hake, transportatlcni for ten years.

---
NORTHERN CIRCUIT.—Liverpool, April 1.
CROWN COURT.—(Before Mr. Justice PArrEsort.)
Kitts, of the thin of Rothwell and Kitts, cotton-s
ners. of Bolton, was tried upon an indictment, charging him
with the manslaughter of Peter Greenough.
This indictment arose out of the explosion which occurred
on the 10th of December last, at the works of Messrs. Roth-
well and Kitts, when several persons were killed by the
bursting of a boiler. The defendant was the resident partner
and resided on the premises; and the ground of the charge
was that of having suffered an accumulation of steam in the
boiler without any means of escape, in consequence of which
it exploded, carrying away a large portion of the wall of the
mill, and burying the deceased in the ruins.
The prisoner, who was defended by Mr. Dundee and Mr.
Pollock, was Acquitted.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
BOW-STREET.
DoG-riGrensta.—Bow-street, and all the other streets in
its vicinity, have been in a state of popular ebullition ever
since the middle of the day on Wednesday, in consequence
of the Royal Society for the Prevention of ruelty to Animals
having denounced to the police a gang of dog-fighters, and
their eiders and abettors, assembling at a certain disreputable
house in Neale's-yard, Queen-street, Seven Dials. The
police, in consequence of the information thus given them
by the' Royal Anti-Cruelty Society, made a grand attack
upon the place in question on Wednesday afternoon; and
there they captured upwards of ninety persons, tag-rag and
bob-tail and among them—so said rumour—were sundry
" noble lords," many " real gentlemen," and a genuine
marquis or two at least; all of whom they marched down to
the Bow-street police-station, together with a bull-dog and
a dead badger with three legs, the other leg having been
"gnawed off" for the recreation of the parties frequenting
the pit, or place before indicated. Great was the hubbub
occasioned by this proceeding. People, men, women, and
children, came running from all quarters to see the show, as
the offenders were marched in custody into the station; and
so great was the crush throughout the night, that it required
all the exertions of the force to keep a practicable thorough-
fare for the public. Yesterday morning there was little or
no abatement of the effervescence. The front of the station-
house, the avenues of the Court were thronged with persons
evidently all agape for something out of the common way.
But they were grievously disappointed. It was a parturient
montes, for instead of lords, knights, and marquises being
paraded before the bench, the thing ended in four simple
ordinary-looking persons being placed in that unenviable
situation, viz., John Mansfield, owner of the pit; Andrew
Nash, a deputy cabman unattached; John Smith, a prize-
fighter past work, with a marvellously disfigured visage and
fiery-coloured whiskers ; and Charles Hays. a fac• simile of
George Cruikshank's " Jack Sheppard," with a grass-green
cravat, a turf coat, and having his hair daintily smoothed
with grease.
Mr. Hall presided, and a person who attended as solicitor
for the prosecution, at the instance of the Royal Anti-.
Cruelty Society, intimated to his Worship that the pro-
ceeding was instituted not under the Police Act, 'which
makes all persons present at these disgusting exhibitions
equally liable with the principals, but under the 6th and 7th
William IV., which considers the principals only as liable.
The Learned Gentleman did not point out this distinction,
nor did he say why the Royal Society had chosen to act
under the milder law instead of the more comprehensive
one ; but it was whispered in the Court that they did not
care to have anything to do with noble and gentle amateurs
of cruelty, their only object being to put such things down by
punishirg the actual performers. Mr. Robinson was solicitor
for the defence of the four fellows actually before the Court;
and Mr. Inspector Dodd, of the F, or Bow-street division,
opened the case ; from which opening, and the evidence
which followed it, we deduce the following facts :—ln conse-
quence of information communicated to him at the station on
Wednesday afternoon, that a ferocious dog fight was at that
moment going on at a house in Neale's-yard, Seven Dials, he
forthwith proceeded thither, taking with him as many of the
private constables of his division as were then available.
They easily discovered the place, and found it surrounded by
a crowd of disorderly people, from whom they learned that
the fighting was at that moment going on in the room up
stairs. One of the Society's officers led the way up the ladder
leading to that room ; but before he could get through the
trap-door at the top of it, a cry of " The police !" and
" Murder !" was raised by a woman in the room below, and
instantly the trap door was slammed down, and they could
distinctly hear a number of people place themselves upon it,
so as by their weight to prevent its being lifted again. The
officer, however. who that mounted the ladder had seen
enough to convince him of what was going on. In a room
only 20 feet by 18 feet were nearly 150 men crowding round
a place in the middle of the fiber, about three yards square,
parted off from the rest of the room by a low partition of
boards, and within this place he could hear dogs " snarling
ewxhciiltsitngththeemmentowghrocahtenrddfelroecl:
city. The inspector now peremptorily demanded admission,
aroundandg grinding"
ntdhienmg "w
ae
were e each3.ell
yelling
other,an d
and the prisoner, John Mansfield, in a short time lifted the
trap and admitted the inspector and the police. The growl-
ing, barking, and yelling of dogs and men had then subsided;
but the prisoner Mansfield, whose shirt-sleeves were tucked
up to his elbows, and his hand and arms covered with blood,
acknowledged himself the proprietor of the pit, but denied
that there had been any dog-fighting there, although twenty
or thirty bull dogs and bull terriers were found tied up in the
rooms below. Mansfield declared that they were only
brought there to kill rats, and the rats had not arrived. The
floor of the room was strewed with sawdust, except the
square place in the centre, and that was literally covered
with blood. In a box in the room the police found a large
bull dog, panting and quite exhausted, with its head " as raa
as if it had been skinned," and in another box, or rather twc
boxes, they found a couple of badgers, one alive and the other
dead, but quite warm, and with one of its legs gnawed or tors
off. In the room there was a pair of scales for the purpose of
weighing the dogs before they were set to fight, and buckets o
water with sponges for the purpose of wiping the blood &on
their eyes and chaps, lest it should suffocate or blind them,anc
so spoil the sport. They also found the hides of two dogs, pre.
served probably on account of the " pluck" their wearers latU
displayed when living. The inspector and the other witnesse
were furiously cross-examined by the solicitorfor the defence
The inspector was asked if he did not know that man:
gentlemen kept such dogs? He replied, "I do not ;hand
my opinion no gentleman would keep them, especy foll
such purposes as these." Did not know whether there were
any noblemen or gentlemen present or not ; but when th
thl
police entered the room many men were jumping out of
windows, and they might be noblemen or gentlemen fo
anything he knew to the contrary. The Learned Gentlemae
then contended that the case had not been proved age4l
any of his clients except Mansfield, and that was npoenn
u
own confession. He insinuated that noblemen andg e were
men had been allowed to escape, whilst these mere
omdunpes 0
selected for punishment, although they e
for their own amusement. d Bet, said he hoped tin
Mr. HALL, in delivering his ju g.ra
- I
en, or m a station
their titled companions, and led into the wcrimme by them,
at all events they were not
entitling them to becal
was nothing at all to show the
proved to be so ; and themdone his duty honestly. Had thi
persons thus alluded
soto `v
led
;n t
the inspector bad not
been instituted under the Police Act, all the pet
prosecution gent em
sons captured must have been brought before that court, an,
then it would have been seen who and what they were - but
it was laid under the Act of Will. IV., the principals onl
were liable, and they were now here to be dealt with. Aft
a minute review of the evidence, his Worship sentenced Joh
Mansfield and Abraham Smith to pay the full penalty of
each, and discharged Nash and Haves, as it appeared dou.b
ful whether they had acted as principals or not.

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