The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-08 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

MINT PROSECUTIONS.—A number of persons, men and
women, have been prosecuted by the Mint, and sentenced
at the Central Criminal Court to heavy sentences, owing
to former convictions. One man and three women were
sentenced to five years' penal servitude, and one man and
one woman, who had already undergone that term of
punishment, to ten years penal servitude.
THE PATRIOTIC FUND.—At the Central Criminal Court
a clerk named Hervey pleaded guilty to the charge of
embezzling moneys from the Patriotic fund. The
amount of his defalcations was £2OO. He had
appropriated remittances which were made from
the Fund to relatives of soldiers who had died
in the Indian wars and for which he was instructed
to send out post-office orders, or to pay the agents in this
country. His offence was not discovered until he had
gone to Canada, but he has since returned to London and
given hi..zelf up. He was sentenced to nine months im-
prisonment.

MAJOR WIELAND'S BANKRUPTCY.—This bankrnpt came
before the Chief Judge to pass his adjourned examination.
Mr. Reed, for the trustee, complained that in no wise had
the bankrupt performed his duty as declared by the Act
of Parliament. The statement of the bankrupt shewed
secured debts, £33,900; debts partly secured, £7,B47—the
value of such securities being stated at £6,000 ; unsecured
debts, £2,891. This bare statement was all that the
trustee could obtain. His lordship said the bankrupt
must give every information that was required by the
trustee, and the examination would be adjourned for that
purpose. If the order was resisted he would be committed
to k)rison.
IHE BIRMINGHAM FENIANS.—At the Marylebone
Police-Court, John Wilson, gun and pistol manufacturer,
Harper's-buildings, Birmingham, and Michael Davit,
were again brought up before Mr. D'Eyncourt charged
with treason-felony. Wilson was also charged with un-
lawfully having fifty six-chambered revolvers in his pos-
session, of which he could give no satisfactory. account ;
and Davitt was further charged with loitering about
the Great Western Railway terminus, and having in his
possession £l5O, for which lie could not satisfactorily
account. The court and its approaches were well guarded
by policemen, armed—as on previous occasions—with
revolvers, but there were not more than thirty or forty
persons present. The prisoners were again remanded.
THE DEBTS OF A CLERK OF THE PEACE.—The Clerk of
the Peace for Dublin, Charles Kernan, attorney and soli-
citor, described as of Woodfield-villas, Streatham, Surrey,
and of Black Rock, Dublin, applied to Mr. Regis-
trar Spring Rice, at the Court of Bankruptcy, • for
his order of discharge. His debts are £61,838 ; assets,
£730 ; property held as security, £30,000. In the
list of creditors appears the name of Cardinal Cullen, who
is a creditor for £5,000 as legatee under the will of the
late Mr. Gallagher, to which the bankrupt,and his partner
were executors. It was stated that the bankrupt holds
the office of clerk of the peace for the city of Dublin, the
annual value of which is £BOO • but the income has been
assigned to the Hibernian Bank, who are secured creditors
for £13,000. The bankrupt not having filed accounts of
his partnership with Mr. Tracey, an adjournment was
ordered until November.

SINGULAR CHARGE OF FELONY AGAINST A COLLIERY
PROPRIETOR.—The county magistrates at Wigan have
had a singular case before them. Mr. Thomas Gidlow,
the owner of extensive colleries at Hindley, near Wigan,
was charged with having stolen a quantity of, coal from a
neighbouring mine from January 1867 to December 1869.
The council for the prosecution stated that the defendant
being the lessor of the coal under certain lands in Hindley
had without any arrangement or contract with the
plaintiff worked through his coal, a strip about
100 yards in width, in order to pass from a coalfield on one
side to a coalfield on the other. Last September the
defendant had opened negotiations for a lease, but the
matter had not been arranged, Mr. Gidlow not agreeing
to the terms of Mr. Hargreaves, the prosecutor. On the
cross-examination of Mr. Hargreaves, however, it
appeared that a verbal arrangement had been come to
between the prosecutor and the defendant; and, after a
hearing which lasted two days, the jury concluded that
the case was not one to send to a jury.

CHARGE AGAINST AN EX-POLICEMAN.-At Bow-street
Thomas Turner, a superannuated policeman, was charged
with stealing a door-key. The prosecutor, Mr. Atkinson
Walker, who said he was a law student, said that he
lately occupied three rooms at 17, Woburn-buildings, one
at the top of the house for a young lady who had been
decoyed up from the country, and whom he wished
to protect from further harm. The prisoner had
taken forcible possession of the key of the upper
room, and last night be gave him into custody for a
petty felony. James Bishop, landlord of the house, said
he had given the prosecutor verbal notice to leave three
times, and he had promised to go. He (Bishop) did not
let the room to the young woman, and he objected to her
occupying it. The defendant was his agent in the matter,
and acted upon his instructions. Mr. Vaughan said there
was no pretence for the charge of felony.

ASSISTING CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS.—An old man
named John Wild, described as a "hedge lawyer," was
broUght before the Manchester stipendiary magistrate
charged with forgery, A body of gentlemen were asso-
ciated together in London under the name of the ", Trus-
tees of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion," whose
object it was to assist Congregational ministers. Among
other chapels which they had been in the habit of assisting
was one at Middleton, and an annual grant of £3O per
annum, payable quarterly, was made to it. On the 14th
April, the secretary to the trnstees sent a cheque for
£7 10s. to Mr. John Wild, the corresponding secretary to
the chapel. The prisoner, who resided in Middleton,
obtained the letter from the Post Office, cashed the
cheque, and squandered away the money. The prisoner,
who said he did not know but what the cheque was in-
tended for him, was committed for trial.
ry THE FORGERY BY A LADY.—At the Central Criminal

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Court, Elizabeth Smith, 32, a ladylike-looking woman,
pleaded guilty to the charge of forging and uttering a
cheque for £l2O, with intent to defraud. The prisoner,
it will be recollected, opened an account at Messrs.
Twining's, the bankers', by paying in a cheque upon
Messrs. Smith, Payne, and Co. for £l9O, purporting to be
signed by Mr. Lone'nan, of Paternoster-row- The pri-
soner told such a plausible story that the manager of the
bank was completely thrown off his guard, and he allowed
the prisoner to draw a cheque for £5O against the amount
she was supposed to have paid in, and she was paid
the money, but soon afterwards her story was found to
be a fabrication, and the £l9O cheque a forgery. The
prisoner it appeared was very respectably connected, and
she had at a former period been in the establishment of
Mr. Longman as a governess, and that of course gave her
an opportunity of becoming acquainted with circumstances
which enabled her to deceive the Messrs. Twining, and
led to the success of her contemplated fraud. Since the
prisoner has been in custody, she has made a long
written statement, which was handed to the Court, and
the Recorder said he would read it, and consider what
sentence should be pronounced.