The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-03 00:00:00

BEAUMARIS, FEE. 2.—Wind N.N.E.—Arrd. Duchess
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Mary Bebby, Barbadoes.
WHITBY, FEB. 2.—The Betsey. of this port, was
abandoned aftrr being in contact with the Richard Wat-
son, Newcastle to Carthagena, which has landed her
crew here.

CRIMINAL COURT-(THIS DAY

GLD COURT.

The February sessions of the Central Criminal Court,
being the fourth or the present mayoralty, were opened
this morning before the Right Honourable the Lord
Mayor, the Right Honourable the Recorder, Alderman
Sir James Duke, Bart., the Common-Sergeant, the She-
riffs, Alderman Carden and Mr. Hodgkinson, and the
other civic functionaries. The calendar contains the
names of 191 prisoners, of whom 31 are for London, 99
for Middlesex, 9 for Essex, 12 for Kent, and 40 for
Surrey. The charge against Mrs. Sloane is entered
thus:—" Theresa Sloane, aged 31, married, standing in-
dicted for wilfully neglecting to supply one Jane Wil-
bred, an infant of tender years under her care, with suf-
ficient food and nourishment, &c."

The grand jury having been sworn and empanneled,
The RECORDER proceeded to charge them to the fol-
lowing effects—He regretted that he could not congratu-
late them, as he had been able to do on former occasions,
upon the comparative lightness and character
of the offences enumerated in the calendar, for
in this session, not only did the calendar present an un-
usual number of offences, but amongst them were some
of a very painful nature. Ihere were several cases in-
volving the destruction of human life, one of them assum-
ing a more serious aspect than the others, but up to
this time; most of them partake more of the crime of
manslaughter than murder. There was a charge against
a person named Hill, of killing another who was at the
time a lunatic, in a lunatic asylum, and the person
charged was one of the keepers of that asylum, whose
duty it was to attend to the inmates. It appeared, from
some cause which had not been correctly ascer-
tained, the unfortunate lunatic received a severe
injury upon the shoulder, or upper part of the
arm, which ultimately led to his death. Now
there would be considerable difficulty in ascertaining
the facts of the case since no one was present when the
injury was inflicted but a party who also appeared to be
of unsound mind. Much had been done lately with suc-
cess to admit unfortunate patients into these establish-
ments, and it was of the utmost importance that a jea-
lous eye should be kept upon them to see that the par-
ties who had the control of them were not guilty of abu-
sing their powers. Now, the law bearing upon cases of
this nature was this:—ln establishments of this sort they
all knew that it was absolutely necessary that some de-
gree of control should be exercised over the unfortu-
nate individuals who became inmates of them. Science
had fortunately discovered means to mitigate the severity
of this control, but still no extent of scientific discovery
could relieve managers of lunatic asylums from all personal
restraint over their patients, and therefore any reason-
able force used for the purpose of restraining the vio-
-1 lence of a lunatic, or for the lunatic's own good, would
be excusable, although the same force applied to any
other person would be most unjustifiable. That was a
settled rule of science and law, but if any person
having the charge of a lunatic should exceed the
reasonable limit of such force, and wilfully resort to ex-
treme violence, he would, in point of law, be amenable
for his conduct if death ensued. It was, therefore, the
duty of the jury to ascertain if the degree
of violence used in this case had been such as to
call for further inquiry, or if it had been so
unjustifiable as to amount in point of fact to murder. It
would be difficult, however, for them to ascertain with
strict accuracy the circumstances of this case, for gene-
rally speaking a person of unsound mind was incompe-
tent as a witness before a jury, but there were persons
whose minds were tinged with insanity, but who occa-
sionelly had what were called lucid intervals. Now the
party who witnessed the infliction of the injury in this
case was one of that class of unfortunates. He
laboured under a particular delusion which was con-
stantly present in his mind, but which did not inter-
fere with his general conduct or behaviour; and the
jury would be justified in receiving his evidence,
supposing they were satisfied that he was rea-
sonably competent to give a rational account
of what he saw, but of course his testimony would have
to be taken with greater caution than that of others
who were compos mentis. Another remarkable case was
a charge against a person named East. It appeered that
this person was a young man who, while amusing him-
self with shooting at a target in some ground near the
Thames, accidentally shot an unfortunate man who was
working on board a craft some 250 yards off the target,
which the bullet had missed. No doubt, in point of
mural guilt, this party had no intention of inflicting in-
jury upon any one; but then if a party made use of
a dangerous weapon upon the Queen's highway,
which the Thames was, where persons might
be reasonably expected to pass and repass conti-
nually, it amounted to a degree of negligence which mace
the affair become in point of law, not a mere accident,
but no less than the offence of manslaughter. The young
man might not have had the slightest idea that his shot
would miss the mark, or range so far as to kill any one
within a reasonable distance, but still the circumstance
of his using a gun on a spot common to all the world,
and hourly frequented, was negligent and culpable, and
the jury would, under these circumstances, most likely
send the matter for a farther investigation. Another re-
markable case was that of a man named Baxter, who
stood charged upon a coroner's inquisition with the crime
of manslaughter. Baxter had been an engine-driver upon
the Eastern Counties Railway, and on a recent occasion
an engiue which he was driving struck against a truck,
causing the death of an unfortunate person who was at
the time an inspector of an intermediate station on the
railway already mentioned. The law with regard to this
matter was quite clear. If a man drove a carriage along
the highway, a locomotive on a railroad, or navigate a
steam-vessel negligently, carelessly, or recklessly,
and came into collision with anything so as to cause the
death of a human being, he was liable to the charge of
manslaughter; but if, on the other hand, he did his best
to manage the vehicle, or vessel, or engine, and the col-
lision was the result f accident, then the law said be
was tree from any charge. Now, with regard to this case
the evidence was extremely voluminous and discursive;
but the facis seemed to be these. Baxter was engaged
to drive a special train early one morning; he was led to
expect that a telegraphic message would be sent to every
sta..ion on the line in order to oe prepared for him. it
was under these circumstances that he started with the
special train and travelled at a considerably rapid
pace. Arriving at the station called Ponder's-end, be-
tween six and seven o'clock in the morning, at a time
when it was rather dark, his engine struck against a
truck which was being moved across the line, and
crushed the unfortunate deceased to death. Now if the
jury should be of opinion that he was driving negligently,
and ought to have looked out for a signal at the station,
then they would put him s u his trial, but if on the other
hand he had a reasonable right to expect that the
live had been cleared for him to travel at an increased
speed, why of course then the case would assume more
the appearance of an accident than an offence. There
were two other cases of manslaughter, and another of
murder, which ho felt called upon to refer to. Gene-
rally speaking, where death was caused by the violence
of any party it was considered that the injury was the
result of malice aforethought, unless there were circum-
stances to show the contrary. It was not necessary
fur the purpose of constituting the crime of
murder that an actual aed positive intention
should have previously existed to do the injury; it was
enough to establish malice aforethought if it were shown
that the weapon or instrument used were such as any
reasonable person must suppose would cause death.
Now the charge of murder was preferred against a wo-
man named Jane Brown, who was accused of
having killed her husband. Some quarrel had arisen
between them, and the man was found with a severe
wound on his temple, which it was supposed the woman
had inflicted with a poker, which she held in her hand
at the time, or shortly rater the injury was inflicted.
It was impossible to say what degree of provocation she
might have received, but at present the offonce only
assumed the character of manslaughter, and no doubt
the jury would return the case for trial in that shape.
The other case was that of a man who, upon his own
confession, was charged with murdering his wife,
whose death was also caused by a wound in the
temple, and the remarks which he had just made
applied with equal force to this case, but it should be
observed that the injury was inflicted with a knife.
There was one other case of a rather peculiar character,
which was a charge framed under a recent Act of Par-
liament, of obtaining money under false pretences. The
charge was against a person naeied Brown, of cheating
at cards while at a convivial meeting, and the charge
was made under the 7th and Bth Vic., which made
cheating at cards an offence of obtaining money by
means of false pretences. These were the only cases
calling for any particular remark from him. Many
of the others would give them little trouble, as
they had already been investigated by professional
magistrates of long experience; but the charges made
upon coroners' returns would demand some attention;
while a third class of charges which would come before
them in the first instance, by parties anxious to prefer
indictments without going before a police magistrate,
would require the strictest scrutiny, as it nor unire-
quently happened that these applications were made to
put innocent parties to inconvsnience and expense.
The grand jury then retired.