The Sun.
London, England, 1833-03-13 00:00:00

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS.-(THIS DAY.)

A little urchin named Michael Roarke, was convicted o
picking a gentleman's pocket opposite the low exhibition of
wax-work on Holborn-hill. The Chairman commented upon
the great nuisance the exhibition had been to the neighbour-
hood, and that great disgrace attached to the authorities
for allowing it to remain. The prisoner was sentenced to be
confined for one week, and to be once well whipped.
Ann Raymond was transported for seven years, for robbing
a sailor in Ratcliffe Highway of ss. Dd. The prisoner was well
known to the ➢iagistrates. . . .

Mary Brown, was sentenced to one month's imprisonment.
for stealing 3%lbs. of pork from the shop or John Parsons,
butcher, in Leather-lane.
Mary Arnold and Harriet Turner were sentenced to be
transported for fourteen years, for robbing a man in the back
part of a public house, in the Hackney-road, of fourteen shil-
lings. He was knocked down by them, and afterwards held
down by two men, while the women effected their escape.
John Desmond, George Smith, and Edward Meggridge,
three very diminutive boys, were sentenced, the two first to be
transported for seven years, and the latter to be imprisoned
for a week and to be well whipped, for stealing a basket, and
five shillings out of the till of a baker's shop in St. John-street.
Meggridge, the youngest of them was seen to come out of the
shop, and give the money to the others. They were after-
wards caught and taken back to the shop, and whilst being
searched, Meggridge slipped 51d. into the hand of his mother,
who had followed him into the shop. The oldest boy was only
eleven years of age.

THE MARKETS.-(THIS DAY).

CORN EXCHANGE.

The arrivals of all kinds of Grain this week are moderate, and
of Flour the return is scanty. The Wheat trade remains firm
for most descriptions, the best parcels being cleared off. Barley,
Beans, Pease, and Oats, are unaltered. Flour dull sale.

ARRIVALS.
Wheat. 1 Barley.
English 1,990 qrs. 3,780 qrs.
Irish - -
Foreign - -

Oats. lour.
3,950 qrs. I I,39osacks
2,700 I --
I

CORN MARKETS DURING THE WEEK.

Barley,

KILKENNY ASSIZES.

SATURDAY, MARcir 9.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

The spring assizes were opened to-day by Baron Foster,
at four o'clock, P.M. As soon as the Grand Jury were
sworn the Learned Baron proceeded to deliver his charge
to one of the most crowded courts which ever assembled
upon any other occasion. You will read the charge, at
the present moment, with much interest. There are many
features in it of a curious and peculiar character.
The Learned Judge commenced by some general reflec-
tions upon the state of the county. He said that the pre-
sent assizes were the fourth in which it had been his duty to
preside in the Crown Court in that county, and be had the
painful observation, which a regard to truth obliged him
to make, that he found in each of his successive judicial
visits to the county; the state of crime to be progressively
worse. He could not imagine that the progress of dete-
rioration could go farther; and no succeeding Judge could
possibly find the county in a more deplorable state than
what it was then in. He would not, however, deal in
general observations—he could not describe the state of
the law prostrate before a banditti. No ; he would at
once proceed to particulars, which could not fail of point-
ing out clearly the extent of crime in the county. He
had been furnished with a detailed account of all the
outrages which had been committed in the county since
the last assizes. The chief of police had supplied him with
that list, and from that be found that the total number of
cases within the period he alluded to, was 928. That was
the actual number set down ; but what the amount would
have been if the terror that had been inspired into those
who had been the victims, did not operate upon them to
conceal them, it was impossible for him to say. The
character of those crimes, was, if possible, snore remark-
able than the amount. They were, with the exception
of a very few, all of an insurrectionary nature. It really
seemed as if the perpetrators had not time or inclination
to commit those ordinary crimes which characterize the
usual state of society. Within the period referred to (the
present and last assizes, about seven months), there had
been only four larcenies ; three cases of stealing goods ;
three of stealing cattle ; ten of embezzlement ; ten of
issuing false coin (a thing not unfrequent in ordinary
times); one of violation of female chastity. On the other
band there had been seven murders, one of which, he
regretted to say, had but occurred that very morning, in
the face of day, and on the open road. (The Learned
Judge here alluded to the murder of Mr. Leonaid, who
was shot in his gig this morning by a party of Wbitefeet,
near a place in this county called Ross.) Attempts at
assassination, 14 ; aggravated assaults, 119 ; robber:es,
20 (all committed in connection with the lawless pro-
ceedings which were going forward) ; burglarious attacks,
378 ; burnings, 30; illegal visits, 181 ; malicious inju-
ries to property, 83 ; robbery of arms, 75 ; tendering
unlawful oaths, 60. In all 928, and of these there were
no less than 920 connected with the insurrectionary
proceedings throughout the county. There were
not quite 200 cases on the calendar, and there would
an attempt at prosecution by about but one-twelfth of the
number of persons aggrieved. There was another feature
to which he could not avoid calling attention. There was
not one attempt made to vindicate a civil right. There
was no record case—no attempt made to recover pro-
perty—nothing of that sort—nothing but cases which
went to assert the violated claims of criminal justice. No
process of any kind could be served through the county
from an apprehension of danger, arid he might fay, in
short, that the Constitution bad practically ceased in that
county, and that the will of a midnight banditti had been
substituted in its stead. It was not for him to enter into
the causes which led to such a state of society—if society
it could be called. That was the province of the politician
or the statesman, and a Judge should be neither. It was
the Judge's business merely to attend to facts, and to apply
to them the existing laws, and a few days would show
how far that would be attended with success. He looked
upon the present assizes as an experiment. He regarded
them as the last struggle of the law, to see how far it
could sustain itself against that violence which attempted
to trample it under foot. The Learned Judge then ad-
verted to the case of Captain John Burke, against whom
a coroner's inquest had returned a verdict of murder,
after 14 days' inquiry, at Mooncoin. The Learned
Judge did not think that, although the verdict of a coro •
ner's inquest did generally supersede a bill of indict.
ment, such could be the case in the pre-
sent instance. He went into an exposition of the
different sorts of homicide. He contended that the case
of homicide in a public officer was widely different front
that of an ordinary individual. The public officer had a
duty to do by fair means if possible, but at all events he
must do it. In the case of an ordinary individual, the
words of the old law were, that " he should give his back
to the wall," or in other words, retreat and avoid taking
away life until no other alternative remained. But it was
not so with a public officer. It was his duty to stand
fast—he must not fail to do his duty, and as the law im-
posed this obligation upon him, it also clothed him with
a proportionate protection. The Learned Judge then, at
great length, expatiated upon what might be termed " a
reasonable necessity," and said that they (the Grand
Jury) were to see from all the circumstances of the case—
the people closing in the officer—the shouts of " Carrick-
shock," and " Gibbons," and the ringing of the chapel
bell, &e ,—how far a reasonable necessity did not exist to
justify the officer in filing on the people. If a number
of men assembled for art illegal purpose, the act of one
became the act of all—each was individually accountable
for it. But the case was otherwise with the police. If a
policeman, in company with a party in the discharge of
their duty, committed murder, he alone was held re-
sponsible—and unless he could be iden ified, the party
could not be involved. There was only one exception to
that, and that was where an officer had given a command
to fire. In such case the officer made the acts, which
were the consequences of his command, his own. Con-
nected with this point, the Learned Judge spoke at con-
siderable length, but it was merely expatiating on the
heads which I have thus submitted above.

Mr. HOPE, candidate for Marylebone, is not
the gentleman who stood for Manchester, but a son of the
late Mr. THOMAS HOPE, the author of Anastasius, whose
widow has since married Lord BERESFOED. The Mr.
HOPE who stood for Manchester is the son of Sir A.
Flom Governor of Chelsea Hospital.

Mr. LAPORTE, we hear, intends to have the
remains of his deceased lady conveyed to the cemetery of
Pere la Chaise, near Paris.

Lord A-, who has recently received the
coup de grace, at the gaming table, to all bis once large
fortune, is on the eve of retiring to the continent.

DRURY-LANE THEATRE. An apology
was made at this Theatre last night for Mr. KEAN, who,
in consequence of having suffered a sudden relapse, was
unable to sustain his favourite character of Richard the
Third. The opera of Masaniello was substituted.

SUDDEN DEATH OF SIR C. GIESECKE.-
This highly-gifted and amiable man died suddenly on the
evening of the sth instant while at dinner, or rather after
it, at the residence of a particular friend in Rutland-
square. His health for some time has been bad. A few
moments prior to the awful event he was enjoying himself
and delighting the company with the most animated
conversation. The promptest medical aid was instantly
procured ; and although Doctor HUGHES did every thing
in his power to restore animation, it was in vain—the
vital spark had fled for ever..—Dublin Freeman's Journal.

The IT Chronicle says—" A
correspondent informs us that the advance in the prices of
iron, as declared at a meeting held at the Swan Hotel last
week, was nearly 20s. per ton, instead of 10A. ; and that
the report of the different branches of the trade was con.
sidered more satisfactory than it has been for some tinte."
MYSTERIOUS CASE OF MURDER.—An old
woman named ELIZABETH 11/imam, nearly 80 years of
age, and who resided in her own cottage between Han-
ham and Kingswood, near Bristol, having died after a
few days' illness, and reports of an unpleasant nature
having been spread of the cause of her death, the parish
officers applied to Mr. ELLIS, and an inquisition was held
before that gentleman on Wednesday last, which continued
the whole day and until a late hour at night. It appeared
in evidence that great quarrels and had arisen
amongst the family of the old woman about the little cot-
tage and garden, and she had forbidden a daughter-in-
law, 'named HESTER POWELL, to come into her house.
On Wednesday fortnight, however, HESTER PowELL
came in, and hearing the old woman was going to make
some broth, offered to make it for her as soon as she
came back from Bristol : on her return she made the
broth, and gave a basin of it to her mother-in-law, who
was immediately afterwards taken very ill with sickness
and violent pains in her bowels, and which continued
with little intermission for some days, when she died. A
young girl living with the old woman, who partook of the
same broth a few days after it was made, suddenly became
exceedingly ill, and still continues so; and a cat to which
the remainder was given experienced the same effects.
Upon an examination of the body by two eminent surgeons,
they were decidedly of opinion that she died from the
effects of poison ; and the Jury returned a verdict of
Wilful Murder against HESTER POWELL," who has
been committed by Mr. Emas for trial at the ensuing
Gloucester assizes.... Gloucester Journal.