The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-04 00:00:00

THAMES.

James Thompson, au old and apparently feeble man,
described es a porter, and George Saunders, a stout able-
bodied fellow, were brought before Mr. Ingham, charged
with being in an unoccupied house with a quantity of
house-breaking implements in their possession, with in-
tent to commit a burglary.
Yesterday morning, at two o'clock, an active officer
named William Gifford, No. 155 11, observed the door
of an unoccupied house open on his beat in the New-
road, St. Georges's-in-the-East. The house adjoined
the premises of Mr. Thomas, watchmaker and jeweller,
where there was a very large and valuable stock depo-
sited. Gifford, knowing the door was closed when he
passed an hour before, and immediately suspecting some-
thifig: was wrong, entered the house, and upon turning
on his bull's-eye lantern confronted Saunders, who had
his shoes off, and who, upon seeing the policeman, made
an attempt to run up stairs. Gifford was preparing to
follow, when the prisoner struck at him with a life pre-
server, and called out to some one above. Gifford then
turned bark, sprang his rattle, and obtained the assist-
ance of Aisb, another policeman, No. 453 A, with whom
he cautiously ascended the stairs to the top of the house
without meeting with any one, but on getting out on the
roof they saw both prisoners clambering over the roof of
the adjoining house, and called upon them to
surrender, which they refused to do, and
threatened that if the officers dared to follow them
they would hurl them into the street and break
every bone in their bodies. The officers, nothing
daunted, pursued the two thieves, who displayed
much activity. Gifford soon overtook Saunders, on
the roof of a third house, and was about to seize him,
when the prisoner turned round, grappled with the
constable, and threw him upon the tiles on his back.
A fearful conflict took place. Gifford grasped the
prisoner firmly by the neck, and they rolled over and
over the roof, at the imminent peril of their lives, until
Gifford was compelled to let go, and rolled into the
gutter close to the parapet, narrowly escaping going
over into the street. Saunders then followed the foot-
steps of his companion over the roofs of other premises,
and the constables began pelting them with tiles, and
dealt them so many severe blows that they stopped on
the roof of the sixth house from the one they entered,
and said they would go no further; but just as Gifford
and Aish came up with them both jumped on to the root
of the next house, several feet below the other. The
officers told them to come up again, and not put their
necks in jeopardy any longer, on which the old man said
he would not be captured, and that be would jump
into the street, if he broke his legs, if the constables
did not retrace their steps; and added, "I know you
have got me this time—death is preferable to a prison."
Gifford was not to be deterred by this threat, and he
jumped down upon Thompson and secured him. Aish
followed his example, and seized the other prisoner.
On taking the prisoners back to the shop of the un-
occupied house the officers found several housebreak-
ing implements upon them, and in the shop Thompson's
hat, a skeleton key, a piece of candle, a screwdriver,
lucifer-matches, and other things. Oa both prisoners
were found bottles containing a preparation of oil of
anniseed and some other stuff, which the officers had no
doubt was intended to be used to poison the dog at the
jeweller's shop.
Mr. INGHAM asked if there was any communication
between the unoccupied house and the premises occupied
by the jeweller and watchmaker? Gifford said there
was. The yard at the back of the untenanted house
adjoined the one at the back of the jeweller's shop, and
the thieves could have easily passed from and to the
other, and got into the jeweller's shop at the back
window.

Mr. INGHAM—Is there a dog kept in the jeweller's
shop? Gifford—There is, Sir. _

Police-sergeant Eves, 14 H, said that after the pri-
soners were brought to the station-house, he went back
to the house where the prisoners were first seen, and
found in the cellar a bottle of gin, a preparation for poi-
soning the dog, and a crowbar which appeared to have
been used in making a hole in the wall dividing the tene-
ment from the jeweller's house. He afterwards went over
the roofs of the houses, and discovered on the top of that
occupied by a Mr. Barnstable a stout piece of cord fas-
tened through the hole of the gutter, and thrown over
the coping into a stable-yard, about thirty or forty feet
below the roof. This was no doubt intended as a dernier
ressort by the thieves if they had been intercepted in the
unoccupied house, after committing the burglary. Both
prisoners were unknown to the police, and refused to
give their addresses.
Mr. INGHAm sentenced them to be imprisoned and
kept to hard labour for three calendar months.