The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-20 00:00:00

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS, JUNE 19.

Jane Phillips was indicted for feloniously stealin_ a
silver knife handle, value 2s. 9d., the property of her
mistress, An❑ Philpot, widow.
Miss Phi!pot lives at Turnham-green with her mother;
the prisoner at the bar had lived with her mother for three
weeks, and left on the 21st of May; the handle in ques-
tio❑ belonged to a knife in general use, and the prisoner
had the charge of it.
Mr. Robinson, a watchmaker and silversmith, stated

that the prisoner came into his shop shout fourteen hours
after she had left the knife handle to innuire about it ; he
asked her how she became possessed of the handle, the
word " stolen," he told her, was written upon it ? (This
was a ruse he adopted in such cases.) The prisoner said
she found it in the ash-pit; the blade had evidently been
burned out of the handle, and the prisoner declared her
intention of selling it.
A former mistress of the prisoner gave evidence as to

the weak state of her intellect, and said she really did not
know right from wrong.

The Jury returned avt•rdict of Not Guilty. The pri-
soner was then discharged, and given up to her father.

SEVEN PARISHES WITHOUT A CLERGY-
mAN!—We believe there are few of our readers who would
credit the bare assertion that seven parishes could be found
in this nei4hhourhood " deprived of the advantage of a
legally resident clergyman," in some of which, when an
interment haw to take place, the afflicted relatives have to
,c &liver the country round in search of an administrator
of the " last Consolations" bestowed on this side the grave.
Such, however, is really the case, and a petition, signed
tiy the churchwardens of the parishes, was transmit•ed last
week for presentation to the House of Commons. These
parishes embrace a great portion of the district It. tween
Sheffield, Rotherham, and Worksop.—Shejfield 11:s.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

B 0 W-STREET.

Yesterday a woman of the town, named Catherine
Murphy, was charged before Sir F. ROE with having
stolen a pocket-book from the person of a gentleman
named KPr, containing two hills of exchange, of the value
of 1,4001., and other property of considerable value.
The prosecutor, Mr. Ker, was at present residing at
the Old Hummums, Covent-garden. On Monday night
last, between 10 and 11 o'clock, as he was passing along
the Strand, be was accosted by two women, one of whom
wished him to accompany her to Kennington, which he
declined to do. S'ae then asked him to treat her, and he
went with her to a public house in the neighbourhood of
the Strand, where he treated her to a glass of ale. They
then went to the Ileathc,ck public-house, Heatlicock-
court, Strand, arid were shown into a little parlour close
to the her, when he called for a glass of gin and water,
which lie paid for. Before he entered the house be felt
for his pocket-book, and found that it was safe, and he
twisted the pocket which contained it to make it
more secure. The woman began to pull him about in
the parlour, and suspecting that she meant to rob him,
he kept his back against the wall, but in stooping forward
to reach the glass of gin and water from the table,
she got her arm round trim, and immediately after she
told t.irn that she wanted to go out, but that she would
return again in a minute. As soon as she left the room,
witness missed his pocket-book, and he instantly ran into
the Strand in search of her, but could not see her anywhere.
He then returned to the public-house, and informed the
landlord of his loss, who told him that be knew the wo-
man, and saw her running in the direction of Maiden-
lane. The pocket-book contained two bills of exchange,
of the value of 900/. and 5001. each, besides a number of
receipts and other valuable papers. He had been drink-
ing on the night in question, but was sufficiently his own
master to know what he was about. He was almost
positive that the prisoner was the woman who robbed him.
She was just such a figure, and wore such another bonnet,
Ann Jeffery, landlady of the Heathcock public-house,
deposed to her having been in her bar at 11 o'clock on
the night in question, when Mr. Ker came in, accom-
panied by a young woman. They went into the parlour
adjoining the bar, and were served with a glass of gin
and water. In about ten minutes after, the woman left
the house in a hurried manner. The prisoner was very
like the person to whom she had referred.

Sir F. Ros told the witness she must say positively
whether or not she believed the prisoner to be the same
person she had spoken of.
The witness, after some hesitation, replied that she had
that morning said at the station-house, in answer to ques-
tions put to her there, that she did not believe the prisoner
to be the same woman, and she did not now wish to give
another opinion.

Sir F, ROE remarked upon the improper practice of
examining witne,ses at the station-house, before they c
to give their evidence on oath in the presence of a magis-
trate. Here was a witness who, if she had been brought
at once before the magistrate, and sworn as to her belief
of the identity of tt.e prisoner, would most likely have
given a decided answer in the affirmative ; but, because
she had previously given an opinion at the station-house,
when unworn, she chose to abide by it now, although
under the obligation of an oath.
The prisoner declared she never saw the gentleman till
she was taken into custody.
She was remanded for a week to give time to procure
further evidence.

TIMES CHANGES-IMPOSSIBILITIES.

About this time five hundred years ago, Anno
Donzini 1340, gunpowder and guns were invented.
Now the following (setting aside the mode of lan-
guage, which is not essential to our purpose) is the
way in which one of these gentlemen, a few months
previous to that event, would have expressed him.
self in reference to some other impossibility. Some-
body would be speaking of alterations in the mode
of welfare, upon which our contemptuous anti-vicis-
situdinarian would thus break out :

" A change like tlvit ! Why you might as well
say that people by-and-by will fight with fire and
smoke, and that there will be arrows as round as
plum-puddings, and made of lead, as thick as your
skull !"—(A laugh among the Hon. Gentlemen of
that time.)
In nine months after this speech, gunpowder is
invented, and the art comes up by which round
leaden arrows are shot out of cannon, darting fire as
they comp, and filling the air with smoke.
4nno Domini 1440—The great grandson, or
other representative of the above gentleman, ex-
claims, on some fresh subject of innovation amidst
the honours of the " laugh."—A change like that !
Why, you might as well say that brand-by there
will be books without being copied out, and that we
shall have a hundred of those impossible books in the
course of a day."
Next year the art of printing is invented, which
was thought at first a thing magical and devilish,
and by which we can now have a thousand copies of
a book in a day.

Anno Domini 1534.—The great-great-great-
great-grandson, or now representative as aforesaid,
is treating some other novelty with the usual happy
contempt of his race :—" A change like that!
Why, you might as well say that people will all be
permitted to read the Bible, and that nunneries, and
even abbots will he put down ! !"—( Shouts of
laughter, in which the Reverend Abbots present
were observed to join.)
The same year the Bible is printed and read
openly, and upwards of six hundred religious hou,es
suppressed.
Anno .Domini 1666.—" A change like that !"
quoth the representative, " Why, you might as well
say that Englishmen will leave off taking a steak
and a cold tankard for their hreakfast—( A laugh)—
or that they will go to the other end of the world,
to pluck it off a gooseberry bush."—(Great laughter.)
The same year tea is brought into England, not
indeed off a gooseberry bush, but off a bush of no
greater importance, and (in common parlance) at
the other end of the world.

But this is a trifle. What must have been the
feelings of the representative, or rather of his an-
cestor, of course a much wiser man than himself,
arid therefore more peremptory, who, after bring-
ing storms of laughter upon the head of the poor
fellow who spoke of some changes in navigation, and
exclaiming►, " Why, you might as well tell me that
ships will go blindfold three thousand miles over the
water to the place they want to arrive at"—should
he have seen the invention of the compass? What
would he have thought, even if he could have seen
no greater invention than balloons, gas-light, or the
two-penny post? Or if he could have been " shown
-in spirit." English gentlemen become sovereigns
in Asia and America, or the French throwing off
their ragged elbows, their corvees, and their Grand
Monarque, arid choosing no longer to be the butts
of the English for submitting to him ? Upon which
the English do all they can to thrust him down
their throats.—Tait's Magazine for June.

THE HERRING.—They resemble in their
habits the salmon-trout, hunting the keding•ground of the
salmon, and, when fed on the peculiar food of the salmon,
their flavour is excellent; but they take readily to coarser
food, as small herrings, fry, sand-eels, and the fry of any
other fishes. Their stomach and intestines get loaded
with putrescent debris, their flesh loses its flavour, and
their condition, as articles of human food, has changed
materially. No two conditions can be supposed more op-
posite than the herring presents when fed on salmon food,
and when fed on fishes. They differ, therefore, from salmon
trout in this respect, that, when feeding on the food of the
salmon, they attaidalmost the flavour of the salmon, which
the salmon trout never does. It has been ascertained that
the herring resembles the vendace in its habits, as to food,
more particularly ; and that, whilst feeding on the incre-
dibly minute entomostraceous animals, which it more
especially affects, the condition of the herring is excellent,
rendering it an extremely desirable food for man. In this
state, the stomach seems as if almost altogether empty (as
in the vendace), though at the moment full of minute
anim iii, to be discovered only with the micro.cope, and
on which the animal has been feeding. The intestines,
also, seem as if empty; the tunics of the whole digestive
canal are fine and setni-transparent, and as free of intes-
tinal and putrescent debris found in the stomachs and in-
testines of animals, as if the herring actually fed on nothing
but air and water. When he approaches the shores, thus
quitting the proper feeding ground, he takes to other and
coarser food ; his condition alters, and his flesh becomes
soft and tasteless. The stomach and intestines are found
and, gutted or ungutted,
tt)erellair'uoiungsli t into the market as equallto:isdefidshw putrescent tirleesvceern
to the product of the Dutch fisheries.