The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-02 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

A DJFFTCCLT CASE.—A case was tried at Kingston
Assizes on Wednesday and Thursday which Mr. Baron
Bramwell said was of some importance as illustrating th 4:
difficulties which attend criminal prosecutions. As there
was no public prosecutor in this country it was important
that the law should protect and uphold honest prosecutors.
The case in question was an action for false imprisonment
and malicious prosecution brought by two persons against
a farmer at Egham. The defendant lost two trusses of
straw, and on being told that the plaintiffs had been seen
in a cart with "clean wheat straw" in it, he followed
them to Breutford, and gave them into custody. He did
not appear, and they were discharged, but aftertvards
arrested on a warrant, and tried, and acquitted. The
jury found for the defendant on the count of false imprison.
ment, and for the plaintiffs on the counts for malicious
prosecution--damages £2.5 in each case.

A SINGULAR COMPANY.—At Edmonton, on Thursday,
John Endean was charged with detaining some stationery,
the property of the National Union Assurance Loan
Society (Limited), of which he was the agent. Some
singular revelations were made in the course of the inquiry.
The two first directors in the printed prospectus gave
their addresses in Eaton-square, but it appeared that they
were only the butlers of the occupiers of the houses. Some
of the other directors were in the same position, while the
secretary was at one time sub-warder of Coldbath-fields
Prison. This witness said the directors did not attend
the board meetings in livery, and said he did not consider
the master's consent to the printing of their addresses
was necessary. Some amusement was created in
court by the reading of extracts from the pro-
spectus of the company, which was most ambi-
tious in its objects. It stated that local boards of
directors were to be established in the large provincial
towns, and the society would thus develope an amount
of business which a purely London board could never
accomplish. Mr. Peckham, for the defendant, said the
society was one of pretentious flunkeys, and the magis-
trates on hearing that it was only incorporated on the
23rd of March dismissed the summons with costs.

A Cabinet Council will be held on Saturday, by
which time it is expected all the Ministers will have arrived
in town.

It appears that Lord Brougham has proved
himself, after all, a sound practical lawyer. Not long
before his death he made over all his effects, by deed of
gift, to his brother William, the present Lord Brougham,
and so his estate does not pay a single penny of legacy
duty. Lord Stowell thought to do the same thing ; but
unfortunately his only son, to whom be had handed over
his property in a like manner, died before him ; so the old
ex-judge had to pay legacy duty as his son's heir-at-law, and
at his own death the legacy duty had to be paid over again.

In a letter to the Coventry Town Council, Mr.
Staveley Rill, M.P., referring to the Parliamentary Elections
Committee, says the evidence as to the conduct at municipal
elections will probably occupy four or five sittings. The
committee will not require any evidence as to the conduct of
Parliamentary elections, as they have sufficient evidence
in reports of commissions and of the judges. Ile thus speaks
of the present law regarding the composition of rates:—
That the present state of things is very bad and must be put
an end to, .1 most cordially agree; and, unless somo better
measure is proposed, I shall certainly support the return to
the state of things that was put an end to by the 7th section
of the Representation of the People Act, 1867."
IF SHE HAD KNowx,—While the Convention
that nominated Abraham Lincoln for the second term
was sitting at Baltimore, 1864, an orator of Irish extras•
tion related a story of an old lady at Cincinnati who had
seven sons killed in the battles of the North. The mayoa
and corporation of the city sent a deputation to condole
with the good woman on her great loss. "Never mind
me, gentlemen," said the old lady ; " I only wish I had
known when I was a younger woman that this war was
coming, and I would have had seventeen sons instead of
seven to fight the battles of the Union ! "—Blackwood's
Magazine for April.

MR. MORLEY, M.P., AND HIS WORKPEOPLE.—
On Tuesday Mr. Morley entertained between fifty and
sixty of his oldest workmen from the town and neighbour.
hood at dinner in one of the large rooms of the warehouse
in Fletchergate, Nottingham. After dinner Mr. Morley
had separate interviews with those present, and added
eighteen to the number of life annuitants, who are now
paid 7s. 6d. a week from the funds of the firm. About
fifty were last year on the list, which now numbers nearly
seventy. A£s note was on Tuesday presented to each
guest who was not put on the list of annuitants. Sue'.
actions (though Mr. Morley would be the last to let them
be known) ought to be published ; they are worth any
amount of words, and make wise words doubly effective.—
Nottingham, Journal.

DEMOLITION OF AN ANCIENT 13RITISII CAMP.-•-•
The ancient Pritish encampment of Bur Wals, at the
foot of Clifton Suspension Bridge, is threatened with
complete destruction. This remarkable camp consists
of an oval space, at one time entirely enclosed, and
surrounded by as embankment and ditch. There is
little doubt of its being of British origin, though it has
been by some writers attributed to the Romans, owing,
probably, to the fact of Roman antiquities having been
found there in former times. But the Romans would
naturally have used a fortress of this description, finding
it ready to their hand, and in an important position on
the banks of the Avon ; and archreologists of the present
day are inclined strongly to the belief that the camp is
British. The building company are destroying this old
embankment for the value of the limestone of which it
is formed, and their picks and shovels have brought to
light the ingenious foundation of the dyke. A centre of
timber was evidently surrounded by limestone, which
was again covered with timber, and the timber haying
been burnt the stone was thus calcined.