The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-15 00:00:00

EXTRAORDINARY INVESTIGATION.

The Lord Mayor was engaged yesterday for seve-
ral hours in the investigation of a charge of a very
extraordinary character.
Mr. James Apps, a young man, who carries on
business as a tailor in Jewry-street, Aldgate, ap-
peared in discharge of his bail to answer a charge
of misdemeanour, in having committed an indecent
assault upon a girl named Emma Spratt.
Mr. Lewis appeared for the defendant.
The complainant, a good-looking little girl, who
exhibited muob precociousness in the mode in which
she gave her evidence, stated that she was 12 years
old last March, and she went into the bui rice of the
defendant and his wife shortly before last Christ-
mas as a domestic servant, and left a little after
Christmas, but returned again to the service in
April. On Tuesday last she made a complaint to
her mother of the manner in which she had been
treated by the defendaut,in consequence of which she
was taken to a doctor, and the defendant was given
into custody. She then stated that after she had
been about a month in the service of the defendant,
he commenced treating her in an indecent manner,
and upon one occasion he told her to take some
water to her mistress's bedroom, and when she did
so the defendant threw her on the bed and assaulted
her. His wife, she said, was lying on the bed at
the time, and saw all that occurred. The defen-
dant told her, after he had assaulted her in the
presence of his wife, not to tell anybody what had
happened, and said that if she did she, and not
himself, would be punished. The witness then
entered into details of acts of the most extraordi-
nary and indecent description, all of which she
alleged were committed in the presence of the pri-
sox er's wife, and also with her sanction.
The Lord Mayor asked the witness whether she
really meant to represent that the prisoner's wife
was in the room when the alleged acts of indecency
were committed by her husband.
She replied that she was dressed and lying on
the bed while the defendant assaulted her.

The Lord Mayor asked if her mistress was sober.
She said that she was perfectly sober.
The complainant then went on to state that,
upon another occasion, an elderly gentleman, whom
she understood to be the uncle of the defendant's
wife, came to their house, and he also assaulted her
in an indecent manner, and he gave her a new
frock and a shilling to say nothing about it. The
defendant's wife, she said, was also present when
this occurred, and she told her not to tell her
mother. She also stated that she had been assaulted
in a similar manner by a young man named
Fowles, who was in her master's service.
In answer to questions put by Mr. Goodman, the
chief clerk,
The complainant said that the reason she did not
tell her mother earlier of what happened was, that
she did not know it was wrong until her mother
read something to her out of a newspaper of a
master having been sentenced to four years' penal
servitude for behaving ill to a little girl who was in
his service.

The complainant was subjected to a searching
cross .examination by Mr. Lewis. She said that the
prisoner's wife was quite young, but she was not a
pretty woman that she knew of. (At the request
of Mr. Lewis the defendant's wife was called into
the court. She appeared to be a very modest, re-
spectable-looking young woman, possessing consi-
derable attractions.) Her mistress and her master
had accused her upon several occasions of stealing,
but it was not true. They had threatened to dis-
charge her shortly before she made the statement
to her mother. She was discharged once, but was
taken back into their service. Her mistress had
told her that if she did not do her work properly
she would send her home, and the prisoner threatened
to bundle her out of the house if she did not conduct
herself better. Her mother told her of the account
in the newspaper, and said that a master had been
charged with doing what he ought not to have done
to a little girl, and that he had been sentenced to
four years' penal servitude for his misconduct. She
slept with her mother every night, but she did not
tell her a word of what had occurred until last
Tuesday.
Eliza Spratt, the mother of the complainant,
proved that her daughter made a communication to
her, in consequence of which she immediately took
her to a surgeon, and gave the defendant into
custody.
Mr. F. H. Simpson, surgeon, of Fore-street, proved
that be examined the person of the complainant,
and saw some appearances which might have re-
sulted from internal causes or from violence, but
he had no reason to believe that any felonious act
had been perpetrated.
In answer to questions put by the Lord Mayor,
this gentleman stated that he know the defendant
and his wife, and had attended professionally upon
the latter, and he considered her a very modest re-
spectable young woman, and most unlikely to have
acted in the manner that had been deposed to by
the complainant.
Mr. Lewis then made a most forcible address to
his lordship, urging the extreme improbability—
nay, he said, the almost impossibility—for a young
man in a respectable condition of life to have acted
in the manner represented by the complainant, in
the presence,
plainant's statement, with the sanction of his wife.
and actually, according to the com-
He contended that it was impossible to conceive
that such a monstrous story could be true ; and he
said it was far more probable that this young girl,
who was evidently very precocious, had trumped
up the tale out of revenge at being discharged from
her service, and that the tale she had told was sug-
gested to her imagination by hearing the newspaper
report read to her by her mother. He then said