The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-07 00:00:00

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS.—Jan. 5.

(Before Mr. Creasy, at Clerkenwell.)
lIT.RAORDINARY CASE OF STEALINCI, A CRIED-SEN-
TENCE OF SEVEN YEARS' PENAL SERVITUDE.
Eleanor Emmerson, 29, was indicted for feloni-
ously and maliciously, by force and fraud, taking
away and detaining Johanna Richardson, au infant
child under the qge of ten years, with intent to
deprive Mary Richardson, the mother, of the pos-
session of such child. There were five other counts
in the indictment, varying the offence.
Mary Richardson, the mother of the child, said
—I live at No. 12, Poole's-buildings, Mount Plea-
sant, Gray's-inn-lane. I had a child, Johanna
Richardson, between 10 and 11 months old, and as
I had to go out to work in the daytime I used to
leave my baby with the prisoner while I was out to
take care of it. She used to come and fetch it in
the morning, and brought it back to me in the
evening. At the time this happened I was living in
Tine-street, Liquorpond-street. My baby at this
time sucked at the breast. I gave the prisoner 2s.
Gd. per week to take care of the child. She lived
next door to me. On the 20th Aug. I dressed my
child in the morning, and I have not seen it since.
On that morning the prisoner asked me to come
home as soon as I could in the evening, as she
wanted to go to the play. I returned home about 8
o'clock that night, as I could not get home earlier.
When I got home I did not see the prisoner, nor
could I hear anything about my child. The pri-
soner did not say anything to me that she was
about to leave the neighbourhood. I have never
seen my child since. The next time I saw the pri-
soner was when she was in custody in the prison. I
said to her as soon as I saw her, " Where is my
dear baby 7" to which she replied, "It is dead and
buried." I then asked her where, and she said,
"In Victoria-park. Cemetery." I again saw her in
prison, when she said the child had been buried by
the parish authorities, but I do not know whether
this was my child. I have two other children at
Lome. They go to school. They are of the respective
ages of five and eight years. The night I missed
my baby I walked about the streets all nig!it, for
I could not rest, but I could hear nothing of it.
The prisoner here sullenly remarked that she had
before had the baby.two or three nights at a time.
Mrs. Richardson declared this was false as her
child took the breast, and the prisoner hadC never
been a mother.

Win. Battey, police constable A 318, said, from
a description given by the mother of the child at
the station-house, he took the prisoner into custody
in Red Lion-street, Holborn. He told her he took
her on a charge of stealing a child. She said, " How
could I steal it 1 it was entrusted to my care." Ho
said that did not matter, and he must take her to
the station-house. She then said that the child was
dead and buried. She said that Dr. Hart, of Union-
street, Spitaihelds, was the medical man who at-
tended it, and that it was buried in Victoria-park
Cemetery. He had made inquiries of Dr. Hart, and
ho believed that the substance of that statement
was true. He attended a child answering to the age
of the missing child for measles, and when it died
he gave a certificate that it died of pneumonia.
While the prisoner was in the House of Ddten-
tion she sent the following letter to the grandmother
of the child—the orthography being corrected :
" Daar friend,—l write these few lines to you to in-
form you with the particulars of the child. I went to
li7e at Mrs. Lofthouse,.6o, Winlord.street, and there the
child was taken ill, and I went to Mr. Hart, the doctor,
and be gave me some medicine for the child, and I told
him that tiis child's name was Johanna Emmirson, and
the next day she got worse, and I sant for Mr. IL • rt, and
he came to see her, and he told me that she had the
measles. And he came to see her every day. The
child died on tho Saturday morning, at hall-past six, on
the 7th or Bth of August last, and se was buried on the
Tuesday after, and I wont and got the register of her
death from Mr. Hart, and then I told him her name
was Richardson, and tkat it was in Union-street,
Spitalfields, and the register of her birth I got in
Gun-street—l think that is the name of the street, in
Union-street, at a carpenter's shop, and there I said her
name was Johanna Richardson ; and I said my name
R
was Mary ichardson, as her mother, and I went to see
her before she was screwed down ; and I followed her
to the ground, and saw her buried in the Victoria
Cemetery. The number of the grave is 33 or 36. Now,
dear friend, there is all the full particulars about the
child; and if they dig the grave up, there is a white
coffin in the grave, and I think little angels is on the
top of it, and she has got on her shift and long white
bedgown, and a pair of white socks on her feet. If,
dear friend, you can go to Mrs. Lofthouse, 60, Winford-
street, you ask her if she remembers giving the child
some water and milk. Now, dear friend, I have told
you all the particulars. Now, remember your poor un-
fortunate friend,

" ELEANOR MARGARET EIIIIERRON,
" House of Deten. ion.
" Mrs. Lovett, 9, Poole's-buildings, Mount-
pleasant, Clerkenwell."

In answer to a number of questions put in a very
feeling manner to the mother by Mr. Creasy as to
whether she was satisfied that the child had received
proper treatment, she said that she was by no means
satisfied that it had, or that the child which had
been buried was actually hers, she had aFce. t fined
that its clothes had been taken by a man with whom
the prisoner cohabited on the day before its death
to a " leaving shop," and she added that she should
be ever grateful if his worship would order the
child to be dug up, so that she might be satisfied,
if possible, that it VIA s hers, as she thought she
would be able to recognise it by a particular mark.
She bad also learned that the child had cried very
much at the house where the prisoner went to
lodge, and the landlady told her that the prisoner
had put it to the breast, although she (the penciller)
had never been a mother, and she attributed the
death of the child to the want of proper nourish-
ment.

Mr. Creasy said he could not see, as the child had
been buried in August, how the mother could be
assisted if they recommended to the proper autho-
rities that an exhumation of the body should take
place, although the court had every disposition to
assist the poor woman in any way that it could.
The learned judge then summed up, and read to
the jury the clause under which the indictment was
framed (9th Geo. IV., cap. 31, sec. 21), and left it
to them to say whether the prisoner had, within
the meaning of the statute, deprived the mother of
the poiseision of the child.

The jury immediately found the prisoner Guilty.
Mr. Creasy, after conferring with the magistrates
on the bench, said that it was the unanimous opi-
nion of the court that a worse case of the kind could
not occur, which he believed was the opinion of
every one present-, except the prisoner herself. The
law gave the court a discretionary power as to the
amount of punishment to be awarded in such cage 4,
and regarding this as one of the worst description,
he felt it to be his duty to pass upon the prisoner
the full term the law allowed, which was that she
be kept in penal servitude for seven years.
The prisoner heard the sentence without the least
concern. _ _ _

Bernard Edward Bellard surrendered to take his
trial upon a chargeof having assaulted John Henry
Bush, an American seaman, in a coffee-house, by
stliking him on the head with a carbine. He was
found guilty, after a long trial, and sentenced to
six months' hard labour.
Mr. Mew was counsel for the prosecution ; Mr.
Ribton for the defence.
A young man, an assistant to a chemist at Shad-
well, was indicted for stealing ls. 6d., the money
of his employer. He was acquitter].
Mr. Mew prosecuted ; Mr. Metcalfe was for the
prisoner. _

John Herbert Turner was called upon to surren-
der to a charge of indecent conduct in the Adelphi-
arches ; but he did not appear, and his recogni-
ances, himself in 2001. and two sure_ ties of 1001.
each, were estreated.

Each day of the session the juries complained of
the windows of the court being set open, and the
complaint was so far attended to that the windows
to which they called attention were closed, but
others were as soon opened elsewhere, by which
the evil was not diminished but rather increased.
The construction of the court is such that proper
ventilation would be extremely difficult of accom-
lishment, but open windows, above and below,
particularly in such weather as the present, make it,
as one of the jurymen said, "anything but a joke."