The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-10 00:00:00

POSTPONEMENT OF THE HOP DUTY.

The following letter has been received by Vis-
count Pev,nsey, M.P., in reply to the noble lord's
application to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in
reference to the postponement of the May instal-
ment of the hop duty solicited by the planters :
"Downing-street, May 3d, 1858.

" My Lord,—l have received your lordship's
letter of the 24th ultimo, in which you call my at-
tention to the circumstances recently brought to
my knowledge by a deputation of hop-growers, and
press upon her Majesty's Government the necessity
of allowing the payment of that instalmert of the
duty, which falls due in the course of the present
mouth, to be postponed ; and I shall now state the
arrangement which her Majesty's Government,
after a careful consideration of the question, are
prepared to sanction, with a view of mitigating the
inconvenience to which the hop-growing interest
would, at this moment, be subjected by a rigid ob-
servance of the excise regulations.
" The first moiety of the duty (200,0001.) on last
year's growth falls due on the 16th inst., and the
second moiety on the 16th November.
" With regard to the first of these instalments I
am willing to propose that if a moiety of the duty
be paid on the 16th May, the payment of the re-
mainder should be postponed to the 16th August
next.

" I propose also to allow a corresponding delay
in respect to the payment of the second instalment,
so that the moiety of it would ba required on the
15th of November, and the remainder on the 16th
February, 1859.

"I trust that this arrangement will prove satis-
factory to the hop growers, as I cannot hold out
any hope of any further concession being sanctioned
by her Majesty's Government.—l am, my lord,
your lordship's obedient servant, _ _

" B. DISRAELI."

AN INCIDENT IN THE LATE t4LASO TY

T.RI AL .4.

At the Circuit Court of Justiciary at Glasgow,
on Thursday evening, four prisoners, three men
and a woman, were placed at the bar, charged with
an audacious street robbery, committed by means
of garotting. Three of these people, including the
woman, were habit aed repute Glasgow thieves,
and had been previously convicted. The evidence
tended to prove that two of the prisoners followed
Mr. Newstead, a clerk, into a recess, where, by
violence, they robbed him of his watch, while the
female, and another male prisoner named M'Cart-
ney (a previously convicted thief), remained out-
side. After the outrage had been committed, the
watch was handed to the woman, a fact which she
admitted in her declaration. On the conclusion of
the evidence, Mr. Thomson, the counsel for
M'Cartney, was about to address the jury for his
client, when the Lord Justice-Clerk intimated that
he did not think the case had been made out
against M`Cartney, in consequence of which the
counsel resumed his seat, naturally conceiving
that the man for whom he was about to appear
was out of all jeopardy. Two gentlemen then
addressed the jury for the other prisoners, the Lord
Justice-Clerk summed up, and the jury retired to
deliberate upon their verdict. They returned with
their verdict agreed upon, and the foreman had
0,,1y got the length of stating that, "by a majority,
they found M`Cartney guilty as lib-lled," when he
was interrupted by the Lord Justice-Clerk, who
stated that he understood they had agreed with him
as to the incompleteness of the case against M'Carc-
ney, in consequence of which his counsel had not
addressed them on his behalf. •Mr. Thomson was
sent for, but as ho had good reason to believe that
his work was over, he had left the Court. The
consequence was that the jury was enclosed for the
night. The case was now iu this anomalous posi-
tion—that the Judge had summed up ; the jury
had deliberated upon their verdict ; they had com-
pleted it, and put it into the mouth of their fore-
man, who was in the act of proclaiming it, when
the procedure was stopped, and they were ordered
to be detained for a night that they might after-
wards listen to a speech which, according to a rule
which has never been infringed, so far as we know,
should have been delivered at another time. Mr.
Thomson did deliver his speech next day, and the
result was that the verdict as against him was found
by a majority of one to be not proved. The ordi-
nary deduction from this would be that Mr. Thom-
son's speech was one of wondrous power, for he
converted certain members of a jury who the night
before had voted for convicting his client, and this
they did after hearing all the evidence and the final
address of the presiding Judge. Whether or not
they might be somewhat influenced by a desire to
get the C out out of what seemed to be an awkward
tix we have no right to inquire. The other pri-.
boners were convicted, and seat need to severe
punishment. There is something very loose in the
concluding stages of this case. It is likely to be
recorded in future books of criminal procedure
rather as a precedent to be avoided than as one to
be followed. And we must say that had the Lord
Justice-Clerk allowed things to go on in the usual
way, no such unseemly event would have happened.
—Glasgow Herald

CALEDONIAN BALL,--.This grand annual festival has
been appointed to take place at Willis's Rooms on Fri,
day the 11th of June, under the highest patronage.