The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-24 00:00:00

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS.—May 23.

The sittings of the Court for the May General
Sessions were resumed to-day at the Guildhall,
Westminster, by adjournment from Clerkenwell,
before Mr. Pashley, Q.C., Assistant-Judge, Mr.
Creasy, Deputy, and the following full bench of
magistrates :—Mr. Pownall, chairman of the court,
Mr. Kemshead, Mr. T. Turner, Mr. Sergeant Payne
(coroner for London), Mr. Woolsey, Sir J. Tyler,
Mr. H. H. Harwood, Mr. W. Bird, Mr. Dimsdale,
Mr. Baylis, Mr. E. W. Cox, Mr. Goodhart, Mr.
Dunnington Fletcher, Mr. Alderman Rose, Mr.
Hogarth, Mr. Faulconer, Mr. White, mid Baron
De Bliss.

The calendar contains the names of 94 prisoners
for trial, 82 of whom are charged with felony and
12 with misdemeanour.

The Assistant-Judge delivered the usual charge
to the grand jury.
Antonio Bombardini and Edward Murray, who
were convicted at the last sessions at Clerkenwell
of assaulting James Bentley, an officer of the
Sheriff of Middlesex, to rescue from his custody
one Sammerini, who had been arrested for debt,
were brought up to receive sentence.
Mr. Sleigh, on behalf of one of the defendants
(Murray) submitted to the Court whether it would
hear and consider some additional evidence which,
had it been adduced on the trial, he thought would
probably have had the result of a different verdict
being returned--at least as regarded his client.
The Assistant-Judge said the Court could not do
that, but it could be done through an application to
the Secretary of State. He could only act upon the
verdict as it had been given, and estimate the
amount of punishment to be awarded to the defen-
dants for an offence which, upon the evidence, a
jury had found them guilty. There was very little
delay in such a course now, and the ladt application
remitted to him from the Home-office came the
second day, and was finally answered in less than a
week. He had received letters having reference to
this case which it was highly improper shouldhave
been sent—one suggesting a further inquiry by him
into the facts of the affair. He could not do that,
because it would be tantamount to his sitting in
appeal upon the verdict of a jury; that belonged to
the office of the Home Secretary; and the other
letter complained of the treatment one of the defen-
dants had experienced in the House of Correction,
in being put to hard labour though not sentenced.
With that, of course, he had,nothing to do ; the re-
sponsibility rested with those who had the duty of
carrying out the regulations of the prison if there
really existed any cause of complaint. The question
of guilt having been decided by the jury, he had
carefully considered the whole case. The prosecution
was by a sheriff's officer for an assault and rescue.
He arrested Sammerini for debt at the Union Hotel,
Leicester-square, when the defendants, one of whom,
Murray, Sammerini's partner, committed the offence.
The sentence upon Bombardini was that he be im-
prisoned for six weeks dating from the 2d instant,
imprisoned simply, for he could not under the form
of the indictment impose hard labour, and even if
he had the power he should not do so, and upon
' Murray, that he likewise be imprisoned without
hard labour for the like term from the same date,
and in addition pay a fine of £5, for it appeared
that he had done more violence than Bombardini,
by striking and kicking the officer, who was only
discharging a duty imposed upon him by law.-
Mr. Metcalfe was counsel for the prosecution ;
Mr. Orridge for Bombardini.
John R,adley, 25, was indicted for stealing some
linen and other articles, the property of Henry
Smith, an engine driver, from his dwelling-house,
No. 23, Canal-terace, Islington. He pleaded guilty,
and former convictions were proved against him ;
his last sentence was four years' penal servitude.
The prisoner begged very hard to be let off, on
the ground that he was three parts drunk when he
committed the offence, and that his friends in a
month would give him an outfit, and send him to
Australia, where he had a 'sister who would receive
and provide for him. He never meant to do wrong
again after his four years, but he was tempted to
do this in an unlucky moment.
The Assistant-Judge said there could be no
doubt that the prisoner would have a far better
prospect for his future life in Western Australia
than here, but in the circumstances in which he
was placed he must be sent there, if sent at all, at
the expense of the country, and not of his friends.
There was a regulation under which about 1,000
prisoners sentenced to terms of penal servitude of
seven years and upwards were selected and sent
out to Western Australia every year, and in the
hope that the prisoner might be one so selected, the
Court would pass upon him a sentence of penal ser-
vitude for seven years.
Edward East, 15, was indicted for unlawfully
and maliciously assaulting and wounding George
Chas. Chapman with an axe. He pleaded guilty.
Mr. Talfourd Salter, for the prosecution, said the
assault was of so grievous a nature that the life of the
prosecutor was for some time despaired of. and the
danger in which he was placed was greatly increased
'by his having been previously in very bad health.
The prisoner and the prosecutor were apprentices
to a carpenter near Hounslow, and upon some slight
provocation the prisoner, in a sudden paroxysm of
ungovernable passion, seized a hatchet and struck
the prosecutor a blow on the side of the head and
face, which cut him fearfully and rendered him in-
sensible. It was not suggested that this was a pre-
meditated or deliberate act, but one done in a moment
of passionate fury ; still it was necessary that such
a desperately violent disposition should be curbeid
by a salutary punishment. It was a mercy that the
prosecutor had survived.
Mr. Metcalfe said he was instructed by the pri-
soner's friends to appear on his behalf. Nothing
could justify the use of a hatchet, but these boys
had resorted to practical joking of a not very
calle d
agree-
able character, and the prisoner had b
bad names and threatened. In a moment of
fsudden
i
anger, he committed this very bad act, for which he
must be punished, but his father, a very respectable
Phan, hoped that in dealing with him the Court
would take such a view of the case as would as little
as possible damage the lad'g future prospects in life.
The Assistant-Judge, after taking time to con-
sider,prisoner a sentence of nine
months'passed upon the
hard labour.
Thomas Paternoster, 30, a butcher, was indicted
for feloniously embezzling and stealing money
which he had received on account of James Wm.
Franklin, his master. lie pleaded guilty.
Mr. Sleigh said he prosecuted on behalf of the
Butchers' Association, and the charge of embezzle-
men..
+ against the prisoner was a very serious one as
regarded the amount he had appropriated to his
own use. The prosecutor was a butcher in High-
street, Islington, and the prisoner, in whom he had
reposed the most implicit reliance; had been in his

service for a period of nearly 12 yeare. These defal-
cations extended over a period of nearly three years,
and the amount, as at present ascertained, was
about £240. •

Mr. Metcalfe, for the prisoner, urged in mitiga-
tion of punishment that there had been no falsifica-
tion of books, and that the prosecutor had not been
robbed of his money by any elaborated scheme of
fraud. No doubt the prisoner had been tempted to
take the money, but it was at lengthy intervals.
The prisoner had been a man of most excellent cha-
racter until necessity drove him to dishonesty. He
had been a faithful servant to the prosecutor for at
least nine years, and under the circumstances the
Court would perhaps feel it consistent with its duty
not to pass a sentence of penal servitude. The
prisoner had already paid a severe penalty in the
loss of his character and prospects, and the disgrace
he had brought upon himself and family.
The Assistant Judge said the Court had laid
down a certain rule with respect to cases of em-
bezzlement of large amounts by confidential servants.
In this case they thought they could abstain from
acting upon it. The case was one, kowever, which
required a substantial punishment, and the sentence
of the Court was imprisonment with hard labour
for 18 calendar months.