The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-28 00:00:00

The Charge of Felony Against a Child.

REDDITCH, March 24.
After the ordinary business of the weekly petty
sessions here on Monday afternoon, the magistrates,

Messrs. 11. Millman (chairman), E. jiolyoake, W

Tabberer, W. Smith, J. Smith, and J. Brown, pro-
ceeded to hear the case of Emily Ballard, aged 10
years, charged by the Rev. G. R. Gray, vicar of
Inkberrow, Worcestershire, with stealing a penny
from a schoolfellow, named Sarah Jane Gough. The
case excited a great deal of feeling, and the court
was crowded to excess by people who gave vent to
their feelings in such an open manner as to call for
a threat by the chairman thatif persisted inhe would
have the court cleared and the case heard in private.

Mr. J. Smith, solicitor, attended on behalf of the
prosecutor, the Rev. G. R. Gray ; and Mr. Sim-
mons for the prisoner.
• Mr. Gray was present, but did not sit on the
Bench, as at the former examination.
Mr. Simmons applied for an adjournment in con-
sequence of the absence of Mr. Motteram, of the
Oxford Circuit, who was to conduct the defence;
but the magistrates refused the application.

Mr. Smith then stated the charge. The prisoner
was a scholar at the Inkberrow parish school, and
about three weeks ago she stole a knife.
The magistrates, after some discussion, requested
Mr. Smith to confine himself to the charge before
them—viz., that of stealing a penny.
Mr. Smith proceeded to say that the Rev. Mr.
Gray had established a money club in his parish,
to which the children were to subscribe ld. per
week. On Sunday, March 11, while at church the
prisoner took a penny from the pocket of Sarah
Jane Gough, who missed it when she was about to
pay her club-money. The prisoner was charged by
the schoolmistress with the theft, which she at first
denied, but afterwards gave up the money. Mr.
Smith went on to charge the girl with using obscene
language and with disgusting conduct, and said that
Mr. Gray, as an act of justice to the other school
children, and out of Christian charity to the girl
herself, had decided upon having Ballard charged
before the magistrates, He complained of Mr. Gray
having been " badgered" in the newspapers, and
said a great deal of factitious importance had been
imported into the case. He then called
John Gough, father of Sarah Jane Gough, who
deposed that he is a labourer at Inkberrow, and that
on Sunday, the 11th inst., he gave his daughter 3d.
to pay her club-money with. After church she
complained that Emily Ballard had taken money
out of her pocket in church. On cross-examination
the witness admitted that he had had 14 days' im-
prisonment for something ; it was not poaching.
Sarah Jane Gough, aged 10 years, deposed that
when at church she took her money out of her pocket
to see if it was all right. Did not know whether
Ballard saw her. Ballard was next to her on her
right hand. When standing up to sing she felt a
hand in her pocket, which was on Ballard's side, and
afterwards she missed a penny and a halfpenny.
She charged Ballard with taking it, but she denied
it. Afterwards Ballard gave her a halfpenny back.
She told the schoolmistress, Mrs. Davies, who, after
church, said to Ballard that if she did not give up
the money she would tell Mrs. Gray. Ballard then
gave up the penny.
A girl named Emily Winter, aged 12 years, a
schoolfellow of Gough, was next called, but her re-
plies to questions put by the Bench as to the nature
of an oath, &c., were not satisfactory, but she was
not sworn.

Mrs. Davies deposed that she was in charge of
the children at Inkberrow Church, and that while
at church on the 11th she saw Ballard put her hand
into Gough's pocket and take out a penny, which
she put in her mouth. Witness shook her head at
her, on which she put the coin into her pocket.
Subsequently she charged Gough with taking the
money, which she denied, but produced a penny,
which she said was for the club, and that she would

Iron ship building is now as common almost as
wood, many of our most renowned yachts being of
iron. In constructing iron ships the ribs or frames
are made of single angleiron, which by being heated
in furnaces have been bent to the required form,
and are placed at about 18 inches or two feet apart,
they are then riveted to the keel, which is also of
iron, and the plates are then placed outside these
ribs or frames, and riveted with white-hot bolts to
them, the contraction of the bolts when cooling
drawing everything together with immense force—
the plates in large ships when thick are placed end
to end with a strip on the inside which is riveted to
the plates ; this is called butt-jointed, but if the
plates are thin they are lap-jointed, or placed edge
over edge, like clincher building in wood, and
riveted along the edge ; when the riveting is com-
pleted the finish is given to the work by what is
called caulking, which is by driving a hard steel
punch against the edges of the plates, so as to
make them swell up tight, and then the workman
hammers the lap-edge of the plate against a holder
up inside, so that when the iron is painted or
tarred, the seam is quite tight, and any damp that
may penetrate, by causing rust, only tends to make
the work tighter. The first iron racing yacht I re-
member was the Bluebell, a cutter of 30 tons,
the property of Capt. Disney Roebuck ; she was
one of the fastest vessels of her time, and I believe
won many cups and prizes ; since then there have
been many celebrated iron yachts, the Mystery,
Thought, Titania, &c., and from day to day we see
iron yachts being launched, and after a victory or
two are eclipsed by the design of some new builder
who obtains a fleeting celebrity. We have a curious
insight into the method of shipbuilding at the time
of our Saviour, for Trajan's ship, which had sunk
in the Lake of Riccia, about A.D. 80, was raised
about the year 1475 (1,300 years after she had
sunk), at the time Leo Baptiste Albert was writing
his book on architecture ; she had lain sunk all this
time, and was moderately sound ; her mode of con-
struction was by double planking, caulked with
linen rags, and daubed with pitch, and over all was
a sheathing of lead, put on with with small copper
nails ; the planks she was built of were cut from
pine and Cyprus trees., The enormous fleet of
yachts belonging to our 30 principal yacht clubs in
Great Britain are not all built with precisely the
same objects in view, for although all are kept for
the purposes of pleasure, yet some are built en-
tirely with a view to comfort, so that a wealthy
man's whole family and suite of servants can live
on board in the greatest comfort and elegance, the
crew being in some cases good musicians, and form-
ing a very fine band, as on board the Tyne, Mr.
George Stephenson's splendid schooner yacht, or in
the Marquis Conyngliam's; and others are built ex-
pressly for racing purposes, and in the midship sec-
tion look exceedingly like a pegtop, everything being
sacrified for speed and false stability, hardly room
being provided for berthing the crew, which is in
most cases compulsorily very large, from the num-
ber of hands required to manage, shorten, or set
the sails quickly enough; in many cases a race de-
pending on the quickness with which one sail can
be taken in or set in place of another. Some very
wealthy men keep two yachts, one for racing, and
the other for comfort—Mr. T. Turner having the
Wildfire for racing, and the Constance, topsail
schooner, of very large size for his family to be on
board. Nothing could have been finer than the sight
when the Freneh fleet came into Spithead last year,
as an immense number of yachts from all parts of
the country had assembled at the Isle of Wight, and
went out to meet them; and every day whilst the
fleet remained these yachts cruised about, and the
owners visited the various ships. On board the vari-
ous French vessels which Ivisited the officers and men
were far more struck with our fleet of yachts, and
the way in which they were handled, than by our
fleet, or even Portsmouth ; and they expressed their
wonder at the way in which both ladies and gentle-
men seemed to understand the art of sailing and
managing their vessels; the way in which the yachts
sailed up and down, and round the vessels of the
fleet without any accident, was the universal won-
derment of the Frenchmen, and combined with the
great smartness of the crews of the yachts made
them declare that no other country could show so
splendid a sight. I only wish that as the Prince of
Wales has now become a yacht owner, he would call
together a meeting of all the various yacht clubs, at
the Isle of Wight (the most natural head-quarters
of a yachting fleet), and then pass them in review be-
fore him. If he did so, and the response to his call
was only such as it should be, there would be such a
gathering as would make old Neptune spear some of
his finest fish for the Prince's table whilst in com-
mand of his pleasure fleet. I believe, if this was
done in time, that by the end of August there would
be a splendid gathering of yachts, and most yacht
owners would at the same time confer A great coin-
patient on the Prince, and a benefit on their coun-
try if they would ship no men in their vessels who
were not men of the Royal Naval Reserve, thus
adding an immense number of the finest and smartest
sailors in the world to our fleet in case of emergency,
and if no necessity should arise for them, then a be-
nefit is conferred on the men and their families by
the present pay they would get, and the eventual
pension they would be entitled to. I hope yet to
see a rule established in all yacht clubs which will
enforce all members to employ only men of the Royal
Naval Reserve, which rule on being known would