The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-24 00:00:00

and parties had escaped punishment, because at the
time the evidence had succeeded in inducing juries
to suppose that the parties were insane, when it
afterwards turned out that they were perfectly sane
people. Every man was presumed to bo sane unt'l
he was proved to be otherwise; he was supposed
to possess a sufficient degree of reason to he re-
sponsible for crime until the contrary was proved.
To establish such a defence it must bs
clearly proved that at the time of committing the
act the accused was labouring under such a
defect of reason as not to know the nature and
quslity of the act he was doing.
The jury acquitted the prisoner on the ground
of inanity, and he was ordered to be detained clu-
ing her Majesty's pleasure.

NORTHERN CIRCUIT.—.NEWCASTLE, DEC. 22.
Mr. Justice Crompton arrived at this town yes-
terday afternoon, from Durham, after finishing the
assizes there, and immediately opened the commis-
sion.

This morning his lordship charged the town grand
jury at 9 o'clock, at the Guildhall, and then ad-
journed to the Moot-hall, where he charged the
county grand jury, after which his lordship pro-
ceeded first to try the county prisoners.
The calendar for the county contains the names
of five prisoners only ; that for the town of New-
castle contains the names of 24 prisoners, some of
them charged with serious offences.
James Oliver, aged 34, was indicted for felo-
niously uttering and putting off a Bank of Eng-
land note for the payment of 101., well knowing
the same to be forged, at the parish of Shotloy, on
the sth Oat. last.

Mr. L. H. Bagley and Mr. Fowler appeared on
the part of the Bank of England for the prosecu-
tion, and Mr. Seymour in defence of the prisoner.
It appeared that the prisoner was a mason, liv-
ing at a place called Bellingham, and that he passed
a forged note to Michael Hudson Makepeace, a far-
mer at Boltsthorpe, in the county of Durham. Ou
the sth Oct. last Mr. Makepeace drove seven beasts
to Blanchland fair, on the borders of Northumber-
land and Durham, to sell. Not succeeding in selling
them, he was driving them home again, when the
prisoner met him at a place called Bay-bridge, and,
after some conversation with him about his beasts,
began bargaining with him for one of them—a bull,
which he eventually agreed to purchase for 7/. 17s.
6d. The contract was completed in a roadside
publichouse, where the prisoner pulled out what
purported to be a 101. Bank of England note
to pay for his purchase. Mr. Makepeace had never
before but once in his life (six years ago) seen a
Bank of England note, but, believing and trusting
that the note was a genuine one, he took it in pay-
ment and gave the requisite change. The prisoner
then drove away the bull, and on meeting a young
woman who knew him and saw him driving the
animal, requested her not to mention that she had
seen him. At the time of the purchase he gave a
wrong name and address, and with a great show of
hospitality he invited Mr. Makepeace to visit him if
ever he came into his neighbourhood. The note
turned out to be a forgery. To prove guilty know.
ledge evidence was given that the prisoner on the
16th May last passed a forged 5/. Bank of England
note to a Mrs. Golightly, who kept a public-house
at a plies called Street-end, and also thou gave a
wrong name; and on the 22d August last he pa sed
another forged Si. Bank of England note to another
publican, which being handed over to the police he
gave five sovereigns for the forged note, and told
the policeman he might destroy the note.
ilia Lordship having summed up the evidence,
The jury found the prisoner guilty.
His Lordship, in passing sentence, told the pri-
soner that not long since he would have been exe-
cuted for this offence, which was a very grave one,
as it bore very hardly on the poor persons who were
deceived by such practices. The sentence of the
Court was that he be sent for six years to penal
servitude.

Henry Oxley was indicted for feloniously em-
bezzling the sera of 121. 125., the property of his
master, William Hall Brown, on the 9th Nov. last,
at Hexham.

Mr. Davison appeared for the prosecution, and
Mr. Price defended the prisoner.
It appeared that the prosecutor's father, a very
old man, since dead, a farmer, wished to sell a bay
mare ae.Hexham fair, and the prosecutor offered the
prisoner 3s. for his day's work and his expenses to
take the mare over to Hexham and try to sell her,
with instructions to get 131. for her, or within a few
shillings of that sum, or bring her back home. The
prisoner sold the mare to a Mr. Smith Stobart, of
Acomb, at the fair for 121. 125., the 'mare at the
time having a running at the nose. On the priso-
ner's return he told the prosecutor he had treated
him very ill in sending hies with a glandered mare
to the fair. Oa the prosecutor asking him if he had
sold her and got the money, the prisoner said he
had exchanged her, and the prosecutor would find
another ho.se in his stable. On going to his stables
the prosecutor found a horse which had got the
" st tggers" that was not worth 11., and of no use,
eo they could not work him, for he could not tse
got to stir. The prisoner told him he had got much
the beat of it in the bargain, for his mare was glan-
dered, but she was not so in fact, and he did not
tell the prisoner, in order to account for her running
et the nose, that " she had got some trouble in her
head." On telling the prisoner that ho had no au-
thority to make the exchange, and demanding the
money for his mare, the prisoner told him he could
do nothing to him, for it was only a breach oftrust.
Mr. Price objected that the property of the mire
was in the father, and not in the present,prosecu-
tor.

His Lordship was of that opinion, and ordered
the indictment to be amended.

Mr. Price also objected that the prisoner was the
agent of the prosecutor to sell the mare if he could,
and not his servant within the meaning of the Act
of Parliament.

His Lordship overruled this objection, and
Mr. Price having left the case in his Lordship's
hands.

prisoner Guilty, and he was
imprisoned six calendar months,
sentencedw t Theh aj
ru
dr jurylabour.
he

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS.

(Before Mr. Creasy and a Bench of, Magistrate)
SENTENCE OS THE POLICEMAN BRADY.
Hugh Brady, the police-constable convicted on
Friday last of an assault upon Diedrich Rathgen,
a German, was brought up for judgment.
Mr. Creasy said the prisoner had been con-
victed of ono of the gravest offences it had ever
been his lot to try—a graver seldom came before
a curt of justice. It was proved, upon what he
must say was evidence of the clearest character,
that he had grossly insulted a married woman of
female be
when he found that the hus-
brpeeasilplideeeco-tetaebtniiils.eittatyebmiw he was performinghe duty o f
police-constable,
be had so insulted had taken his
number, for the purpose of reporting him to the
police authorities for his misconduct, he attacked
him with his truncheon and committed the brutal
and cowardly assault of which he had been con-
victed. Not only did he do that, but ho took his
victim into custody, on a charge of his having as-
saulted him with a poker—a charge which he sup-
ported by perjury before the magistrate, and also
at t'iis court, when he was disbelieved by the jury,
who acquitted Mr. Rathgen. Fortunately for the
ends of justice the prisoner had been convicted, and
from inquiry which bad been made as to his an t eae-
dont) it appeared that he was not entitled to the
good character he had received with respect to his
conduct while in, the Crimea, for he had been re-
duced for committing a set ions assault. Looking
at all the circumstances, especially to the fact that
at the time the prisoner was a police const ible
whose duty was to protect the public, he felt it to
be his duty to pass upon him the full sentence
the law allowed,
and regretted lie could not give
even more. The sentence was, that the prisoner b.)
kept to hard labour in the House of Correction for
the period of two years.
Mr. Van", the solicitor for the prosecution, is the
absence of Mr. Sleigh, renewed au application made
on Friday by the latter gentleman fur full costs, but
the court decided that the usual costs only should
be allowed.
James Terry, 63, pleaded guilty to an indictment
h preferred against i
-nn by direction of the parochial
authorities of MarylebJee, for having uulawfuly
kept and used the house, No. 45, Upper Norton-
street as a brothel. •
He was sentenced to four months' hard labour.
Mr. Metcialfe, instructed by Mr. Randall, the
pari:,ll solicitor, prosecuted ; Mr. Lewis
appeared
f 4. the defendant.
E I ward East, a stonemason, was convicted of in-
flicting grievous bodily harm upon his wife, by cut-
ting her head open with a lookin4-glass frame, and
it was proved that he had often ill-treated her.
He was sentenced to hard labour for 18 calendar
months. _ _

Mr. Daley prosecuted • Mr. Metcalfe defended.
David Evans, 20, was convicted of stealing a
watch from the person of John Colt, a warden of
the Weadon Prison,
while standing on the Hot so
Guards Parade, as her Majesty was passing to open
Parliament. He was sentenced to 4 mouths' hard
labour.
The last case tried was that of a person named
Sutton, who was
charged with assaulting a gentle-
man named Lewis, on
the occasion of the latter
waiting upon him in reference Ito some legal pro-
ceedings: The facts were of no interest except to
the parties. The defendant in the result was fined
N., and discharged.
Mr. F. H. Lewis prosecuted ; Mr. Metcalfe was
for the prisoner.
Among the grand jurors summoned to state th e