The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-07 00:00:00

iA
The annual report of the Inspector-General of
Musketry for the year ending March 31, 1861,
which has just been laid before the Commander-in-
Chief, consists mainly of tabulated returns of the
rifle training of each regiment in the service, and
shows the Ist Battalion 22d Foot as the best shoot-
ing battalion of the army (it was also the best in
the year 1859-60), its " figure of merit" being 51.66
and the No. 6 Company of the same battalion as the
best shooting compapy in the army, its "figure of
merit" being 55.46. " The shooting in the army,
as a whole, has improved," General Hay remarks ;
" and another year's experience proves the sound-
ness of the system now in operation to train the
various corps and battalions to the, efficient use of
the rifle, not.only in the United Kingdom, but in
the several colonies and possessions of the empire
where Her Majesty's troops are quartered."
At the Hythe School of Musketry 176 officers,
including six of flip Irish constabulary, have under.
gone instruction; of which number 112, or 64 per
cent., became first-class shots, and 56, or 32 per
cent., second-class shots, leaving 8, or only 4 per
cent., in the third class.
731 sergeants and rank and file have been instruc-
ted at Hythe, of which number 416, or 57 per cent.,
became first-class shots, and 292, or 40 per cent.,
seccnd-class shots, leaving only 23, or 3 per cent.,
in the third class.
247 Volunteers from different corps have been
exercised at Hythe through the modified course ap-
proved for that force, of which number 133, or 54
per cent., became first-class shots, and 112, or 45 per
cent., second-class shots, leaving only 2 in the third
class.

In all the practices that establish the " figure of
merit" there was an improvement on the preceding
year, with the exceptions that in the file firing the
Volunteers came down from 11.68 to 11.26, and in
skirmishing from 4.06 to 4.89. The figure of merit
was—for officers, 46.24 ; for non-commissioned offi-
cers and privates, 44.86 ; for Volunteers, 4567. Last
year the figures of merit was 44.18,41.37, and 43.72
respectively.
General Hay remarks that " the Volunteers are
specially drilled by the first-class sergeant instruc-
tors of the establishment, which circumstance,
coupled with the great attention they give to the
subject, will account, in some measure, for the pro-
ficiency they acquire in so short a time." And we
may add that the Volunteers are generally men of
good physique, well set, and in their prime of strength
and endurance—men who have elected to go to Hythe
whose success or failure in the course of instruction
is of importance to their standing in their respective
corps, success at the school often carrying regi-
mental promotion, and who, therefore, willingly and
zealously labour to obtain success, and who are,
moreover, incessantly studying and practising in
that limited course of instruction that is open to them
in their 14 days' sojourn at the school; while, on the
oontrary, of the officers of the Line who go to
Hythe, a considerable number,—nearly two-thirds—
are young subalterns in ferior in stamina to the Volun-
teers, and who, having no choice or election, have
simply obeyed orders in accompanying their de-
tachments to the school, without any special liking

to the course of instruction, or desire or stimulus to
attain exeellence, even where there may not be, as
there is in some cases, an aversion to the instruc-

ion, or a sense of its inutility in consequence of an

intention to retire from the service. And though
the officers of the Line are two months at the
school, while the Volunteers are there but a fort-
night, it should be taken into consideration that
the Volunteers themselves simply learn to shoot,
and are diligently occupied in acquiring profi-
ciency, while the officers of the Line are taught
also to convey instruction to others, and during
their two months' residence are only one-half of
their time engaged in rifle instruction, the other
half being given to ordinary garrison duties.
Of the 176 officers who passed through the school
in 1860-1, 72 entered the first class and 43 became
marksmen, making seven prAnts and upwards in
the first class.
Of the 731 sergeants and rank and file, 288 en-
tered the first
;;lass, and 41 became marksmen.
Of the '2O
Volunteers, 90 entered the first class,
and. "-dEi of that 90 became marksmen.
The percents
ber instrucg eh- marksmen to the total num-
ted is etl9erefore—Officers 24, sergeants
and rank and file
a, Volunteers 15. To the num-
ber of persrAisi, ,t-
60:49e firstu class the percentages are
respectiv,,'l3,
LIO three parties of Volunteers 'who were all:, I
t
School between May 9, 1860, and March
consisted of 78, 74, and. OA members respe'd selae
ivel)3,l'.l
The figure of merit of the first party --
wasp.oo ;
the percentage of first-class shots, 47. Of the se-
' con d party the figure of merit was 47.11; the per-
centage of first-class shots, 45. The third party
took 45.02 as their figure of merit, and gave 66 per
cent. first-class shots. The figure of merit is the
average of points made by all the individuals in
each party in the first period (20 rounds at 150,
200, 250, and 300 yards—five rounds each), in file
firing, standing, at 300 yards; in volley firing,
kueelivg, 4; 400 yudg i And ii 3 airinishing, b vtween
,

It will be recollected that in the month of March
last ten bales of silk, valued at £2,000, were stolen
from a barge on the river, on its way from the
West India Dock to the St. Katherine's Dock,
or in the last-named dock, after the arrival of
the silk at that place. The stolen silk was con-
cealed for a *few hours in the house of a man
named Barker, a shoemaker, of Hope-street, Beta-
nal-green, and removed by rail to Derby, where it
was found by the police of that town in the mill of
a silk-throwster named Newton. After several ex-
aminations at the Thames Police-eourt, three men,
named Barker, Debock, and Crane were committed
for trial for stealing the silk, and John Newton, of
Derby, was committed at the same time for felo-
niously receiving the silk, he well knowing it to be
stolen. The trial at the Old Bailey lasted two days,
and terminated in the conviction of Debock and the
acquittal of the other prisoners. The names of two
persons, named Agg and Hunter, both licensed vie-
tualiers, the one keeping the Clown public-house
in the St. John-street-road, opposite Sadlees-wells
Theatre, and the other the Red Deer, in the Cam-
bridge-heath-road, Bethnal-green, were frequently
mentioned during the investigations which took
place. Both absconded, and rewards were offered
for their apprehension. Agg's name was appended
to the receipt for money paid by Newton for the
silk, and Hunter was stated to have been in com-
pany with Agg in Derby at the time Newton paid i
for the silk. Debock ,exhibited three £lOO Bank
of England notes to an innkeeper named Row-
botham, in Derby, and asked if they were genuine ;
at the same time he pretended to be a Frenchman,
who could only speak English imperfectly. Debock
acted so clumsily and gave such a curious account
of the manner in which he became possessed of the
notes, that Mr. Rowbotham gave information to the
Derby police. Debock and his brother in-law Bar-
ker, who was in his company at the time, were im-
mediately arrested, a communication was made to
the London police, the silk in Newton's mill was
seized, Newton was taken into custody, and a man
named Crane, in the employ of Drakeford and Co.,
silk mercers in the City, was also apprehended. Crane
engaged the van which conveyed the stolen silk from
Barker's house to the railway station the night before
it was conveyed to Derby. After the trial at the Cen-
tral Criminal Court, the three £lOO notes found
upon Debock were ordered to be returned to New-
ton, who had paid them away to Agg. The licences
of the Clown and the Red Deer were transferred to
other persons after the flight of Agg and Hunter,
and no tidings were heard of either until yesterday
afternoon, when Hunter surrendered himself at the
Thames Police-court, Stepney, which in a few mi-
nutes became crowded to excess with his friends
and connections, and persons connected with the
West India D ockrompany, the St. Katharine Dock,
and the silk trade.
Mr. Humphreys, jun., of the firm of Humphreys,
Son, and Morgan, solicitors, conducted the prosecu-
tion for the St. Katharine Dock Company ; Mr.
Leech, solicitor, of Derby, defended Hunter.
Mr. Humphreys, jun., said that rewards hadbeen
offered for Agg and Hunter. They had been sought
after in vain. Mr. Leech, of Derby, was now pre-
pared to surrender Hunter to answer a charge to be
preferred against him.
Mr. Leech said that Mr. Hunter had long been
anxious to surrender, and was now seated alongside
of him. It was a matter of arrangement between
him and Mr. Humphreys that the case should be
proceeded with that afternoon. Hunter might now
be considered in the custody of the Court, and he
hoped it would not be necessary for him to go into
the dock.
Mr. Woolrych said ho could not depart from the
ordinary course, and that the prisoner must go into
the dock where persons charged with felony, were
always arraigned, and he must stand there during
the investigation.
Mr. Humphreys, jun., said he must call the
magistrate's attention at some length to the facts
of this case. On the 13th of March last, 9111
bales of silk, ex the ship Solent, from Shanghae,
were delivered into a barge, called the Dorville,
belonging to Mr. Henry Grey, since deceased, in
the West India Dock, to be conveyed to the St.
Katharine Dock. The barge containing the silks
arrived in the St. Katharine Dock on the 14th of
March, and on the hatches being unlocked, and a
tarpaulin which covered the silks being removed,
ten belles were found to be missing. The robbery
had-taken place between the two docks, or in the
St. Katharine Dock. A few days afterwards the
Derby police stopped two:men, named Debock and
Barker, at the railway station in that town. Three
£lOO notes were found upon Debock. An investi-
gation took place. and it was proved that Newton,
a silk throwster in Derby, had purchased ten bales
of raw silk of a publican named Agg, landlord
of the Clown, in London, and Hunter, landlord
of the Red Deer, Newton produced an in-
voice for the same, signed by Agg. The silk was
seized in Newton's mill and forwarded to London,
It would be proved that Agg and Hunter accom-
panied Newton in the train from London to Derby
on the night of the 18th of March, that Barker and
the convict Debock went down by the same train
with the silk, and that the three £lOO notes taken
from Debock had been paid by Newton to Agg and
Hunter. The superintendent and an inspector of
the Derby police came to London and made inqui-
ries at the Clown and at the Red Deer, and had
interviews with Agg and Hunter, who were not in
the first instance suspected of being concerned in
the robbery. An appointment was made for another
interview, which was not kept, and from that day
to the present Agg and Hunter had not been seen
in England until a few minutes ago, when Mr.
Leech introduced Hunter into that courts
Several witnesses were called to prove the unship-
ment of 411 bales of tit* silk from the Solent, their
delivery into the barge Dorville, and to the defi-
ciency of 10 bales on the arrival of the Dorville in
the St. Katherine Dock!
Mr. William Morris, of 45, Hall-street, City-
road, said he was formerly landlord of the Crown
and Cushion public-house, in Londonzwall, Mr.
Newton, of Derby, *V in tb, Practide of coining to
that hotise when he came to London on business,
and the prisoners Hunter and Agg had frequently
visited him previous to the 18th Of March. He
knew a person named Crane, in the employ of
Drakeford and Co., the silk mercers. Crane was an
occasional visitor at the Crown and Cushion.
In cross-examination by
.Mr. Leech, the witness
said—l have known Agg eight or nine years. He
was a man in trust at Drakeford's house before he
kept the Clown. I also know that Messrs. Drake-
ford and Newton had transactions together. Mr.
Hunter had driven Aggin his trap up to my house.
I have heard Agg and Newton speaking of silk
transactions, but I cannot say I ever heard Hunter
speaking of them. On Sunday, the 17th of March,
Newton, was at the Crown and Cushion all day, but
he was not visited by any one.
Joseph Barker, shoemaker, of Hope-street, Beth-
nal-green, who attended on a summons, was sworn,
and said that ten bales of silk were deposited in his
premises on the 15th of March last, taken away
three days afterwards, and sent by train to Derby.
He accompanied his brother-in-law Debock to
Derby on the night of the 18th of March. He did
not see the prisoner Hunter in Derby. He could
not recognise Mr. Hunter. He did not see him at
all On that journey. He and his brother-in-law met
two gentlemen in Derby. Ito could not swear that
Hunter was one of them. Debock mentioned the
not evidence.
names of the two gentlemen after he had parted
with them,
and said onoafrethreimghtw. as Hunter.
Mr. Leech objected, and said what Debock had
stated Air . waswoa ryeh_iro
In cross-examination by Mr. Leech the witness
said Air. Newton was not with me in the railway
carriage from London to Derby, as sworn to :by
some of the witnesses on the trial. He did. not see
Newton at Rowbotham's public-house in Derby.
He did not know Mr. Hunter at all.
The Nyitneo 19 ozaminc4 at length by Mr!