The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-28 00:00:00

CRIMINAL COUR T.-(THIS D AY.

OLD COURT.
(Before the Recorder.)
The March session of the Central Criminal Court com-
menced this morning before the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs,
the Recorder, Aldermen Sir Chapman Marshall, Sir R.
Carden, and the other civic authorities.
The calendar contains the names of 78 persons for trial.
The grand jury having been sworn,
The Recorder said the charges contained in the calendar
this session, although not numerically large, were of a rather
serious nature. There was one charge of a very grave
description, but it would not call for much consideration—it
was the case of a man named Reber ts, charged with murder.
It appeared the prisoner was a patient in a lunatic asylum,
and who, whilst at work in the garden of the establishment,
struck the deceased, a fellow patient, with the instrument he
was using in his work. There appeared to be no doubt that
the death of the deceased was caused by the prisoner, but it
would be for the jury to say whether he was an accountable
agent. If proved_ in evidence brought before them, they
should be of the opinion that he was sane it became their
duty to return a true bill, and afterwards, if the prisoner was
acquitted on the ground of insanity, measures would be
taken to prevent , his doing further mischief. There
was only one case of murder and three others involving loss
of human life. One of the latter was a serious offence, and
would involve much consideration ; it was the case of a
tradesman named Plews, who was charged with the man-
slaughter of a man named Burrows. Tho two men, it ap-
peared, had been en terms of the greatest intimacy, but
unfortunately they quarrelled, and the deceased having
called at the prisoner's shop, an altercation arose, and after
Plews had received some provocation he struck Burrows a
violent blow which knocked him down, and in the fall de-
ceased fell against the door, which caused instant death.
There was little doubt about the facts, and there
was also the statement of the prisoner that he would
have done the same to anybody else if he had
received the same provocation and insult. There
were some other statements that • would lead to the
belief that the prisoner had been drinking. If the facts as
stated in the depositions were sufficier t, then the jury would
return a true bill .for manslaughter. The other cases of
manslaughter were of a serious description, but he thought
they did not call for any particular remark. The next case
of a peculiar description was that of a man named Imbrey,
who was charged with causing the death of his wife. It
appeared that the woman was confined on a Saturday night,
and for some time after the prisoner had given himself up
entirely to drinking, was constantly abusing his unfor-
tunate. wife, and threatening her with personal vio-
lence, so that sho was prevented from getting her natural
rest. During the absence of tho prisoner her friends con-
trived to remove her away where her husband could not
find her, but in a few days the fever caused by the hus-
band's violence so increased that the poor woman died. If
these facts were proved, they would then think it right to
put the prisoner on his trial. The police in this case ap-
peared to have laboured under some misapprehension as to
what was their duty; they seemed to think that they had
no right to interfere, and this remark would also apply to
another case in the calendar. Of the remaining charges
the only one that required any remark was that of Robert
Newman, who was charged with wounding his wife. The man,
it appeared, was given to drink, which brought on delirium
tremens, and it was during one of those attack's that he
struck her with a chopper. The son called a police con-
stable, and desired him to take his father into custody, but,
although he saw the poor woman laying on the ground in
an insensible state, he laboured under the impresion that
unless the wife would give the man into custody he could
not interfere. He mentioned this circumstance because he
not help observing that there was a great decrease of
sense and discretion in the police force of late compared
with that which pervaded the force a few years ago, and in
the hope that the attention of the authorities elsewhere
would be directed to the subject. If, in the discharge of
their duties the jury required asssistance, the Court would
most readily grant it.

. -
The jury then retired, and in a short time, they having
returned several true bills, the trial of prisoners was pro-
ceeded with.

FORGERY.
Robert Ball Palmer, 41, watchmaker, was indicted for
forging and uttering a bill for Dl5, and a warrant for the
delivery of certain goods.

The prisoner pleaded guilty.
On behalf of the prisoner it was urged that the offence to
which he had pleaded guilty was committed under pecu-
liarly painful circumstances. For some time he had carried
on business in Bath, but from domestic affliction his re-
sources became exhausted, and he was utterly unable
to maintain his family. After struggling for some
time in a manful way against adversity, he camo to
London, and then, after finding all things fail, he com-
mitted the offence with which he stood charged. The
learned counsel said he had a memorial from Bath in favour
of the prisoner's character, signed by several of the most in-
fluential persons resident there, and he trusted that under
all the circumstances of the case his lordship would deal
mercifully with the prisoner.

The Recorder said there certainly was some difference in
this case from those usually tried in that court, and he
should therefore sentn--. Ig2=‘, in faultier w only 18 months'
imprisonment.

SHOPLIFTING.
Speridoni Luseg, an Italian, was indicted for stealing two
pieces of silk, of the value of 1:8, the property of Mr Charles
Candy, a warehouseman in Watling-street, City, and also
with stealing 13 yards of silk, of the value of £2 10s., the
property of Mr. Thomas Perry.
From the evidence it appeared that the prisoner entered
the warehouse and asked to look at some silk robes. The
silks were shown, when it was observed that he had secreted
a parcel under his coat, which afterwards turned out to be
two lengths of silk.

Mr. Ribton addressed the jury for tho prisoner, in a very
long speech, in which he contended that the witnesses wore
mistaken.

The jury found the prisoner guilty.
Two former convictions having been proved, the Re-
corder sentenced him to two years' imprisonment.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.-(TIIIS DA F.)

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

INDECENT BEHAVIOUR OP SUNDAY SCHOOL CHILDREN.
—Cornelius Crowder, a machino ruler, of Market-row,
Newport Market, was charged with indecent conduct to
five little girls, on the previous (Sunday) afternoon, in
Soho-square.

From the evidence of a little girl it appeared that she was
on her way home from the Sunday school, on the previous
afternoon, in Soho-square, when the prisoner behaved in a,
very indecent manner, and on their going away he followed
them down Rose-street, and into a court, where he re-
peated his disgusting conduct, once being guilty of it be-
hind a hearse standing in the street.
The evidence of another child confirmed her companion
in every particular, and left no doubt of the prisoner's dirty
conduct. The girls, although very young, acted in a very
proper manner, looking for a constable, and as soon as one
came in view, immediately acquainted him with what had
happened, and the prisoner stole off.

Mr. Beadon asked the prisoner what ho had to say to the
ehargo ?

The prisoner, in a roundabout way, denied the charge.
Mr. Beadon said he had no doubt whatever of the pri-
soner's having been guilty of what the girls had stated,
and after animadverting in severe terms on his conduct,
sentenced him to three months' hard labour.
CRUELTY TO A PONY.—Georgo Hughes a beerhouse
keeper, of the Latimer-road, Notting hill, was charged at
the instance of Mr. Love, chief constable of the Royal

Ultimately the defendant consented to its being
and left the court with Rutherford for that purpose.

THAMES.

The magistrate decided in favour of the cab-driver, who
received, in addition to the disputed 6d., the sum of 4s. 6d.
for loss of time.

THE NF, TV REFORM BILL.

(From the Times.)

The most uncandid partisan must admit that the
task which Government has undertaken this day
fro discharge is one of no ordinary difficulty and
danger. For a Tory Ministry to propose a Reform
Bill must always be an operation of a very delicate
character, and in the present instance the failure
of preceding Governments in the same career may
naturally be supposed to aggravate the embarrass-
ment of the situation. On the other hand, the
framers of the coming Reform Bill enjoy an advan-
tage which was not given to their predecessors.
Mr. Bright's autumnal campaign has thoroughly
ventilated the subject for them, and taught them
very clearly what it is which the people do not
want. In this respect it would be difficult •to
exaggerate the services which the member for
Birmingham has rendered to the cause of peace,
order, and good government throughout these
islands. By making propositions which everybody
disapproved he has been, sorely against his will, a
guide to the discovery of what it is which the
intelligent and impartial public would approve.
He has established beyond dispute that in this
practical country there exists no taste for discus-
sions and no confidence in conclusions founded on
doctrines of abstract right, and that the problem
which Government has to solve is not how to satisfy
certain theoretical maxims of equality, but how to
provide in Parliament an instrument fitted for the
discharge of those duties of which the constitution
makes it the depository.
Coming to their task with such advantages arid
such disadvantages, Government have doubtless
carefully considered the causes which led to the
almost immediate abandonment of the bills pro-
posed by the Governments of Lord John Russell
and Lord Aberdeen. The most obvious cause was
-the practical difficulty of securing adequate support
for passing those bills into law. The extension of
boroughs in the first case, and their disfranchise-
ment in the second, necessarily gave a considerable
number of members on either side of the house a
very strong interest in the failure of the measure.
This interest proved more powerful than ordinary
party ties, and held out to the reforming Govern-
ment the prospect of having to contend against
the compact mass of the Opposition, strength-
ened and encouraged by very numerous deserters
from their own ranks. A little calculation
served to show that, in the presence of a
large number of members of all parties acting
together with perfect unanimity for one common
object, and in the absence of any strong pressure
to counteract those influences, it was vain to
attempt to fight the battle of 1832 without the
weapons which had then gained the victory, and
that nothing was left but a prudent and immediate

retreat. The public will therefore not be sur-
prised if in the construction of their bill Ministers
have exactly inverted the process employed by
Mr. Bright, and if, instead of disfranchising
boroughs according to an arbitrary numerical
standards, and embarrassing themselves with a
vast number of vacated seats, for which in the
absence of equal electoral districts it would have
been extremely difficult to find constituents, they
have begun by ascertaining what number of seats
are wanted to supply acknowledged deficiences, and
no more, by the process of disfranchisement. Any
one conversant with these subjects will easily
supply the names of the new constituencies which
would thus be formed. In this part of the measure
there would be but little novelty, and, indeed,
novelty in such a case was scarcely possible. To
supply this not very considerable number of seats
they would not require either to have recourse to

the extension of boroughs, as proposed by Lord J
Russell, nor yet to the plan of total disfranchise-

ment so largely adopted in the first Reform Bil

No borough, we believe, will be entirely disfran
chised. The schedule to the act will, in fact, cor

respond to schedule B of the original Reform Bill.
From 'a certain number of the smaller boroughs,
returning two members a single member will be
withdrawn, and the seats thus obtained will be

given to the new constituencies which it is intended

to create. There are many, doubtless, who will
hear with disappointment the announcement that
it is proposed to confine the work of enfranchise-
ment within such narrow limits, but it is only. fair

they should remember that it is a very different
thing to draw out abstract schemes of Reform
in the closet, and to frame a measure which has
a chance of being carried through the House of
Commons in the face of a powerful and interested

Opposition, with but a lukewarm and occasional
support from the public out of doors.
The public will nct be surprised if the Ministe-
rial measure adopts as a basis of the County
Franchise a £lO occupation, which has already
more than once received the approbation of the
House of Commons, when embodied in the measure
of Mr. Locke King. This is not the place for
entering into a discussion of the merits of this
proposal, which, doubtless, will be rather a start-
ling one to a certain number of our county mem-
bers. Its adoption by a Tory Government must
be accepted as evidence of the growing liberality of
the times in which we live, and must in all fairneks
be considered as a proof of the wish of Ministers to
deal with the question, if not on very wide, at any
rate on honest and intelligible principles, and to
exhibit a suitable deference for the verdict which
the House of Commons has pronounced on this
subject. It will also, we believe, be proposed to
facilitate the voting of constituencies so largely

increased as those of the counties will be by a sys-

tern of voting papers, which may relieve the elector
from the necessity of travelling a long distance in
order to record his vote at the nearest polling place.
As regards the Borough Franchise, it has been
considered that it would be ridiculous, after so

considerably lowering the County Franchise in
order to produce uniformity, to destroy that uni-
formity as soon as created by a further reduction
of the amount. The Ministerial Bill will therefore,

if wd are not misinformed, propose that henceforth
the franchise for boroughs and counties shall be

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with
cruelly using a poney, uniform, resting on an occupation of £lO, and thus
The evidence of Rutherford, one of the Royal Society's seeking to establish a limit below which no
constables, went to show that he saw defendant, with the future reformer shall have any pretext, at least of
poney attached to a heavily-laden cart, and he was flogging. symmetry or uniformity, for. descending. But,
it and jobbing it in the mouth with the reins. The poney, while preserving intact, as the basis of the borough
in addition to having a wound of long standing, was com- franchise, the amount fixed by the first Reform
pletely worn out, the bones protruding through its skin. Bill, the Ministerial Bill seeks, by measures some-,
He told defendant the condition it was in, and he said he
in the Reform Bill
what similar to those adopted
was no judge of horses. It was old, and totally unfit for
of 1854, to extend the franchise to persons who,
USA-
from the possession of property in the shape of
deposits in savings banks, of stock in the Funds, or
of railway shares, may give satisfactory proof of
their fitness to assist in imposing burdens upon the
property of others. These are matters of detail ;
but we shall wait with some curiosity to hear the
means by which votes depending on such qualifica-
tions may be relieved from the obvious inconve-
niences by which they are attended—the want of
notoriety in the possession, the facility of fraud,
and the great difficulty of preventing the menu-
facture of faggot votes.
It, will be seen from the above outline, which
we believe to be in the main correct, that the
measure of the Government is one of very great
simplicity, that the principles on which it is
founded are clear and obvious, and that there
is no attempt whatever, as has been sometimes
not unreasonably apprehended, to neutralise or
counteract the effect of those principles by any
subtle or refined scheme of compromise. Those
who are opposed to a considerable reduction of the
franchise in the counties, and those who are anxious
for the admission of large classes of the poorer in-
habitants of the boroughs, those who wish for a
sweeping disfranchisement of small constituencies
and for the transfer of elective power to the more
populous communities, will easily find objects for
their disapprobation. One merit the measure un-
doubtedly possesses, and that is that it does not
seek, under the pretence of a theoretical improve-
ment, to transfer power from one part of the com-
munity to the other, and that, as far as we are able
to judge, it holds the balance with a strict impar-
tiality between county and town, disdaining in
this respect to follow the example set by Mr.
Bright in his Reforin Bill. This must be admitted
to be no trilling recommendation. Public opinion
must decide whether the contemplated change
will be sufficiently sweeping. If we were to venture
a conjecture, it would certainly be that the measure
has more danger to anticipate from the supporters
than from the antagonists of the Government, and
that it is highly improbable that anything but the
fear of obtaining worse terms hereafter will in-
duce the county members to consent to so con-
siderable an increase of their constituencies. If
the members for counties can reconcile them-
selves to the change, we feel little doubt that the
great mass of borough members will bear with con-
siderable philosophy the sentence which condemns
them to represent henceforth pretty nearly the
same bodies as heretofore. That the measure will
be regarded with apprehension by a certain section
of the Tory party may be inferred from the fact
that the adoption of the scheme by the Cabinet has
already deprived the Government of the co-opera-
tion of the Home Secretary and of the President of
the Board of Trade, both of whom have resigned
their offices. The proposed bill, indeed, is probably
as strong as any Government would be able to carry
in the present temper of the House of Commons
and the public mind, and with these few remarks
we commend it to the best consideration of the
nation, whose most important interests it so nearly
and vitally concerns.

The defendant said he had not paid for the poney yet.
He had bought a business and taken the poney with it.
The magistrate said the proper means must be taken,
either by having it put out to grass for the remainder of its
days, or having it killed to terminate its misery. If it was
destroyed he would not have to pay for it ; for if an action
was brought against him he could say he had no service out
of it.

CARRY VICTORIOTIS.—A few days since Mr. J. Irving,
a coal merchant, in High-street, Wapping, was summoned
before Mr. Yardley by a cab-driver, named John Brown
for sixpence. The question in dispute was, whether the
distance from the cab-stand on the Surrey side of London-
bridge, opposite the Lady Chapel of St. Saviour's Church,
to Mr. Irving's dwelling, near the Middlesex entrance of
the Thames Tunnel, was more than two miles or not.
Tho defendant said that Mrs. Irving had frequently hired
a cab for the same distance, and had only been charged is.
Tho cabdriver insisted that the distance was more than
two miles, and that he was entitled to is. 6d.
Mr. Yardley perused the book of fares published by the
Commissioners of Police, and could not find any mention of
the Thames Tunnel in the book, which was a great orris•
sion. The nearest place to Mr. Irving's residence mez -
tioned in the book was Shadwell.
Church—Many important places in the eastern district
were entirely omitted from the book, and it was defective
in that respect.

A Solicitor in court believed that the authorities in the
west thought the people in the east had no business to ride
in cabs.

It was agreed that the ground should be measured, and
each party deposited ss. for that purpose.
This morning it was stated by Kent, the messenger of
the court, that he had carefully measured the ground, and
that the cabman was right. The distance was two miles
and 240 yards.

P. IL HOWARD, ESQ., OF CORBY,
ON REFORM, 4-c.

At the soiree of the Great Corby Readincr-room,
last week, Mr. Howard, who presided, said he was
sure that as it was a question akin to education, he
might be permitted to say that in any revisal or
reconstruction of the representative system the
claims of education ought not to be forgotten, and
should have the benefit of direct representation.
There was the University of Edinburgh, where
some of the most eminent men had received the
whole or part of their education—Lord Brougham,
Sir Walter Scott, Jeffrey, Lord John Russell, and
many others had been there ; and he might
name his brother, now ambassador to the Portu-
guese court, as having studied there. He might say
that he trusted the London University also—
founded principally by Lord Brougham, and fos-
tered by his (the chairman's) late and able friend,
who had lately paid the debt of nature—that he
trusted the London University, where men of all
creeds can matriculate, would be admitted to the
representation. He trusted that if this country
should be invoNed in war, or should a war arise on
the continent, at least we would maintain a strict
and dignified neutrality. That was the only safe
policy for England. But it required a resolute and
forbearing course of policy, because it was easy
under the pretext of giving advice to be driven into
the conflict. He was glad to hear that our alliance
with our neighbours continued unshaken. It was
certainly very desirable that there should be a clear
and good understanding between the two countries,
because that alliance should be placed upon a
broader, and a commercial basis. That was the
only basis upon which we could securely rely on
peace. Near neighbours are sure to be either good
friends or the contrary. He would only add one
word more, and that was, that now that India was
about to be governed on more paternal principles,
he trusted that some means would be devised to
bring the cotton of India into more extensive use in
England, and means would be devised for the bettor
cleaning of the raw material, which he believed was
the great drawback to its consumption.