The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-14 00:00:00

BOROUGIi

Our market is extensively supplied with new hops.
which move off slowly at about the following quotations :
mid and East Kent pocket., 71 Oi to ltY Oi ; Weald
of Kent, 61 Os to 71 Os SUSROX. 51 12s to O 10A per cwt.
The duty is called 180,0001. In yowling. and old hops
nothing is doing, and prices aro nominal.

CRIMINAL COURT —(This Day.)

OLD COURT.

This morning the September Session of this Court
commenced at the Old Bailey, before the Lord Mayor,
R. Gurney, Esq., Recorder ; Aldermen Farncombe, Sir
F. G. Moon, Sir R. W. Carden, M.P., and Phillips ;
Mr. Sheriff Mechi, and Mr. Under-Sheriff Crowley.
There are 72 prisoners for trial.

There was a very small attendance of grand jurors,
and it was with difficulty the grand jury could be formed.
The whole of the absentees who omitted to send legiti-
mate excuses to the Court were fined 101. each. Several
of those who attended asked to be excused on the
ground of their being over 60 years of age, but they
were informed by the Lord Mayor that age did not re-
lieve them, in this court, from discharging the duties of
grand jurors, ptovided they felt themselves physically
capable of doing so. They all appeared ',o be strong,
healthy men, in the full possession of their faculties, and
❑ot liking to be considered infirm in any particular they
went into the box and were sworn.
_ _

The Recorder, in addressing the grand jury, adverted
to the bill introduced last session for the aboli-
tion of grand juries, and said 'that when he laet
discharged his duties in that cow t, ho scarcely imagined
he should have to address another gland jury there,
believing that the bill then before Parliament would
have been passed into a law. That was not the proper
place to discuss measures that might have engaged the
attention of Parliament, but this he might say, that the
grand jury system stood on a very different footing in
that court from other parts of the country, because they
had to enquire into cases that bad been before fully in
vestigated by magistrates of learning and experience, and
in which there could' be but very slight legal diffi-
culties. The bill, however, was withdrawn, he
believed, from the shortness of the session, and as the
institution still exlsted, grand juries would have to con-
tinue to discharge the duties which by law were imposed
on there. The cases to be tried were few in number,
owing probably to the short time that had elapsed since
the last sessions, but he regretted to say that several of
them were of a very serious description. There were no
less than three charges of wilful murder, and two of
wcuuding with intent to murder. One of the cases of
murder was of a peculiar character—that of Antonio de
Salvi, for the murder of a person named Robertson, a pri-
soner at the time in the Qieen's Beach Prison. Thelearned
gentleman having stated the particulars of the case and
the fact of Salvi's trial and conviction of the former ses-
sions for wounding, with intent to murder, informed the
jury that it, would be their duty to put the case in train
for further investigation in that Court; the circumstance
of the prisoner's having been tried for another offence
did not in any way affect them. The second case of
murder was that of Cornelius Denny, between whom
and the deceased there was some ecufliling, when the
accused stabbed deceased with a knife, from the effects
of which he died ; and the third case of murder
was that of James Preston, who, whilst a
prisoner in Horsemonger-lane Goal, struck the
deceased, another prisoner, on the head with a pail, from
the effects of which he died. There might be some
questions arise as to the prisoner's sanity, but they had
nothing to do with them. They would have to be con-
sidered In that court, and if it were found that the pri-
soner was insane, he would be confined in all probability
for life. The two cases of attempted murder were—one
that of a convict who inflicted serious injuries upon
the warder of the prison in which he was confined,
and the other that of a woman who attempted to
destroy her child by strangulation. Neither would pre-
sent any difficulty to them. The only other ease requiring
notice from him was that of a young man charged with
uttering a false certificate of baptism to obtain a situa-
tion in a public department. In some departments of
the public service persons were not admitted under a
certain age, and in order to secure admission the accused
altered the certificate given to him by the clergyman,
which represented his age as 17 years, best ad of, as in
reality, 15 years.
The grand jury then left the Court to enter on their
duties.