The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-29 00:00:00

CAPTURE OF A BURGLAR.

At the Woolwich Polite-court, John. Adams, aged 38,
of 27, Ordnance-road, Woolwich-common, was charged
with burglariously entering the mansion of Sir James
Wilde (judge of the Divorce Court) at Shooter's-hill, and
also with committing burglaries at about a dozen other
gentlemen's residences in the same locality. He was fur-
ther charged with cutting and wounding P.C. Lincoln,
146 R, on the latter's attempting to arrest him. The pri-
soner is a most desperate and successful burglar, and
within the two years he has been out on a ticket-of-leave,
it is believed, from the proceeds of burglaries found
at his house, that he cannot have had less than an income
of £5OO a year derived from his midnight depredations.
He has on several occasions been detected by the police in
the act of committing burglaries, but by the use of fire-
arms and knives has managed to escape. On one occa-
sion he successfully escaped from a force of five constables,
and has never hesitated to resort to the most desperate
and murderous acts rather than be made a prisoner.
He has undergone eight years' penal servitml- for a
burglary Deptford, and at the time of hit .est by
the Shooters-hill police his ticket of leave had not expired.
He has been in the habit of reporting himself and re-
ceiving- help from the Prisoners' Aid Society, and was
dressed in their clothinit- at the time of his capture. Within
the last two years almost every house on Shooter's-hill bas
been entered, from that of Lord Truro down to the
labourer's cottage, and it will be proved in evidence that
the prisoner had broken into three or four houses in one
night, and he had latterly become the terror of the district.
Inspector Monahan said there were a great many charges
of burglary against the prisoner, but he only proposed going
into the case of Sir J. Wilde that day, and then to ask for
a remand.—Police-constable Lincoln said that he and
another constable named Billham, 57 R, stopped the pri-
soner as he was making off through a field with the proceeds
of the burglary committed at Sir James Wilde's. As a pre-
cautionary measure witness rubbed him down, and took a
knife from one of his pockets, when the prisoner threw
away the stolen property. Billham was in the act of going
to pick up the bundle, when the prisoner drew forth
another knife which he had secreted about him, and dis-
abled witness by slashing it across his hands several times,
and ran off into Shooters-hill-wood, in the darkness and
intricacies of which he escaped. They secured the proceeds
of the burglary, and circulated a description of the burglar.
Police constable Carr, 232 R, said he received a description
of the prisoner, and the previous night came upon him at
the Star public-house, Plumpstead Common. Witness
told him the charge against him, when the prisoner, taken
aback at the suddenness of the arrest, exclaimed, " Good
God ! " Knowing the dangerous character of the pri-
soner, he instantly threw him on his back, and held him
down until assistance arrived, the prisoner meantime
making a desperate resistance. He said he would be —if
he would go, and a female with him, named Mary Ann
Brown, with whom he had been cohabiting, tried to rescue
him, and told -the policeman to be aware of what he had
got in his pockets. Having got the prisoner to the station,
he ran to the prisoner's house, and arrived there before the
woman, and brought away a cart-load of property and
sixty-seven duplicates relating to articles which there is no.
doubt will turn out to be the proceeds of burglaries. On
hastily looking over the things, the police identified
articles belonging to about a dozen cases of burglaries
committed in the Shooter's-hill subdivision. The female
Brown, finding the house stripped, went to the Shooter's-
hill Police-station, where she was at once placed under
arrest. Mr. Patteson remanded the prisoners, both of
whom are most forbidding and desperate - looking
characters.