The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-06 00:00:00

THANIES.

EMBEZZLEMENT BY A BARGE MASTER.—Mark
Coppin, a lighterman, and late master of the barge
Herbert Tomkins,^was brought before Mr. Benson,
charged with feloniously embezzling various sums
of money he had received for and on account of his
master, Mr. Mark John Tomkins, contractor and
barge owner, of Green-bank, Wapping.
Mr. Farnfield, solicitor, conducted the prosecu-
tion ; Mr. Macdonald, a barrister, instructed by
Muninan and Backland, solicitors to the Thames
Working-Lightermen's Protection Society, defended
the prisoner.

The case, as opened by Mr. Farnfield, was this.
Some time since Mr. Tomkins caused a barge to be
constructed, at an
expense of £6OO, and entrusted
the command of her to the prisoner. Her burthen
was 90 tons. The mode of payment to the prisoner
for his services was the half of each freight, the
prosecutor paying
the minor expenses of the barge
out of his moiety. The charge against the prisoner
was that he had not accounted to Mr. Tomkins for
all the freights, and his defalcations in this respect
alleged to amount to £5B, of which he
would be entitled to £29 if he had accounted for
every freight. The prisoner, on the contrary, on
the first examination, when he was not defended by
counsel, said there was no agreement whatever,
and that he had the barge to do what he liked with
her, an assertion flatly contradicted by Mr. Tom-
kins, and by all the facts of the case. Mr. Richard
Nicholls, cashier of the Gray's Chalk Quarry Com-
pany, Essex, proved the payment to the prisoner of
sums varying from
£3 to £8 for freights of chalk
conveyed from Gray's to London, and the receipts
of the prisoner , which were all kept in a book, and
properly dated.

Mr. W. 0. Grady, clerk to Mr. Tomkins, said
the prisoner had never given any account of the re-
ceipt of many of those sums, and had appropriated
them to his own use. Sometimes when the prisoner
did account, he paid over the whole of the freight,
and received his half from the clerk, but at other
times he retained his share, and paid the other por-
tion only to the clerk.
Mr. Macdonald made several legal objections,
which the magistrate promised should be taken into
consideration if necessary. The accounts were very
complicated, and it was elicited by Mr. Macdonald that
there was no agreement for the prisoner to account
at any particular time ; but that whenever he came
to London he was expected to make a faithful re-
turn to his employer of what he had done, and what
money he had received.
Mr. Benson said the prisoner was charged with
stealing the half of his own. Not a single
payment was entered on the right day. A
shorter or longer interval elapsed between the re-
ceipt of the money from Mr. Nicholls at Gray's
and the payment to Mr. Brady in Wapping. The
accounts were most loosely kept, and it was right
to suppose illiteratethiamtpanfeetmemory. on
man like
onethe
io
occasion
had a very imperfect
the prisoner had paid to his employer's clerk a sum
of money which he had never received on the ac-
count of Mr. Tomkins. He did not think this was
a case on which any jury would convict. Mr.
Tomkins had very properly accused the prisoner, and
caused this investigation, but it was not every man
who was dishonest that the law could reach.
Mr. Farnfield—There are omissions and defi-
ciencies.

Mr. Benson said there was no doubt the prisoner
was a defaulter to the amount of £29, extending
over a year and a half. In discharging him he
did not acquit him morally, only criminally.

WEST COAST OF AFRICA.—The African Royal
Mail steamship Lagos, from the West Coast of Africa,
arrived in the Mers,,y on Monday. She brings 1,208 ounces
of gold dust. Her latest dates are as follows :—Old Calabar,
March 31; Fernando Po, April 1 ; Cameroons 1; Brass
River, 4 ; Nun, 4; Bonny, 4 ; Benin, 5 ; Lagos, 7 ; Accra,
9 ; C
Cape Palmas, 12 ; Sierra Leone,
17 ; 25, and Madeira, 27. her
news was unimportant.
Bl' pate s t, Coast
2Castle, ;
T en 10
eri ;
ffe,

PRIMARY EDUCATION (IRELAND).—The Royal
Commission ou Primary Education (Ireland) met on Mon
day at the offices of the Commission, 46, Upper Sackville
street, Dublin. There were present :—The Earl of Powie
the Bishop of Meath, Sir B. Kane, Master Brooke, Rev
Dr. Wilson, Mr. Gibson, Mr. Stokes, Professor Sullivan,
and Mr. Waldron ; the secretaries, Messrs. May and Dunne..
were in attendance.