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

LAW AND POLICE.

ST. JOHN'S HOsrrrAL.—An application was made six
weeks ago to Vice-Chancellor Stuart for an order, under
the provisions of the Act of the reign of Queen Anne, upon
the lessee of some property in Gloucestershire, held of this
charity for the life of a person alleged to be living,to produce
him to the steward of the charity at the principal door of
the parish church of Cirencester, on the 14th of the present
month. That order not being complied with, an applica-
tion was made on Friday that this person should be pro-
duced at the bar of the court on the 18th of March next,
and if not that it should be assumed that he was dead for
the purposes of this application. The Vice-Chancellor
made the order asked.

THE CASE OF BURKE, CASEY, AND SHAW.—An appli-
cation was made to Mr. Justice Smith, at Warwick, on
behalf of Burke, to make an order on the prosecution to
give the prisoner a copy of the indictment, a list of the
witnesses, and a list of the jury panel. The application
was made undera statute passed in the year of Queen Anne.
An Act passed in the reign of George 111. enacted that to
levy war against his Majesty, or to incite any person to invade
the realm—the acts with which Burke stands charged—
should be deemed treason. The statute was repealed by
the Treason Felony Act, which enacts that such an
offence shall be felony. The statute of Ann was, how-
ever, not repealed, and no mention was Made of it in the
Treason Felony Act.—His lordship said that a similar
application was once made More Chief Justice Er!e, who
held that it could not be granted in a case in which only
a felony was charged. His lordship was of the same

opinion.
ILL-TREATSIEN-2 TO A CHILD.—HEAVY SENTENCE.—At
the Central Criminal Court, Mrs. Radelyffe, said to be
the wife of a respectable shopkeeper, was tried for a series
of brutal assaults upon Susan Russell, aged 13, who was
in her service as maid-of-all-work. The learned counsel
for the prosecution, in opening the case to the jury, said
that the prosecutrix was a young girl, and she was
employed as servant of all work by the prisoner and her
husband, and the offence alleged against the former by
the present indictment was, that on the 12th January
she kicked the prosecutrix in a most brutal manner,
and when she was examined by the surgeon at the hos-
pital her body was found to be covered with bruises all
over, and she was in a most terrible condition, from which
she was at present far from recovered. He was bound to
say that, according to his instructions, the prisoner had
been guilty of the most brutal conduct towards this unfor-
tunate girl. She was kicked and beaten with a thick

stick until she bled, and when she cried the prisoner
threatened to beat her until she was quiet. Upon one
occasion the prisoner threw a quantity of boiling water
over her and burned her severely. It was contended for
the defence that the case had been grossly exaggerated.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the prisoner
was sentenced to five years' penal servitude.

WITCHCRAFT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.—Maria
Giles, widow, better known as " The Cunning Woman of
Newbury," and William Tranter, described in the calendar
as a labourer, were indicted at the Reading Assizes, before
Mr. Justice Keating, with obtaining various sums of
money from Isaac Rivers, by false pretences, on various
days in January. It was a case of pretended witchcraft.
The chief evidence was that of the prosecutor, who de-
tailed various occasions on which he had paid visits to the
woman for the purpose of recovering a stolen watch, and
described the pretended methods of witchcraft which
she had employed, and stated the various sums of
money which she and the male prisoner had demanded
for that end. Altogether Rivers had paid the sum of
£2 6s. 6d., though he admitted that the watch was only
worth £2l4s. Being asked by the learned judge " when
he first became aware how great a fool he had been," he
said it was on one occasion when the man and woman had
gone away with a sum of money just given, and had left
him sitting in their but more than half an hour without
returning. The prisoner Giles pleaded guilty, and was
sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. Tranter
was convicted, and sentenced to six months' imprison-
ment.

MR. GRAVES'S PRlNTS—Another printseller was on
.eriday brought before Alderman Sir It. Carden, charged
with pirating certain engravings, the property of Mr.
Graves. Fifty eases having been proved, prisoner was
fined £250, of fifty weeks' imprisonment.

PEnvEnsroNs.—On Saturday last a clergyman
of the English Church (one of the curates of St. George's-
in the-East) was received into the Catholic Church at
Farm-street, and two other curates of the same church
were also received the previous week at the church in
Great Tower-street. These gentlemen make up the
number of eleven clergymen of the Establishment who
have become Catholics between Ash-Wednesday 1867 and
the same day in 1868. WeekiF Register•.

ME OAKS COLLIER-Y.—Within the last week an
important circumstance connected with the above calamity
has come to light. The men at Work in exploring the
mine at the latter end of last week got to the bottom of
the stone drift, which Was being cut by blasting at the
time the disaster occurred. Since that time they have
been able to penetrate the drift itself, and have
found that the shot has blown through. At the
beginning of the week Mr. Dickinson, inspector for
East Lancashire, Air. F. N. Wardel, the newly-
appointed inspector for „South Yorkshire, and Mr.
Low•thorn, the rcceut inspector, all visited the pit and
descended the shaft along with Mr. Dymond, the mans-
gins partner, and Mr. Aiinto, the newly-appointed
viewer, and went to the place, which they examined, and
found that the shot Lad blown through. It will be remem.
bored that at the inquest a great deal of time was spent in
hearing evidence as to this important point, the majority
of the witnesses believing that it had not blown through.
The main road lending to the cupola has been cleared for
a distance of from seventy to eighty yards, in which space
a pony has just been found and got out. The work at the
cupola progresses but slowly, on account of the walls
gi&g way.