The Sun.
London, England, 1850-03-28 00:00:00

was not sufficiently proved ; that the parties should
have presented themselves at the proper hour, on the
14th of August, at the church to be married, as the
defendant had until that time to marry them ; that
the consent of the parents was not proved, as was re-
quired by the 62d canon ; and that it was not proved
that the Church of St. Thomas, Bedford, was licensed
for the performance of marriage, or that it was a
parish church.
The vicar, the Rev. James Irvine, was called by
Mr. Knowles to prove this, and that gentleman, of his
own knowledge, did not know, as he had never per-
formed marriage there. The churchyard had graves
in it, and there was a font in the church.

His LORDSHIP said these were evidences of a parish
church.

Mr. Bliss then objected, that the notice to the
regi3tar was insufficiently set out in the indictment.
Having taken these points, the Learned Counsel the❑
addressed the jury on the facts, and contended that it
was duo to the members of the Church that their re-
ligious scruples should be respected as well as those of
other •ec.:rians, and that it would be an infringement
of civil and religious liberty to compel clergymen to
celebrate one of the Church's most sacred rites to
persons who were unfit to receive them, against their
consciences, and against the canons by which they
were bound.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL in reply merely stated,
that those who had instructed him had not been ac,
tuated by any of those feelings which had drawn
down his Lordship's censure.

His Lohnsriir, in summing up, said he was quite
sure that the Government of the country, whom the
learned Attorney-General represented, would not be
guilty of so unworthy a thing. Most of the objec-
ticns urged by the Learned C iunsel with great in-
genuity and talent appeared to him unfounded ;
but they might turn out to be worthy of more
attention than they then appeared to him
to be on the case being heard elsewhere ;
and he should reserve them. If now called
on to decide whether the defendant were right in re-
fusing to marry, as at present advised, he should say
he was wrong. He should, however, now advise the
jury not to consider one of the parties not having been
confirmed to be a good objection ; and his reason for
thinking so was, that the universal practice of the
Church had been not to take that objection at all ; and
the practice of the Church was the best evidence of the
rule of the Church. As at present advised, he was
strongly of opinion that this was a matter solely of
ecclesiastieal cognizance, and if he were to act on his
opinion now he should direct an acquittal, but if so
he should deprive the parties of the opportunity of
raising the question. In order therefore to raise the
question he must act contrary to his opinion, and
direct them to find the prisoner guilty, and if wrong
be could be set right by a superior court. With re-
spect to the other objections, they were such as
ought to be reserved, but he should confine them to
those which the defendant took at the time he refused
to marry. The legal objections raised he should also
reserve.

The jury then found the defendant Guilty, and he
was bound over in his own recognizance to appear
and receive judgment when called upon.
His LORDSHIP then said that he could not suffi-
ciently express his utter abhorrence at the conduct of
those, whoever they might be, who had prevented the
two young people from being married for the purpose
of trying this cause, and thereby made them to con-
tinue to live in sin.

Robert IValmsley was charged with having, at
Longridge, on the Ist November last, feloniously shot
at Isabella Taylor, with intent to murder her.
Mr. Segar and Mr. James conducted the prosecu-
tion ; Mr. Overend defended the prisoner.
The circumstances of this case will be better under-
stood by detailing the evidence of the several wit-
nesses. The first witness called was the prosecutr;x.
Isabella Taylor—l re3ided as servant with the Rev.
Mr. Bache, at Longridge, last year. The prisoner
had a small farm about two miles off. He is a mar-
ried man, and used to come to my master's house
about once a fortnight to work about the garden, and
when my master and mistress were from home he
used to come to sleep to take care of the house. I
was confined of a child in February, of which the
prisoner is the father. Two days before the Ist of
November I told the prisoner that I was in the family
way, and that I was determined to go to Preston to he
examined by a medical man, to see what really was the
matter with me. Prisoner said, in reply, that he would
not advise me to go to a doctor, as I should b 2 get-
ting both myself and him into a hobble. I said that
if I found I was in the family way he (the prisoner)
would have to pay for it ; to which he answered that
there was no way to make him pay for it. The next
day I saw the prisoner again a little before dinner, in
the stable, and told him that I was going to Preston
on the morrow. He looked at me from head to foot
and smiled. I did not see him again. The prisoner
knew what time Mr. and Mrs Bache drank tea.
About six o'clock I took away the things, and went
into the pantry with some bread and butter plates. I
had a candle in my hand. Persons outside can see
into the pantry from the road. After I had put some
bread and butter plates on the shelf and was going
to the pantry door, I was shot in the chin. A good
many shots entered my face, and I heard the report of
a gun. I ran to the dining. room door, and fell down.
Mr. Bache was from home, but returned about nine
o'clock, and at about eleven I told him of being in the
family-way by the prisoner.
Cross-examined—l seldom had leave out, and had
no friends about. I told prisoner of my condition
several times before I was shot.

The Rev. W. C. Bache—l am incumbent of Long-
ridge. Isabella Taylor had lived with me a year and
three months. I occasionally employed the prisoner
as a gardener, and he took care of the house when I
and my sister were absent from home. On the night
of the Ist of November I returned home about nine
o'clock, and found that Isabella was in bed, and had
been shot. I was for an hour-and-a-halt trying to
extract from her whether she could fix her suspicions
upon any one, and at last she communicated to me
her connexion with the prisoner, and the result of that
connexion. The bottom of the pantry window is
about four feet from the ground. The glass is plate
glass of peculiar thickness. Owing to that and the
position of the girl the shot was arrested and prevented
from having a fatal result.
Cross-examined—The prisoner is a married man
with two children, and has always borne the hiaiest
character. The policeman and myself both endea-
voured to obtain from the girl her suspicions.
William Durham, a police-officer—l heard the re-
port of the gun, and afterwards went to the house
and found one hole in the pantry window, as if a
charge of shot had gone through, Five fingers could
be put through the hole, or an orange. The gun
must have been fired close to the window. A 100
shots hadpenetrated a door on the opposite aide of the
pantry. About half-past twelve at night I went to
the prisoner's house, in company with Kenyon and
Kay. There is a projection at the door. We all
went up as quickly as possible. I stationed Kenyon
to answer any question from the window. I went up
and got as close to the door as possible. I knocked,
and placed myself so that I could not be seen from
the window. In about five minutes the prisoner
came to the window and said, " Who is there ?" and
Kenyon said, " You had better come down stairs, I
want to speak to you., lie then went into the room
and I heard him conversing with some one. He re-
e y on s said `
there ' 1;-"e s
re-
turned to the window and said, "Is it thee, boy ? '
1n
and then prisoner said, " Is a
policeman
said yes and told him to come
down. I had remained all the time so that I could
not be seen. Prisoner did not speak from his own
bed-room window. He then came down, and I
charged him with shooting Isabella Taylor. He said,
" I'm innocent of that, thank God!" I asked him
where his gun was. He handed me one down, and
said, " This is it—l had it out this afternoon." I
said, " Robert, there's another gun hanging up," and
I took it down. Prisoner said, " That's my brother's
gun." I said, " I shall take this too ;" and he said,
" It's no use taking that, it does not belong to me."
He was very much agitated, and let the candle drop
out of his hands. I took him into custody, and as we
were leaving he asked tne if she was dead. At the police
station I found in his pockets some shot loose. Ken-
yon took up some of the shot, and said, " Robert, do
you use this shot regular?" He said, " No, but
these are a few I got from Tommy Fenton." He also
had four percussion caps. On examining the guns, I
found that the gun he said was his own had not been
lately fired off, but the gun which he said was his
brother's had; both guns were loaded. About an
hour and a half after I apprehended him prisoner
called me to him at the police-station, and said it
was strange that he should be suspected. I said,
" Robert, the girl told me that she is in the family-
way by you, and that she had a conversation with you
about it on Sunday." He said, " I never had any
connexion with her in all my life, and never had
a conversation with her." At Preston police-office
he said he could clear himself; that he went to
a sale at five o'clock, and returned h ,me, where
he remained half an hour or better, and then went to
Hothersall- hall to collect some tithe-rents, but that
seeing I,ome of the daughters playing outside the hall,
and hearing one of them say, " Here's papa coming
home in a Whitechapel," he didn't like going in—
and that he arrived home at about half-past eight or
nine o'clock. I said, " Robert, some one must have
seen you." And he replied, " I don't think anybody
did."
Cross-examined—There was a sale by auction that
day, as the prisoner stated.
Robert Dew—l am a farmer at Hothersalleliall.
I had been from home from the day of the occur-
rence, and returned home at nine o'clock. My chil-
dren had gone to bed. The prisoner collects church-
rates, but no tithe-rates. He is a churchwarden. I
did come home in a Whitechapel, and passed by the
prisoner's house.
Cross-examined—l did owe church-rates at that
time. Prisoner is churchwarden of Ilibchester. It,

was a moonlight night. I don't know whether my
children would have been out playing at seven o'cleck.
Another witness was at a sale at Cawood. The
prisoner was there, lie went away between five and
six. He bad an old blue coat on.

Richard Billington—The prisoner was not at the
sale at Cawood at half-past five. I went to the pri-
soner's house at forty minutes Fist six o'clock. lie
was not at home. I stayed till seven o'clock, and he
had not come home.

John Herbert—l am a blacksmith. I drew the
shot from the guns. I cannot say that the shots taken
from the pantry-door are the same size as those I
drew from the gun,
Thomas Dixon—l am a surgeon at 'Preston. Ex-
amined Isabella Taylor, her face was much swollen,
and had thirty-three shot-marks. I extracted the
shot, which I have lost. It corresponded with some
shown me by the constable.

Mr. OYEREND, in an able speech, urged upon the
jury the fact of the evidence being purely circum-
stantial and unsatisfactory, and that the conduct of
the prisoner was that of an innocent man.

His LORDSHIP having summed up,
The jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty.
This case did not conclude till a late hour last
night.

OXFORD atitCCII I:—lleretbrd, March 26.
CROWN COURT.—(Before Mr. Justice
PATTESON.)
John Horne was put to the bar to answer to an in-
dictment which charged that he had been convicted of
housebreaking, at the Maidstone quarter-sessions, on
the 15th of October, in the third year of her Ma-
jesty's reign, 1839, and sentenced to transportation
for the term of ten years, and that he afterwards, to
wit, on the 19th day of June, in the year of our Lord
1847, at the parish of Ross, in the county of Here-
ford aforesaid, was at large, without any lawful ex-
cuse, within her Majesty's dominions, before the ex-
piration of the term for which he had been so ordered
to he transported as aforesaid.

Mr. Powell conducted the prosecution, and Mr.
Cooke the defence.

This was one of those cases where many would re-
joice that the strict letter of the law was defeated by
any technicality. It appeared that the prisoner had
been convicted of breaking into a dwelling-house in the
day time, during the absence of the family, near Tun-
bridge Wells, in 1839. The law at the time did not
permit a shorter sentence of transportation than ten
years. He was sentenced to be transported for that
period, and was taken to Sydney. There, in conse-
quence of his good conduct and his superior intelli-
gence, he was put into the engineers' department,
made an overseer of a gang of twenty men, and sent
down frequently in a diving-bell to blow up wrecks.
On one of these occasions, after he had served six
years of his sentence, be escaped to an American
vessel and got to New York. There he worked for
some time, and then came to London as a common
seaman. He then worlirl for several months on the
London and York Railway ; after that on the Hast-
ings and South Coast Railway; next on the North
Staffordshire Railway; and then, after he had been
two years and a half in England, went into Hereford-
shire, and having no money, and being unable to get
employment, and having been three days without
food, he went on the 19th November last, after the
expiration of the ten years, to the house of the super-
intendent of the police at Ross, and that officer being
from home, he waited for three hours till his return,
and then surrendered himself, and was taken into
custody as a vagrant, and in answer to questions
put by the superintendent, gave the above account of
himself. The magistrates, on hearing the case, directed
their clerk to communicate with the Secretary of
State, who replied that it was a fit case for prosecu-
tion, and directed an indictment to be preferred in the
usual course.

Before the trial had proceeded far,
Mr. Cowin objected to the sufficiency of the in-
dictment, on the ground that it did not allege that the
prisoner was feloniously at large before the expiration
of this sentence. The statute provided that persons
escaping before the expiration of their sentence should
" suffer death, as in cases of felony." This clearly
made the offence a felony, and therefore it should
have been charged as a felony in the indictment by
the use of the word "feloniously."
Mr. POWELL, in support of the indictment, con-
tended that as the indictment charged the offence
against which the statute provided in the very words
of the statute, it was unnecessary to allege that the
offence had been committed feloniously. The case
differed from most other statutable felonies in this—
that statutes relating to such offences declared speci-
fically that whoever committed them should be
" guilty of felony ;" whereas there was no such pro-
vision in this statute ; and it was by no means clear
that because the punishment was to be the same " as
in cases of felony," the Legislature meant to decree
that the offence of returning from transportation
should be a felony. The Learned Counsel added,
that in a case of this kind, he wished simply to dis-
charge his duty, and not to exceed it; and that he
would, therefore, only ask his Lordship, if he had any
serious doubt on the question, to reserve it for the
decision of the Judges in the Court of Appeal for
the consideration of such matters.

His LORDSHIP, however, said that he was clearly
of opinion that the statute, in enacting that parties
so ofTerfding should "suffer death as in cases of
felony," made the offence a felony, and he had so
strong an opinion on this point that he would not re-
serve the question, as it might be drawn into a pre-
cedent and might encourage the introduction of great
vagueness and uncertainty in criminal pleading.
There were certain words which had been held ne-
cessary for ages to be used in indictments. He
thought this one of those cases ; the word " fe-
loniously" ought to have been inserted, and as it was
not inserted the indictment could not be sustained,
and therefore he thought the prisoner ought to be
acquitted.
He was then ordered to be discharged; and some
benevolent gentlemen in court commenced a subscrip-
tion for him, to which several members of the bar
contributed.

The omission of the word " feloniously" was a
mere accident of the copying clerk in the indictment
office, as the word was in the precedent laid before
him.

(Before Mr. Baron PLATT.)
George Cullicott, aged 28, was indicted for felo-
niously forging and uttering a counterfeit bank note
for 51., with intent to defraud Messrs. Bailey and Co.,
bankers of Abergavenny. There were other indict-
ments against the prisoner for similar offences.
__

Mr. Huddlestone appeared for the prosecution. Tile
prisoner was not defended by counsel.
On Saturday, the 22d of December last, the pri-
soner went into the shop of Mr. Maclean, a tailor and
draper at Hereford, and purchased a coat for 11. Bs.,
for which he tendered in payment a 51. note, purport-
ing to be of Messrs. Bailey's bank, and received in
exchange for it the coat and the difference in money.
The same evening he went to the shop of Mr. Hooper,
a grocer, and Mr. Hickson, a grocer, at Hereford, at
each of which he bought a pound of tea, and gave
forged notes of the same bank in payment, and
received the difference He also paid a 51. note
the same evening to Mr. Gethen, a draper, for two
handkerchiefs, but this note had been paid away, and
was not identified. Mr. Maclean discovered that
the note given to him was a forgery the next day,
and gave information to the police and a minute de-
scription of the prisoner, in consequence of which,
in the month of February following, he was sent for
to Birmingham, where he identified the prisoner
amongst ten or twelve others who were there being
arraigned before the Recorder of that borough, and he
afterwards identified the coat the prisoner wore when
apprehended on another charge at Birmingham, as
that which be bad sold to him at Hereford. The
prisoner, being transmitted for trial to this place, was
on his arrival immediately identified amongst other
prisoners by Mr. Hooper, and by the wife of Mr.
Hickson, and was further identified to-day by an as•
sistant of Mr. Gethen, who sold him the handkerchiefs.
For the defence, the prisoner called a witness, who
swore that on the 22d of December the prisoner was
with him at a watchmaker's shop, in Birmingham,
the whole of the afternoon ; but the jury disbelieved
him, and returned a verdict of Guilty, in consequence
of which the other cases were not proceeded with.
His LORDSHIP sentenced the prisoner to 15 years'
transportation.

Mr. HUDDLESTONE stated to the Court, after the
sentence, that simultaneous utterings of forged notes
of the same bank took place on the evening of the
same day, the 22d December, at Newport, Usk, Rag-
land, Monmouth, Merthyr Tydvil, and Bristol.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
MANSION-HOUSE.

Rose Hunt, aged nineteen, was brought before Al-
derman Gibbs, on a charge of having attempted to
commit self-destruction.

It appeared that the unfortunate creature had been
for four years living a wretched life of prostitution in
the eastern parts of London. Her history is a very
deplorable one, and presents a melancholy example of
the way in which the streets of London are replenished
with victims.

Rose Hunt states, es the Rev. Mr. Cohen, the en-
lightened chaplain of Giltspur-Street Prison, observed
to the Alderman, that she is the daughter of a person
who once kept a respectable inn in a country town,
but who, by various losses, has become so reduced as
to become now dependent upon parochial relief.
About four years ago, when only fifteen years of agP,
the defendant met a young woman at a fair in Suffolk,
who endeavoured to win her confidence, and after-
wards abused it for the very worst purpose. By
means of this female she was introduced into a
house of ill-fame, seduced, and eventually brought
by her to London. She was taken to a low concert-
room in Tower-hill, and left to a course of prostitution
amongst the lowest class of the water-side district.
About nine months ago, as she wandered about one