The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-04 00:00:00

ELOPEMEV7' AND ROBBERY.

At the Notts Sessions, Harriet Clay, aged 17, and
Henry Rossall, aged 27, were charged—the former with
stealing £3O, the property of her father, at Mansfield, on
the 11th January ; and the latter with receiving, harbour-
ing, and maintaining her, well knowing that she had com-
mitted the above felony. The female prisoner pleaded
guilty. Mr. Mellor (for the prosecution) said it would be
conducive to the interests of justice to call the as a
witness. Richard Clay, the father, deposed to £3O being
kept in his bedroom, and his daughter knew where it was.
George Webb said he saw Harriet Clay on the night of
the 11th January, and she asked him to write a letter to
Rossall (who is amarried man). The note was for the prisoner
to meet her near the Exchange clock at Nottingham. The
mother of the female prisoner pro ved missing the money, and,
after some further evidence had been offered, .Harriet Clay, a
girl of prepossessing appearance, was examined, and said she
was the daughter of Richard Clay. On Monday night
previous to the robbery she stayed at an eating-house in
Nottingham with the prisoner. Rossall asked witness if
she had got any money, and she replied that she knew
where her mother kept it. He asked how much money
there was, and she said she did not know. lle then asked
her if she could get it, and she told him she had a key that
would fit the drawer. He told her to get it, and if she did
so she was to take a ticket from Mansfield to Radford (ner.r
Nottingham), and he would meet her. She went home on
the Tuesday morning, and in the evening she got her
clothes and the money. She went to Nottingham that night
and met Rossall between eight and nine, and gave him
the money. After that they took separate tickets for
Grantham, where they slept together. lie paid the bill
the next morning cut of the money she had given him.
They then went to London, and took lodgings hi a coffee-
house. Rossall then bought a new purse, and put the
money into it. He then placed it in her hand, telling lr.T
to say be never had it. He said, "'They will ask you
whether I have had the money, and you must say No."
She had known Rossall about seven weeks. She never
knew he was a married man. He promised to marry her,
and then they would go to America.—William Metham,
cattle-dealer, of Mansfield, said be went to Nottingham
and Grantham, and thence to London, in search of the
prisoners, and, with the assistance of the metropolitan
police, found them in a coffee-house in London. A verdict
of guilty was returned against both prisoners, and they
were both sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment,
with hard labour. The female prisoner was removed
screaming.

,„ „
THE NEW lIEFORM ACT AND THE _LUTING QUES-
TION.-At the Liverpool Police-court, at a hearing of
appeals against poor rates for the township of Kirkdale, a
point was raised under Section 7 of the new Reform Act.
The appellant, who was owner of premises, and on the 6th
of July, 1867, was assessed to the poor on a compounded
rate, based his appeal on the fact that by the Reform Act
the tenant only was liable to the payment, inasmuch as the
Act provides that " no composition shall remain in force be-
yond the 29th day of September, 1867." The magistrates
ordered the appellant to pay the proportion of rates due
from the 6th July, 1867, to the 29th of September in that
year, leaving the overseers to recover the balance from the
tenant. The solicitor for the appellant taking an excep-
tion to the decision of the bench, they granted him a case
for the superior court.

THE DIETARY IN IRISH PRlSONS.—Unfavour-
able comments some time since made in various journals
on the dietaries in Irish borough and county gaols caused
the Chief Secretary to appoint a committee to inquire into
the subject, and their report has appeared in a small blue-
book of forty pages. Dr. Stokes, physician in ordinary
to the Queen in Ireland, and Drs. Hill and Burke, in
Pursuing their investigation, contrasted the prison dietary
with that of the population without. The food of the
Irish peasant, they find, has much improved within the
last twenty years. Instead of the potato, wheaten bread
is eaten, and milk is very generally used. Butchers' meat
is not altogether the rarity which it was in former times,
and, on the whole, there is an approximation among the
small farmers and their labourers to a mixed diet. The
committee do not wish to make the prison dietary better
than the average food of the people ; nor do they see any
special necessity for a more generous gaol diet in the
severity of the labour imposed upon criminals, which is,
in fact, lighter in Irish than in English prisons. They
find reason, however, to object to the inadequate inspec-
tion of the food, as respects its quality, and to the long
fast entailed upon the prisoners where only two meals a
day are given. They advise a third meal, or supper,
and among dietetic changes would substitute vegetable
and meat soup for new milk on certain days, and por-
ridge, with milk, instead of gruel, " the nutritive value
of which is of the lowest." They publish scales of
d etaries, and express the opinion that the health of the
prisoners would improve with a diet of =eater variety.