The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-05 00:00:00

THE MURDER OF AN OLD LADY IN BIRMINGHAM,

The prisoners Thomas Marlow, William Beesley, and
Louis Bce, whose trial and acquittal at the Warwick
Assizes on the charge of murdering Miss Millbourne, at
her house in Heneage-street, on the 21st of January last,
were reported yesterday, were subsequently charged at
the same assizes, in connection with Jane Smith and
Joseph Beesley, with having stolen, on the 21st of January,
the sum of £B, the property of Miss Millbourne. To this
charge the prisoner Marlow pleaded guilty ; the others
not guilty. Marlow made a statement fully avowing his
own share in the robbery, but declaring that the other
prisoners had never been in the house—only himself, the
informer Mack, and the absent man. Marlow was sentenced
to fourteen years' penal servitude. The other prisoners
were acquitted.

SIGNING BY DEPUTY.— At the Winchester Assizes,
Thomas Sillence has been indicted for forging a promissory
note for £lOO, with intent to defraud the Hants Banking
Company. Another count charged an uttering. The
prisoner had deposited with the bank a promissory note
purporting to be jointly signed by himself and a farmer
named Hampton, but on the bank applying to Hampton
for payment he denied that the signature was his. It was
stated that the daughter of Hampton had, at the request of
the prisoner, signed her father's name to the paper, she not
knowing that it was anything of importance. Hampton
could not read or write, and his wife and daughter were in
the habit of signing his name when necessary. For the
defence it was urged that the prisoner honestly thought
that the name so signed bound Hampton. The judge told
the jury that if the prisoner honestly believed so, the in-

tention to defraud was not made out. ',The jury retired,
and at length returned a verdict of guilty. Sentence, 15
months' imprisonment with hard labcur.
A BAD WIFE AIM A PROVOKED HUSBAND.—At the same
Assizes, Richard Warwick was indicted for shooting at
Elizabeth Warwick, his wife,with divers intents, on the 31st
August, at Ringwood. The woman had been out drinking,
and on returning towards home at midnight in company
with a young man, the prisoner discharged a gun at her
and wounded her with about fifty small shots on the arm
and shoulder-blade. In his defence the prisoner said that
he was very sorry for it, and should not have done it but
that his wife behaved so badly. He bad been ill for six
months. She used to give him a bit of breakfast ; she then
went out, and did not return till the middle of the night,

and she would then pull him out of bed. He should have
died had it not been for the neighbours. He did not mean
to hurt her. The jury found the prisoner guilty, but
under great provocation. He was sentenced to four months'
imprisonment.

SINGULAR POINT IN L.W.-At the Warwick Assizes,
Samuel Charles Hatch, broker, of Birmingham, was in-
dicted for having fraudulently converted to his own use a
sum of £133 7s. Gd., which had been entrusted to him. Mr.
Corbett, a miller, sent a cheque for the amount in pay-
ment of twenty-shares in the Binning Lam Bank (Limited),
which the prisoner advised him to invest in. Some

time afterwards the prisoner told him that he had

been deceived in the matter, as the scrip was in pawn,
but as he did not wish the deception upon him to come
out he handed him a bill at sight for the amount of the
£133 7s. 6d. On being presented, however, the bill was
dishonoured, and other inquiries led to the discovery that
the shares had never been applied for, and that there had
been other misrepresentations on the part of the rrisoner.
A technical objection was raised for the defence, viz., that
the ptisoner had not violated the Act, inasmuch as he was
in the position of a direct vendor of the shares, and not an
agent acting for the plaintiff and under his direction. His
lordship ruled in favour of the prisoner, and directed the
jury to acquit him.

NIGHT POACHING.-At the Chelmsford Assizes, three
men, named Arthur and Samuel Monk and James Carr,
were indicted for, and found guilty of, night poaching.
There was a scuffle between the prisoners and the keepers,
which Mr. Brown, Q.C. (who tried several criminal cases
in the absence, through illness, of the Lord Chief Justice)
said might have ended in manslaughter. He therefore
Sentenced two of the prisoners, Carr and Samuel Monk, to
nine months, and Arthur Monk four months' imprison-
ment.

WILFUL MURDER.— Two men, named Partridge ana
Deadman, have been committed for trial for the murder of
Maria Jackson, whose body was found in a well in the
neighbourhood of Bromley at the beginning of last month.
As the magistrate observed, the case was unusually per-
plexing, owing to the absence of motive. It appears that
1...te on Saturday night, the 18th of January last, the
woman was turned out of a public-house kept by
Partridge, in which she lodged, by Deadman, a
friend of Partridge's. She was tipsy at the time.
Deadman and Partridge followed, and had words
with her until she entered another public - house,
when they were lost sight of. Here she remained
till the house closed, when she was obliged to leave in an
awful storm of wind and rain. She went to a private
house to ask for a lodging, which was refused. This was
the last time she was seen alive by any of the witnesses.
A little later her screams were heard, but no one took any
notice of them. Her body was afterwards found in an
unfenced well at the back of the last public-house she
entered. It is not known that she had any valuable pro-
-17,t y about her. There were scarcely any marks of
vio..ence on her person, and the surgeon said she might
easily have fallen into the well ; but as the prisoners were
seen quarrelling with her shortly before her disappearance,
they were sent for trial.

PLAYING WITH FIREARMS.—A shocking occur-
rence has taken place at Pendlebury. A boy, 9 years of
age, named Morton, and a girl of 14, named Mary Fiides,
both employed at Pendlebury Mills, were at breakfast in
the lodge-house of the mill, kept by Morton's father, when
the boy took up a pigeon gun belonging to Morton senior.
Tire gun was loaded with small shot, and the ramrod was
in the barrel. The piece went off, and the ramrod struck
the girl in the forehead, scattering her braini about the
room Of 92urse, de_a_t4 ar tentadleQus.