The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-24 00:00:00

This is the letter [The letter was then read, and was
as follows.] :
"Gravesend, July 30, 1849.
"Sir,—Permit toe to aidress you in a case of charity
at the earnest entreaty of James Brewer. a young man
whom you have been very kind to on several occasions,
ald so_onr, months ago you gave him 1/. 3s. to him
to Lc. mington. lie was orderA hero for the Feow:fit of
sea-bathing, but the. am being too heel for his delic..,te
frame he hal been advised to endeavour to gain admis-
sion to the Consumption Hospital, Br mpton, near 'Lou-
don. He is in very distressed ci'rcuu Ague s, end has no
meats of paying the fees of that institution, and is also
indebted here to his landlady for batird, &c. Your kind-
ness to him ta-f, ore induces hies t hoop- you migf t once
more, and for the last that., render him some little as-
sist Ltic), to enable him to make up 505., all that he is de-
ficient of. I have taken more than usual interest in his
case, having given him some linen and 1/. 10g. in cash,
Which is as much as my limit -d meals will permit me to
do. The 2a,1 intelligence of a death in my family
obliges me to leave home in a few hours for Scot'and, •
and I will be absent sums weeks; then f ore; you will bo.,
pleased to return an answer to the poor youth himself,
along with the enclosure, which is of impontanee to toile,
addressed—' James Brewer, post-. ffice, Graves-nd, li-nt ;
to be left till cal:ed for;' and I hive instructed Miss
Scott, my sister, to acknowledge the rote pt f,r him.
Trusting that the motive which actuates MO in cAnplying
with the requlst will be de,m,d an apology,
"I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
JOHN H, SCOTT, M.D.
" To John Collinriclgc, Esq., BAlo."
The witness then continued—l posted eight or
nine other letters at the same time as I posted this
one which has just been read, and when I went to
Gravesend, a few days afterwards, I received several
letters in reply to them. One of these replies was
from the prosecutor, enclosing a Post-office order for
31., and another was from the late Queen Dowager,
forwarding a donation of 51. Having obtained cash
for the Post-office order I returned back to London,
and then the defendant and myself divided the 81.
equally between us. Shortly after this I went to
reside in Bath, and the defendant, with a woman of
the name of Farr, who lived with him, also went
down to live with me. I am the person referred to
in the above letter, but it was all a fiction as to my
wanting to get into the Consumption Hospital at
Brompton. The letter was written by the defendant.
Cross-examined—l have been what you call a
"begging letter impostor" for about three years. I
was led into the system by a companion of the de-
fendant's of the name of Sullivan. I have not obtained
my living by' the means of any employment since the
year 1843, in the course of which year I was thrown
from a coach in the Somerset-road, by which accident
I was severely hurt. There were two of these charges
brought against me at Bath ; but I pleaded to one of
the indictments, and was sentenced to four months'
imprisonment and hard labour. I do not anticipate
that the sentence will he mitigated in the event of the
present defendant being convicted upon this occasion.
Inspector Tate, of the constabulary cf Bath, and
another officer of that body, produced a number of
" begging letters," and answers to such letters, which
they had found in Brewer's house. They also pro-
duced several volumes of the Court Guide, a copy of
Burke's Peerage and of Dodd's Peerage, and Dodd's
Parliamentary Companion, all of which they had
found in the same house.

The officers in their cross-examination said, that
Brewer and the defendant had been apprehended on
suspicion of having stolen a gold watch, and that it
had been whilst they were searching the house in
which they lived that they had found the letters and
books.

The prosecutor then proved that he had received
the letter above cited, and that believing that the re-
presentations it contained were true he had forwarded
the Post-office order for 3/.

The post-mistress next proved that the money had
been paid to the prisoner, to whom the letter had been
addressed, and by whom it had been received, " There
was no such person," she added, " as Dr. Scott living
in Gravesend."
This was the whole of the evidence offered in re-
spect of the count in the indictment for the fraudu-
lent obtaining of the Post-office order for 3/.
Evidence was then produced in reference to the fraud
of obtaining the two halves of the Si. Bank of Eng
land note, from which it appeared, that whilst the
defendant was living in Bath, he had by some means
or other discovered that the prosecutor was remotely
related to the family of Collinridge, in Northumber-
land, whereupon he at once assumed to be one of the
same family, and wrote a letter, and procured from
Mr. Collinridge a Si. Rink o: England note.
Evidence was then given to prove that this letter
was in the handwriting of the defendant One of
these witnesses lived at 21, Lillington-street, and she
stated, furthermore, that the defendant sometimes had
assumed the names of M'Kinlay and of Masai?' and
that he frequently had gone out dressed as a clergy -
man. The defendant had oftentimes told her that he
obtained an excellent income by sending begging
letters.

Mr. PRENDERGAST, on the part of the defendant,
submitted that this indictment could not be main-
tained, and advanced that proposition upon the ground
that in respect of both of the counts in the indictment
the venue was wrongfully laid. The fraud wa's
charged to have been committed in the county of
Middlesex, whereas in the one case the money had
been received in Kent and in the other in Wiltshire.
Thu 4, therefore, the completion of the fraud hld been
effected in thou two counties, and not in Middlesex.
He submitted, therefore, that the indictment was bad.
Mr. REINN. on the other hand, contended that the
completion of the fraud had been accomplished so
soon as the prosecutor had parted with and posted the
money at Sunbury, upon the faith of the truthfulness
of the statements which had been put forth in the de-
fendant's letters.

The Learned JUDGE was of opinion that the venue
was correctly laid. He would, however, if the parties
wished it, send up a case for the opinion of the Court
of Exchequer Chamber.

Both counsel assented to his proposition.
Mr. PRENDERGAST then addressed the jury at con-
siderable length on behalf of the defendant.
The Learned JUDGE having summed up,
The jury eventually returned a verdict of Guilty.
Mr. PHINN said, he thought it was necessary that
the Court should be informed that the defendant was
one of the most skilful as well as most impudent of
" begging-letter" impostors that had ever been
known ; and he had been running his career for some
time with vast success. lle had assumed every class
of character. At one time he was a clergyman,
at another he was a physician, and at another he
was deputed by a religious society. It was in the
first and the last named of these characters that he
had obtained several large contributions from the late
Queen Dowager. Ile had also been the accomplice
of a man who had recently been sentenced to trans-
portation.
llorsford, the Mendicity officer, here stated, that
within the last three years the defendant had been in
custody seven times, and had been convicted on three
occasions.

The Learned JUDGE sai(l, that the extent of the
frauds which the defendant had committed might be
guessed at from the many and the high names which
he found in the letters which had been handed up to
him. It was perfectly clear
_that his depredations
upon the benevolent had been carried out to a very
large extent. The defendant must be remanded until
the next sessions, when he must be brought up for
judgment, and in the meantime he would prepare and
send up the case for the opinion of the Court of Ex-
chequer Chamber.
The defendant was then removed.
THE ARGYLL ROOMS.

In the course of the day the grand jury ignored a
bill of indictment which had been preferred before
them by Stowell, the informer, against F. Bryer and
another, as the proprietors of the Argyll Rooms, in
Great Windmill-street, Haymarket.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
MANSION-HOUSE.
James Barton was brought up, charged with hav
ing forged a cheque for 151. upon the banking firm
of Rogers, Olding, and Co , of Clement's-lane. He
had been apprehended by Storey, an officer, in Dean-
street, Soho. The officer held another forged cheque
for the same amount, and purporting to be signed by
the same drawer, upon the same house, which cheque
had been presented at the house by a woman of in-
different character.

John C. Payne, of Holborn-bars, boot and shoe-
maker, said,—The prisoner owed me a long-standing
account of 41. 18s., and he called upon me on Monday
fortnight, and said he was very sorry he could not call
before, that he had just received a sum of money on
his deceased mother's account, and he came to pay
me, if I could change a cheque drawn by a Mr. Ben-
nett upon Rogers and Co., which he produced. Ile
said, " I should not have brought it to you, sir, but
I received it since five o'clock, and I want to be off to
my work at Kingston the first thing in the morning." I
rather demurred as to cashing the cheque at first, and
asked him who Mr. Bennett was, to which he replied
that the gentleman was his mother's agent or exe-
cutor, and was conducting her affairs. I knew that
his mother was dead, and after some hesitation I gave
him the difference between the debt due to me and
the amount of the cheque, or rather in mistake 10,;.
more. Next mori:ing I felt uneasy about the matter,
and I went,to the banking-hou.e and presented it. The
clerk wrote upon it "No account," and I then applied
to the police.
A gentleman from Rogers's banking-house said
the person who drew the cheque kept no account at
the house.

The prisoner, upon being asked whether he was
desirous to ask any question of the witness, or to say
anything in explanation of the cause of the accusation,
said, " Nothing at all."
He was remanded till Thursday.
William Garrett was charged with having stolen a
chest, which contained cigars to the value of 181.
licdington, the officer, said the prisoner was one of
Ave persons who bad robbed a
_lady some time ago.