The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-18 00:00:00

LAW AND POLICE.

A PAWNI3ROKER FINED.—At Worship•street Police.
court, Lewis Symons, a pawnbroker, was charged with
neglecting to provide a duplicate for certain articles
pledged with him, and subsequently with taking 4d. for a
ticket. The magistrate, after hearing the evidence, which
chewed that the pledger could neither read nor write, fined
the defendant £5 in each case, and also ordered that he
should pay the costs.
ACTION AGAINST A RAILWAY COMPANY.—In the Court
of Common Pleas, the case of Button v. the South Easters
Railway Company came on for hearing. It was an
action brought by the plaintiffs to recover damages for
the non-delivery of certain barrels of beer which had
been sold to them and which the company refused to
deliver unless paid money owed by their father. The
plaintiffs had kept a public-house at Belvedere, in Kent,
and they said that although the beer was bought by their
father it was ordered for them and paid for with their
money. It was sent directed to Mr. Button, and as ha
owed the company £1 6s. 3d. they claimed a right to
detain it =Ail that sum was paid. Whether they were
justified in sc, doing was not the question, because the
plaintiffs had to make out that the beer was theirs in
order to succeed in this action. After a protracted trial
the jury gave their verdict for the defendants.
ACTION FOR BREACH OF PROMISE TO MARRY.—Before
Mr. Justice Keating, the case of Patrick v. Wood, which
was an action for breach of promise, was tried. The de•
fendant's first wife died in April 1863, and he soon sought
out the plaintiff. He wrote to her frequently, visited her
friends with her, took lodgings for her, and she passed as
his wife. In March 1864, the plaintiff had a child by the
defendant, and the connection continued for some time
afterwards. The defendant married another woman in
March 1865. The promise to marry was proved by the
plaintiff's sister. The jury awarded the plaintiff £2O
damages.
ANOTHER ACTION FOR LILEL.—In the Court of Ex.
chequer the court was engaged in trying the cause
of Hudson v. Scott and another, which was an
action brought for the publication of an alleged libel in the
Pe-porter newspaper. The libel was contained in an answer
to a corr!spondent, and imputed to the plaintiff improper
conduct in reference to his management of a public coin.
pany of which he was the secretary, particularly in his
advertising the company in the Tomahawk and in no other
newspaper, which it was insinuated he had done
because he was the owner of that paper. The plaintiff
was put into the box, and denied the truth of every
imputation upon his conduct. The counsel for the plaintiff
offered to withdraw the case if a promise were given that
the offence should not be repeated. The defendant re.
fused to give such a pledge, and the case went to the jury,
who assessed the damages at £3O.

DAMAGES FOR Loss OF HUSBANDS.—In the same
court the jury were called upon to give damages
in the case of Larken.v. the Monmouth Railway Corn.
',any. The plaintiff brought the action as administrator
of his brother to recover damages on behalf of the widow
and children for the death of his late brother, who was
killed under the following circumstances :—The deceased,
who was a carpenter on board a Norwegian vessel
then lying at Newport, in Monmouthshire, was on
the night of the 26th of October, 1865, going from
the tow's to his vessel, and in so doing had to cross
a level crossing over which the defendants' railway
ran. There were gates at the crossing ; but the gates,
instead of being across the road, or across the line, were
locked back to the fence, so as to leave both the road and
the line open. In crossing the line the deceased was
knocked down and killed by an engine. The defence was
that the deceased was partly intoxicated, or else he would
have seen the engine coming. This view of the case was
not taken by the jury, who gave £6OO damages—£2oo to
the widow, and £lOO each to the children.—Before Baron
Pigott, Mrs. Moore, the widow of a bricklayer,
brought an action against Mr. Denton and
others to recover damages for the loss of her
husband. It appeared that in February last the
defendant Shipney, a publican at Finchley, employed a
carpenter to design• a building, and employed the defen-
dant Denton, a builder, to carry out the design. In the
course of the execution of the work a wall fell and killed
the deceased, a working bricklayer. The defence was
that neither of the defendants was liable, inasmuch as
Shipney had only employed Denton, who had employed
the deceased, and Denton was merely engaged in carrying
out the design of an architect. The jury gave £650
damages.
THREATENING TO MURDER.—At the Mansion House,
Eli Ferni, a respectably-dressed man, aged 60,
described as a publisher, was taken before the Lord
Mayor, charged with writing and sending a number of
letters threatening to kill and murder Mr. Basil Melas, a
Greek merchant, in business in Old Broad-street. It
seemed that the prisoner formerly published a shipping
list, when another person started one in opposition, and the
prisoner was so much enraged that he stabbed a Greek
merchant who supported the competitor, and was sent to
penal servitude for three years. Since his release he has
frequently threatened to murder the complainant. He
was remanded.

REVERSE or FORTUNE.—There is at present in
the Great Yarmouth workhouse a pauper whose father
was twice mayor of that borough, and whose grandfather
was-one of the principal landowners and proprietors of
property in that locality.

SUFFOSED SUICIDE.—An inquest has been held
in Essex-street, Strand, on the body of Mr. Watson, aged 43,
whose body was found floating in the river at the Temple
Pier. Vpon searching the pockets 1'46 in notes and gold
and a quantity of papers were found. The body appeared
to have been from three to four days in the water.
Deceased was a hat manufacturer, and was last seen alive
on Friday evening. He had been threatened with being
made a bankrupt., and he was very much depressed.
There were no marks of violence on the body. The jury
returned a verdict of Found Drowned.

THE CROri; IN THE EAST.—The wheat crop upon
the heavy lands about Newmarket is looking healthy and
strong, and even upon the light lands there is a prospect of
a good harvest. The barley and oats, except those grow-
ing upon stiff soils, are thin, and will fall short of an
average. The weather has continued bright and scorch-
ing during the past week. The wheat fields are now
mostly in ear and generally in bloom, and the critical
period of the next fourteen days will greatly affect the
productiveness of the crops. The reports received continue
very qualiaed,