The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-27 00:00:00

WORSHIP-STREET.

Charles Stewart, a young Scotchman, and a person
of Jewish appearance, named Dan. Rogers Rodrigues,
were charged with being concerned in an extensive
robbery, amounting to 1,5001. of goods, committed
on the sth inst., on the premises of Mr. Hay, jeweller,,
Leith-street, Edinburgh. The prisoners described
themselves as " surgeon-chiropodists." Rodrigues
was known as a hawker of pens, pencils, &c., in the
neighbourhood of Petticoat-lane.
Sergeant Barker, of the H division, stated that in
consequence of information he had received, he went
with Davis, a police-constable, to Petticoat-lane,
where they apprehended the two prisoners for the
burglary at Mr. Hays. Upon Rodrigues they found
two cases of surgical instruments, a gold
~pin,
and some loose jewels, and upon eward a gold
watch, two gold chains, a gold pin, three gold
rings, a duplicate for a silver snuff-box pledged on
the 18th instant, and a silver-mounted riding whip.
At the residence of Rodrigues, Devonshire-terrace,
Bethnal-green, they found a considerable quantity of
apparel, a cloth cap, with gold band, a gold breast
pin, a dial, a neck chain, and gold rings, a duplicate
for a brequet chain, ledged that day, a pair of
pocket pistols, and other articles produced. When
apprehended they declared their entire innocence.
Some of the articles found upon.them, corresponded
with portions of the stolen property. They admitted
having been lately Scotland, but said they had re-
turned to London before the time the robbery was
said to have been committed. They were both re-
manded to allow time for evidence being brought
from Scotland.
L AMBETII-3 TREET.
Richard
Pi
wither s
e, a waterman, was charged before
Mr. Nortonsof beingra
ucdoyn coefr nt
he de , y
alu withe fost others,
thein
stealing 33 gallons
property of Mr. Lucey, master r a
Mr. Pelham attended for ighterman.
the prosecution, and
called Mr. Evans, the inspectoron the
of the River Police,
who stated, that early
last month one of ten cassmoofrg of the 25th of
ninbrandy, on board a
punt belonging to the prosecutor, in h St. Kathe-
rine's Dock, had been plundered o f
thirty-eightte
gal-
lons of its contents. A day or two terwar
lighterman, named Drake, was taken into custody on
a
on
a charge of being concerned in the robbery, and the
evidence against him amounted to the fact of his
having taken a punt, which lay alongside that on board,
of which the robbery took place, out of the St. Ka-
therine's Dock, to the St. Saviour's Dock. From
that morning the prisoner had kept out of the way ;
but on the night before he, Mr. Evans, succeeded in
apprehending him in the long room of a public-
house in Ratcliff Highway, in company with a num-
ber of low prostitutes, Ile had at first denied his

name, and was rather " bounceable," but ultimately
acknowledged he was the person he (Evans) was in
search of, and he was taken to the station-house.
The prisoner denied all knowledge of the robbery,
and said he should be able to prove his innocence.
Mr. Pelham applied for the remand of the pri-
soner until Thursday next, when Drake, the other
man in custody, would be again brought up.
Mr. NORTON complied with the request, but said
he should take good bail for his appearance on that
day.
From what transpired during the hearing of the
case, it appears that plunder of this description in the
docks and on the river has latterly been carried on to
a very considerable extent.
Charles Newling was charged with stealing one
hundred Manilla cheroots, the property of Alexander
Stewart. The complainant stated that he was an ap-
prentice on. board the John Horton, of Liverpool,
then lying in the London Dock, and which had just
arrived from a foreign voyage. On that day the pri-
soner and another person came to him on board, and
the latter asked him if he had any cigars which he
wished to have taken out ? He replied that he had
some which he wished to take to his father in Dublin.
The prisoner's companion then asked to see the
cheroots, and said he would put him up to a " dodge,"
by which he could take them out free of duty. He
then placed the cheroots in a handkerchief, tied the
latter round the waist of the prisoner, and endea-
voured to keep him, witness, in conversation, while
the prisoner jumped into a boat, and was about to
make his escape. He (witness), however, called out
to a Custom-house officer, and he was secured, not,
however, before he had thrown half the cheroots into
the water.
Mr. NORTON observed that it was not only a most
" artful dodge," but the most barefaced robbery he
had met with for some time.
The prisoner, in defence, said that the person who
had accompanied him was bargaining to pay the com-
plainant ten shillings for the lot, and, because he did
not pay him 11s., he gave him into custody.
Mr. Walker, the inspector of police in the dock,
said that similar tricks were of daily occurrence, and
that sailors complained bitterly of being robbed of
cigars and various contraband goods by a gang of
persons of the prisoner's description, by various
dodges" as they were called.
The prisoner was remanded for a week.
QUEEN-SQ UARE.
A question as to the right of the Equitable Gas
Company to break the ground in the Vauxhall-bridge-
road, to lay down their pipes, was, on Saturday, to
have been determined by the Magistrate at this
Court, but was reserved for the investigation of some
higher tribunal, in consequence of the Magistrate
considering that he had no jurisdiction in the matter.
The facts of the case are these :—ln the night of
Friday, the 17th, the Gas Company laid down a new
main across the Vauxhall-bridge-road, near Regent-
street, and on the following morning a large number
of the Bridge Company's men endeavoured, under the
orders of their superiors, to take them up. As
fast as the Bridge Company's party dug the
earth out, the adverse gang shovelled it in.
Mark Webster, on the part of the Bridge
Company had got a hammer, and was about to remove
or break up the pipe, when the gas-lighters shovelled
the earth over him and his tools, and, on his scram-
bling out of the hole, George Kelly, one of the Equit-
able's, shoved him in again, for which he was charged
with an assault. The bone of contention is, that the
Gas Company did not ask permission to break the
ground or lay down the pipes, and this is met by the
other party with the declaration that they were put-
ting down a fresh main by the side of the old one,
which old one had been placed there by permission,
and the Magistrate, on looking to Lord Lansdowne's
Act, which gives the summary jurisdiction in assaults,
was of opinion that he had no power to adjudicate
where a question of right was fairly set up, and left
the opposing parties to try the merits of the motion in
one of the superior courts.—Committed to Newgate
WANDS WORTH.
Joseph G. Buck was charged with assaulting
Joseph Orger, groom to Lieutenant Colvin, of the
9th Lancers.
The complainant stated, that on the previous after-
noon, as he was returning with his master and other
gentlemen from the races, and while the carriage was
stopping at the Bell, at Tooting, the prisoner came
up and struck him in the mouth. The provoca-
tion, he believed, was, that a short time before, he
had dragged the defendant away from the leaders of
his master's carriage, while defendant was endeavour-
ing to stop them, alleging that his cart had been pur-
posely driven against by the riders.
Lieut. Colvin, Lord Altamont, and Mr. G. W.
Bacon, of Hertford-street, Mayfair, gave evidence,
and said that no provocation was offered to the
defendant before he assaulted the groom.
The defendant said he had been very much ill-
used in the first instance. The carriage had been
dviven recklessly and wilfully against his chaise-cart,
and he and two friends had been thrown out with
great violence. Upon getting up he had tried
to stop the leaders, but had been dragged off by
the complainant. Upon coming up with the car-
riage at Tooting, he merely went up to it to get the
owner's name, when the complainant rudely pushed
him away, upon which he had struck him. He had
no witnesses; one of his friends was the steward of a
ship, and could not come, and he would not bring the
other.
Mr. CLIVE said the prisoner had acted very foolishly
in so doing. He could not postpone the case, because
there had been ample opportunity to have produced
witnesses. Whether the prisoner had or had not
been ill-treated in the way he described he could not
say, but if such conduct-had been pursued towards
him, he knew that the law would give him redress,
and therefore the assault complained of was altogether
inexcusable. The prisoner must pay a fine of 10s.
The fine was paid.
UNION-HALL.

John Allchin, one of the stewards of the Rsform
Stock Benefit Society, held at the White Bear, Ber-
mondsey, was brought up for re-examination, charged
with being concerned w►th a man named Marrs, the
secretary, not yet in custody, with breaking open the
" strong box" of the society, and stealing upwards
of 201., belonging to members of the society, who
were all very poor men, having wives and families to
maintain, and at the same time defacing the entry-
book, so that the sums of money could not be cor-
rectly known.
The landlord, it appears, had recently taken pos-
session of the house, and a few days subsequently the
members had a meeting in his room. At its conclu-
sion, and after the departure of the members, the
money-box, which was left there, was demanded by
the secretary Marrs and the prisoner Allchin. Under
the impression that he was authorised to deliver it up
tot he secretary, the landlord gave it them, and no sooner
had they disappeared, than he found the box had been
broken open in the room, its contents, amounting to
201. abstracted, and the leaves of the entry-book lace-
rated, so as to make recognition of the sums or parties
matter of impossibility. On this discovery Allchin
was instantly secured, but Marrs had absconded. All-
chin admitted that he applied for the money-box in
conjunction with Marrs, but he was totally irrrespon-
sible for its contents, which Marrs had appropriated,
and decamped with. The Magistrate said no doubt
existed in his mind that they were the two men who
had plundered the society ; his determination was to
commit them both for this cruel robbery, but he
should remand Allchin to await the capture of Marrs.

TRUCK SYSTEM IN THE LACE

TRADE.

At lloniton, on the 18th inst., Mrs. Chick, of
Branscombe, lace manufacturer, was called on to ans-
wer the complaint of Sarah Perry, a pauper of
Ottery St. Mary, for having paid her wages in truck.
The justices present were—Wm. Porter, Esq., in the
chair; G. Smith, Esq. ; and the Rev. T. J. Marker.
Mr. Cox, of lloniton, appeared for the prosecutor,
Sarah Perry ; and Mr. Coleridge, of Ottery, appeared
for Mrs. Chick.

Sarah Perry was first called, and examined by Mr.
Cox.—She stated that she had worked for Mrs. Chick
between 17 and 20 years, and that during the whole
of that period she had been accustomed to be paid in
goods ; that sometimes she received a halfpenny
or a penny in money, when the goods did
not exactly come to the amount of the lace, but that
she never had, on any occasion during that period,
received as much as sixpence she most posi-
tively s wore ; that just before Christmas last she took
some lace to Mrs. Chick, who ordered her to go on
making the same lace, and that on the 13th of February
she took the lace so made to Mrs. Chick's shop in
Branscombe, that she saw Mr. Tucker, Mrs. Chick's
agent and son-in-law, and that he took the lace, and
paid her in goods, viz.—a piece of print, a loaf of
bread, and some butter.
On cross-examination by Mr. Coleridge, she ad-
mitted that she had seen some paper stuck up at the
shop, like two that he produced, but that she did not
read them (one of these papers was the resolutions
of the board of guardians against truck, the other a
paper signed by Mr. Chick, and stating that he
should not, in future, order any lace to be made, but
that he should exchange goods for ready-made lace).
She also said that Mrs. Chick had once sent her away
without buying her lace, because it was not made I
well, but afterwards she called her back and took it.
Mr. Coleridge tried to break down her evidence as
to Mr. Tucker not asking if the lace was ordered,
and her stating it was not, but without effect. Mr.
Coleridge then addressed the Bench for Mrs. Chick.
He did not defend the truck system ; he did not deny
that his client had practised that system up to the
time that the Board of Guardians had issued their
resolution, but from that day his client had been most
xe anxiousty nothe to
put breakferw
forward
w de
thela paperand i n w
hp
ireoho f
h ofe
had
:naused to be printed, and he would show that he payed
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thatotarded
srec lace. fie
couldkle also
t