The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-06 00:00:00

TB

8 or g o'clock in the morning, we were all called down i
into the cabin by the defendant, who said he should not
take charge of the ship in the state in which she then
was, and that we had better go back to St. Helena, and
he pointed out the track he should go. I saw Ascension
Island from the mast-head the same evening the captain
was shot. He told the crew they had better go back,
and the agents there would settle everything. Two days
afterwards, two of the boat steerers and the cooper, and
the cooper's mate, said they had better go to Ascension,
and the ,defendant said he did not care about going to
St. Helena. The evening I was at the wheel, the
defendant asked me what I looked so pleasant
for? I said it was because I was in hopes of getting back
to my home. He held out a promise if we got a whale
he would give us a sovereign each; or, at least, on his
own responsibility, a half-sovereign, and then we went
back to St. Helena. The captain was buried the day
after. The conversation about going back to St. Helena
took place before the captain was buried. During the
voyage there were violent quarrels between the captain
and the defendant. On one occasion the defendant said
he would fight the captain a duel, either gentleman
fashion or blackguard fashion. I can't say what watch
the captain had when: at St. Helena.. After we an-
chored the steward was stopping a leak, and the day
before we ought to have started an explosion took place,
and I and others were blown up and much injured. The
defendant was not on board at the time. There was a
survey on board after the accident. The defendant told
me an evening or two after the captain's death the
reason why he wanted to go to St. Helena was because
the widow's property would fetch more there than in

England. - -
Abijah Lott, of No. 29, Princes-street, Rotherhithe,
said, I was in St. Helena in May last. I saw the de-
fendant there. I saw the Diana before the explosion.
She might have gone home; but she was rather open at
her open ends forward. I went on board her before and
after the explosion. I purchased article. from Carroll, the
agent there. After the explosion I was on the survey of
the vessel, and found her blown up from the taffrail to
the mainmast. Not a beam was there that was not
broke, and the decks shook fore and aft. The coverings
of her hatchways were started. The cause was from
the magazine. The powder was in copper.
Caroline Matilda May said, I have applied to the
defendant respecting my husband's effects. This (pro-
ducing a paper) is one of the accounts he gave me.
When my husband went to sea he had a gold watch,
chain, and key. I spoke to the defendant about that
watch. He gave me a brass chain, and said that was the
chain my husband wore. In one letter I had received
from my husband, he said he had done very well in
trading.
The defendant said that he had acted all through the
affair to the best of his skill and judgment, and upon the
opinion of the oldest and most experienced officers at St.
Helena. An inquest had been held upon the body of
the captain at St. Helena, and a verdict was at once re-
turned, after the examination of, the crew, to the effect,
that the unfortunate man died by his own hand. He
repelled with indignation and scorn the insinuations
which had been made, and solemnly declared that in
every proceeding he had adopted he was influenced by
-the most honourable-feelings.
The LORD MAiroxi'ind Sir Jour; PIRIE said, that in
the present condition 'Of the evidence there were cer-
tainly matters which were calculated to excite much
suspicion. They, therefore, declared that the defendant
must find bail to appear on another day, himself in the
sum of 200/.,, and two sureties in 100/. each.
Tiro highly respectable men afterwards came forward
and bailed the defendant, whom they described as a per-
fectly honourable man, against whom no imputation had
ever been cast.
Yesterday a lad, about 15 years est' age, in the service
of Joseph Witney, of Heneage-lane, chimney-sweeper,
was brought before Sir Peter Laurie, upon the charge of
having embezzled the sum of one shilling, which he had
received for cleaning a chimney in the house of Mr.
Duff, of Leadenhall-street. •
In the progress of this investigation Sir Peter Laurie
ascertained that the prisoner had cleansed the chimney
by climbing instead of having done the job, as required
by Act of Parliament, with the machine.
Sir PETER LAURIE—How happens it that this boy was
allowed to work himself up the chimney with his knees
and elbows, directly in the teeth of the statute, which
was intended and calculated to do so much good ?
Why was not the machine used ?—The complainant said
the chimney could not be properly swept with a ma-
chine, and he therefore permitted the prisoner to go up,
but he had learned from the prisoner previously that he
was twenty-one years old, the age at which people were
authorised to ascend.
Sir P. LAURlE—Twenty-one ! Why, he is no more
twenty-one than he is thirty-one years of age. Any
body would see at once that he was not more than 15.

The complainant—He assured me he was pastthe age.
The prisoner—Never, your Lordship. Mosier/ never
asked me any age, but sent me up without: aword.
The complainant considered himself bouttno.gtalteiliet
prisoner's word, which certainly was passetl,-or there
should have been no climbing. Besides, . the prisoner
had received Is. 6d. for the work. _ _

The prisoner said he had received ls. 6d. for ascend-
ing, but he considered himself entitled to what he got
for sweeping a chimney with himself. Whatever he re-
ceived for sweeping with the machine he regularly
handed over to his master. _

Sir P. LAURIE—It is worse than slavery in the West
Indies, to send him up a chimney, and I must not suffer
so excellent an Act of Parliament to be violated with
impunity. I hope this does not often happen.
Complainant—Oh, dear! not at all.
The prisoner—l have been with Mr. Witney three
weeks, and I have been up the flue three ,times since I

have been employed by him.
Sir PETER LAURIE—The Act inflicts a penalty of 10!.
upon the party who allows a person, under 21 years of
age, to climb a chimney, for the purpose of sweeping it.
I discharge the prisoner, on the charge of embezzling ;
but I direct that the person, whose chimney he has
climbed, be summoned before me on Thursday next, to
answer for thus setting the law at defiance. I trust that
the public will give me assistance in enforcing the ob-
servance of this most necessary law.
The summons was accordingly issued.
Several boys, who stated that they travelled to London,
from various parts of the country, to seek employment,
were brought up, charged with having, in a gang, taken
bread out of a baker's shop.
Sir PETER LAURIE said it was well known through
the country that sums of money were sent by benevo-
lent individuals for the poor-boxes at the police-offices,
and that sort of intelligence was sure to bring up vast
numbers, upon the speculation of distress.
Mr. Goodman stated that as many as thirty-eight
country people had been before • the Lord Mayor on the'
preceding day pleading destitution. The increase of ap-
plications of this kind were so frightfully great of late,
that it was quite impossible to deal with them.
Sir P. LAURIE trusted that in the Amended Poor-law
Bill some provision would be made to meet the evil
which entailed such expense and trouble upon the City
of London. He sent the boys to the union.
About a dozen girls were afterwards brought up,
charged with having broken the windows of the union,
and also the windows of the Mansion-house. They said
their object was to get admission into Bridewell.
Sir P. LAURIE refused to send them to Bridewell, but
ordered a couple of officers to take them to Peckham
workhouse.
It is now the constant practice of the refractory of
both sexes to break the windows of the Mansion-house.
WORSHIP-STREET.
Thomas Burton, an old soldier, who stood charged
with having attempted to obtain various sums from
different individuals, under the pretence that he was
their forgotten relative, just returned from abroad, was
placed before Mr. Bingham for final examination.
The facts of the case have already appeared, and it
may be recollected that the only instance in which he
actually succeeded in obtaining money was from a young
married woman named Caroline Williams, upon whom
he played off a slight variation from his usual stratagem,
and pretended that he was charged with the delivery of'
sundry valuable presents from her brother, who was a
soldier in Canada, and that they were then lying at the
Custom-house. The evidence in the above case having
been completed,
Mr. BROUGHAM inquired whether any additional cases
had been discovered.
Haywood, the summoning officer, said, that among a
great number of defrauded individuals who had seen
him in prison, he was recognised by an old army sur-
geon upon he had called in prosecution of his swindling
scheme, and promised to present him with a parrot
which he had brought from abroad, but the gentleman
in question was himself too old a soldier to be so easily,
imposed upon, and he sent him off to practise his arts on
persons of greater credulity,
The prisoner here handed 'up a written paper to the
Bench, in which it was stated, that he had received
several gun-shot wounds in the head, which rendered
him at times unconscious of what he was about.
Mr. BINGHAM observed that it was rather unfortunate
for the prisoner that he had prepared such-a document,
as it' furnished indubitable evidence of his being the
same person who had committed a similar series of au-
dacious frauds in the neighbourhood of Liverpool. llc
had received a letter that morning from Mr. Henry
Dobson, of Broadwood House, near Liverpool, stating
that a person answering the exact description of the
prisoner, and whose head was scarred from alleged
musket-wounds, had defrauded numerous persons in
that part of the country by means of the same artful
device which he had practised in the metropolis. He
should order both the documents to be preserved and
w hTi el! he e
ptsoiut
odncso mo
fmtiht
see
vprisoneri
tfcnooerms
stniler trial.
The produced in evidence at the Central Criminal Court, to
eedr.e then
completed, and the prisoner was fully
CLERKEIVIVELL.

Yesterday two able-bodied men, named Ponter and
Sanglon, were charged with refusing to perform the
work assigned them by Act of Parliament in the -Hol-
born Union workhouse. On the previous night the pri-
soners were admitted as destitute poor by Barlow, the
porter. They had their bed and breakfast, but in the
morning positively. refused to pick half a pound
,of
oakum, the task assigned to them.
The case having been proved, Mr. COMBE gaie the
prisoners the option of going back to the workhouse and
doing the work. They positively refused, and were sent
to the House of Correction for seven days.
An elderly, weather-beaten looking man applied„ to
Mr. Combe for assistance under the following circum-
stances :—He stated that he was a native of Newfound-
land, and had been chief mate on board the ship Thomas,
Captain Grange master which arrived in London in
October last. On landing here he became very ill, and
was at first confined in St. Thomas's, and subseqUently
in the London hospital. When convalescent, he found
that his ship had returned to Newfoundland, and being
wholly destitute, he applied for relief in the first in-
stance to Lord Stanle3r, the Secretary for the Colonies,
and subsequently to -the Lord-Mayor, but from neither
received any assistance. He then applied to the Board
of Admiralty, and received an anaNyer bpi the Secretary,