The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-17 00:00:00

DOE IN THE DEMISE OF BACON U. BRIDGES.

This was an action Brought, in the shape of an eject-
ment, to recover abut one hundred and thirty acres of
land in Romney Marsh.
Sir T. Wilde, who was specially retained, Mr. Sergeant
Channel', and Mr. Peacock appeared for the plaintiff.
Mr. F. Kelly, who was also specially retained, with Mr.
Hall of the Chancery bar, Mr. Ogle, and Mr. Baddeley
were for the defendant.

This cause has been under litigation for several years,
and was tried at these assizes in 1844, at which period a
full report was given, and it has since been the subject
of proceedings in various courts. At that period the
verdict was for the plaintiff. It will only be necessary,
on the present occasion, to remind our readers that the
real question between the parties was. whether the lands
in question were held under that pecu.iar tenure known
in the county of Kent as gavelkind, under which landed
property, unless specially devised, is equally divided
among the male heirs, or whether they ha i been dis-
gavelld, and so placed under the ordinary law of the
country. The case for the plaintiff was, that they had
been disgavelled in the reign of Edward VI., while they
were in the occupation of Wm. Twisden ; but upon the
former trial the plaintiff was unable to produce the ori-
ginal Act of Parliament,: ilisgaveldrig the land, and which
it was alleged had been lost frc tn the Parliamentary
records, arid the Lord Chief Justice having admitted
secondary evidence of it, contents., upon that point a
new trial was granted, which now came to be disposed
of, the verdict on the former occasion being for the
plaintiff. During the interval that elapsed searching in-
quii ies were made for the Act of Parliament, and it ap-
pears that at leegth an attested copy of the original Act
was found, in the possession of Messrs. Pemberton and
Co., the solicitors to the Woods and Forests, and it was
now produced from their custody, in support of the
plaintiff's case.
The evidence, which chiefly consisted of old deeds and
other documents, tracing the land in question from 1548,
the period of its being disgavelled, occupied the Court
from one o'clock on Friday until nine o'clock at night,
a hen the further proceedings were postponed until the
next morning.
Maidstone, Saturday.

The eause of Bacon v. Bridges, was resumed this morn-
ing, and Mr. Kelly mticle a very able speech to the jury,
the sense of his argument being to contend that the land
had not been proved to he disgavelled, and that even stip-
posing that ccrt3in land had in point of fact been dis-
gavelled, there war no clear proof that the lands in
question were those referred to.
The LORD CHIEY JUSTICE having summed up, the
jury, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict fur
the plaintiff.
Mr. KELLY tendered exceptions to the admissibility of
a good deal of the evidence in the course of the case,
and it is, therefore, exceedingly probable, notwithstand-
ing this second verdict being also for the plaintiff, that
the matter will ;Ain be made the subject of further liti-
gation.
The assizes fb,ished about six o'clock.

NORTHERN CIRCUIT. March 14.
(Before Mr. Justice WIGHTMAN.)
PARRICIDE.—Thomas Marples, 25, was charged with the
manslaughter of Thomas Marples, the elder, at Grenaside,
near Sheffield.
The prisoner was charged with the manslaughter of his
own father. The Learned Counsel remarked that this was
one of the most lamentable cases that had ever occurred of a
person yielding to the influence of momentary passion. The
father of the prisoner was a blacksmith, in the village of
Grenaside; he. was also a widower, and he and his son lived
together. On the 4th of February they had been working
together, and were making a garden rake in the afternoon.
The father began to upbraid the son about having sold a rake
to a woman named Mary Naylor, on trust, and which he
could not get paid for. It turned out that the son owed Nay-
lor 2d. for mending his clothes, and the old man was unwil-
ling that it should be deducted for the rake. The young
man became excited, and, in the heat of passion, thrust
a piece of iron into the belly of his father. The son
himself afterwards made a statement of what had occurred.
He expressed the greatest contrition and sorrow, and ran off
to a doctor to attend his father, and told him what had cc-
cuffed. Mr. Illingworth, surgeon, of Ecclesfield, was the
practitioner called in, and he treated the deceased until he
was rensaved to the infirmary on Wednesday, where he died
on the following day. The prisoner was taken into custody,
and he made a statement to the constable similar to. that
told to the surgeon. He had also written a letter to his
uncle, begging he would come over and see himself and his
father. He said he was heartbroken, and wished his uncle
to come over, as his father was dying, and his visit might be
a solace to him.
The prisoner, throughout the whole of the trial, manifested
the utmost agony of spirit, and continued to shed tears
throughout the inquiry. When called upon to make his
statement to the jury, he handed in a well-indicted docu-
ment, which was read by the officer of the Court. He made
particular allusion in it to a paralysis on the left side with
which lie was afflicted, and said that in consequence of this
infirmity his father had continually goaded him with his
physical incapacity. On the day in question he introduced
the subject again, and then in a fit of exasperation he (the
prisoner) committed the dreadful act for which he was about
to answer. He looked back with terror on the deed, and he
should continue through life to feel deep regret at the un-
timely end of his father.
His Lordship briefly summed up, and the jury found the
prisoner Guilty, but strongly recommended him to mercy.
Mr. Justice Wictersints passed sentence. He said—
Thomas Marples, yours is a most melancholy caws, and pre-
sents a dreadful instance of the consequences of yielding to
the impulse of an ungovernable passion, by which act you
have caused the death of your aged father, and involved
yourself in misery and remorse for the rest of your life.
There is no reason whatever to doubt your sincere repentance
and contrition. Your own feelings must be much more
severe than any punishment which can be inflicted by a
court of justice in such a case. I hope yours will be a most
useful example to others. The sentence of the Court is, that
you be imprisoned seven days and kept solitary.
John Slanderen, aged thirty-six, was charged with having
maliciously shot at Martha Stott, at Hoyland, with intent to
do her grievous bodily harm.
Mr. Wilkins and Mr. F. Thompson prosecuted ; Mr. Bliss
and Mr. Overend defended.
Martha Stott is the wife of Henry Stott, who lives on a
farm called Bailing, at Hoyland, near Halifax, and adjoining
are some moors in the neighbourhood. Stott also is a game-
keeper to Mr. Boscoe, and has the care and superinters-'
deuce of the moors, on which there is a great number
of grouse. On the_ .23d- •Of November, the prisoner
and other parties were summoned before the magistrates on
the information of Stott. At the close of theexamination the
prisoner uttered a threat, the import of which was that
" some time or other I will pop Stott off." On the 30th of
November, in tse evening, Stool's family were alarmed by
some persons shooting a gun through one of the windows of
the house. A son of the prosecutor was outside the house,
and by the flash of the gun saw that it was the prisoner who
had discharged the piece.
Mr. Buss, for the defence, endeavoured to explain the ex-
pression said to have been used by the prisoner, that, "he
would pop Stott off," by supposing it to refer to the ap-
peal, which he subsequently made against a conviction that
Stott had obtained before the magistrates, but which was
quashed at the sessions. He urged also that it was next to
impossible that the boy could have seen the person who fired
off the gun with sufficient distinctness by the mere mo-
mentary flash of the cap of the gun, to be able to identify
him as the prisoner.
The jury returned a verdict of—Not Guilty.
Satu7day, March 15.
Thomas Wilson, aged 21, was indicted for having, in the
month of Deeember last, at Wombledon, stolen 211. Bs. Bd.,
the money of the Free Gift Society.
It appeared from the evidence of the witnesses that the
money in question was kept in a box, which was usually
placed in the bed-room of Aaron Wilkes, the treasurer of the
society. Wilkes is a joiner, and the prisoner had been his
apprentice for four years, and during that time up to within a
few months of the robbery had lived in Wilkes's house, and
knew how to enter it at night without disturbing the family.
On the 6th of December Wilkes was from home on business.
His wife heard some slight noise in the house durirg the
night, and in the course of the next day missed the box. A
le:sourer in the neighbourhood met the prisoner at an early
hour in the morning, passing by where there was a pump.
The prisoner appeared to be hiding something behind the
pump, and the witness heard a noise as of something
being knocked. This created a suspicion with the man
after hearing of the robbery; when the well was searched,
and it was discovered that Bessie stones had been moved
from over the well, and that the lost bok was there, broken
and cast into the water, the money taken away, and some
papers only left. The prisoner having absconded, suspicion
fell upon him ; and Reid, an inspector of police, was there-
fore dispatched in pursuit of him. The officer went to Edin-
burgh, by York and Newcastle, and ultimately found Wilson
in St. Andrew-square, at Edinburgh. At first the prisoner
said th,at'he bad but 91. 4s. with him, but shortly said he
kneiv all about the matter; though, as to the money he had,
he did not know how he came by it. Being searched, there
were found upon him five sovereigns, besides a half-sovereign,
and two other pounds in silver. He admitted he had bought
a coat in Edinburgh, of Wilson and Martin, tailors; and the
officer, on going to them, discovered that he had paid them
with a 5/. note ; and that note was identified by the trea-
surer, from several marks upon it, as a note which had been
among the money lost, and contained in the box of the
society.
The prisoner was convicted.—Sentence deferred.

MIDLAND Cl RCUlT.—Acttinyhani, March 14.
(Before Chief Justice TINDAL.)
ATTEMPT TO MURDER.—Reuben Reddish, aged 20, a frame-
work knitter, was charged with stabbing v. and ounding, at
Mansfield, on the 20th of last December, Kytha Ann Haves.
Mr. Dennison appeared on the part of the prosecution, and
Mr. Willmore for the prisoner.
The prisoner and the prosecutrix both live at Mansfield,
and the young man had been paying his addresses to the
latter; but on the Sunday preceding the day in question she
had informed him it was her intention not to continue the
connexion. The prosecutrix was living with her mother,
and on the morning of the 20th of December the , prisoner
called at the house to breakfast. He began to interrogate
the yOung woman as to her having told him she did not
intend to keep company with him any longer, and she said
she did not. He said, "Must we then part?" To which
she replied, "Yea." He then said, there would be blood
conic of it ; and she replied, " Let it be so." The prisoner
was not slow to fulfil his prediction, fier he immediately went
to the kitchen, where he armed himself with a large carving-
knife. and commenced a ferocious attack upon the girl. She
took up. a chair to defend herself, through the bottom of
which, in. attempting to strike her, he made several thrusts.
He succeeded in striking her in several places, inflicting
wounds on her arm, hand, and right breast. Prosecutor
was at last borne to the ground, and while the prisoner was
in the act of rushing upon her with his knife, the mother