The Sun.
London, England, 1828-12-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE LONDON JOURNALS.

The leaders of the Irish Catholics seem deter-
mined to embitrrass their friends, and give advan-
tage to their enemies. They must know, if they
have ears to hear, or-eyes to see, that the advocates
of their cause in England hve to contend against
the deep-rooted prejudices of the great bulk-of the
people, backed by the concentrated energy. of a con.
Aiderable portion of the Tory aristocracy. They must
know also, if they know any thing, that another and
most serious obstacle to their hopes exists in a most
important branch of the State. It might, therefore,
be supposed that, in deference to the most obvious
dictates of prudence and common sense, the leaders
intrusted with the conduct of a momentous cause to
be decided by an appeal to a tribunal Which, by a
long course of education has been trained to detest
their doctrines, and by partial experience is disposed
to dislike their persons, would endeavour to conci-
liate prejudice and to disarm hostility, by mode-
rate measures, by reasonable discussion, by candid
statement, and by unimpeachable behaviour. This
sort of conduct would be judicious, it would proba-
bly be successful : it would, at all events, remove
those serious impediments to success, disgust and
contempt, arising from the furious declamations of

so many of the Irish orators. What, how-
ever, is the conduct of most of the® Catholic
etiiefs ? They offend the feelings of the. English
people, who me any thing but prepossessed in their
favour, by abusing not merely the general character
.of their institutions, but by vilifying those martyrs
of the reformation whose names are as dear to therm
as even the sacred ties of kindred; they insult even
their ardent friends and indefatigable advocates,by de-
flouncing them as traitors, because they consent to ob-
tain that great prize on conditions which they know
cannot be obtained by any other means, arid lastly, in.
utter ignorance of the English character, or with a vul-
gar insolence even more contemptible, they presume to
invade England with a knot of brieiless barristers,
who are to perambulate the country with a strolling
commission, in order to create in all who hear theni
an admiration for Catholic doctrines and for Irish
demagogues. Can absurdity go`further ? it was
a mere personal question respecting the influence of
the promoters of this mission, we should leave it to
be decided by the scorn of every rational English-
man; but all personal feelings are merged in our
deeper alarm for the welfare of that bark which is
launched on a dangerous sea, under the guidance of
such pilots. We trust that the really important
personages of the Catholic body in Ireland will not
.only disavow the impertinent abst.irailies of these
seit-elected delegates, but will adopt some public
xneanA of showing that Mr. O'Connell and Mr.
Lawles4 are not iaithitd and adequate representa=
tivee of Catholic feeling and Catholic discretion.—
Times.

The following absurd observations, on the subject
of same trials which are about to take place in
Edinburgh, have been ma by the Glasgow,
Courier :

"THE LATE MURDERS IN EDINBURGH.

s" The march of intellect,' the march of mind,' aid.
the march of niany other extraordinary
.-and dangerous
thingii lass we haVe been long told, flourished, spread, and'
been culisvatcd is Edinburgh. The Papers of that City of
Saturday lasi' Place before us a most striking occurrence in
proof ; namely, erimivat trials which are about to take
place, fur the deliberate inunte* of three-inhabitants of the
Capital—one man and two woieer4,_.—lur the purpose of
selling their bodies, as they did sell thein, to rgeous, for
tbe..purpose_of disseetion I It is whispered that there have
been wore; but, we ask, in what quarter of the world can
such unfeeling and deliberate beziewity be surpassed ? Let
Edinburgh, at least, talk no mere abnnt civilizing and
evangelizing distant and barbarous nattoßso, until she
civilize and evangelize all her own citizens, 441 wipe
off from her name such do foul reproach for ignorauce,
brutality, and savage halisaxity. The murderers in
the present case, no doubt, signe4 the Edinburgh anti-
slavery petition last spring (twenty-six,thogsand adults, all
.the adults in the city, we are told, signed it); And they
arc, moreover, in all probability, phrenologists, who, I,s.v-
-ing been funned with the bump of destructiveuess with
overwhelming devekhonent in their skulls, were riease-
fluently obliged to follow.intt their inclinations and foal
propensities, as other wild toasts which are made without
reason. People who go- to Edintniegh in future would do
licit to be upon their guard.. We have /44,',4 of men hay-
ing,their pockets picked there in various ways; 40 t,.king
life is a more serious business, Dnd ought to be more ta;:a-
fully guarded against. By the bye, we are surprised that
application is not made to the Turks fiardead bodies to dis-
sect. They would supply them in abundance, pickled and,
salted, perhaps embalmed, in high order."
That in a community id which there is much por
verty, and consequently vice, murders should be
committed for the sake of the high price at which
dead bodies now sell, is anything certainly but sur-
prising. . Twelve pounds; and even more, can tex?b-•
rained for a dead body ; and how often has murder
been perpetrated in this country, as well as in every
other, for a much smaller sum I The question with
a reckless man, who places his life in jeopardy by en-
tering on a career of crime, is bow he shall obtain
the most money with the least risk; and when we
consider that highway robbery and burglary are often
attempted unsuccessfully, and almost always hazar-
dous, the dead or the wounded of the party often
leading to the. subsequent discovery of the asso-
ciatee, who escape at the time, whereas men and
women in a state of intoxication can easily be pas-
ter.ed, and children carried off, it is not surprising
that ,wicked -and needy men shoold betake them-
selves to this mode of raising money. The odious
traffic -would be at once annihilated, if the Medical
8'4'04 were enabled to obtain their supply in a est-
gular manner; and this coulkl easily be effected if
those who poste the power were willing to use it
beneficially. In alt other countries dead bodies can
be procured in abundance; and if England form an
exception, the reason - is
that the English Govern-
ment is more indifferent to all hut the grosser inte-
rests of the• higher orders than any Government
calling itself civilized in Europe. It was
red in
evidence before the Committee of the House of
Commons, that the men who follow the trade ofl
reenrrectionists are generally thieves,and that raising
dead bodies is only one branch of their oarnation.
That a man who risks his life on the highway, or in
a burglarious attempt by night, ond is familiar with
crime, should prefer the comparatively easy mode of
obtaining a body which has been practine4 in Edin-
burgh to the laborious and disgusting process of ex-
thumating a body, often verging to decomposition,
and for the conveyance of which a cart is necessary,
eiwite natural. In this very city, there are whole
ne4hbourhoods, in Westminster, St. Giles, 'ron-
hill, the Borough, and Lambeth, &c.,
in which the inhabitants have no honest occupation.
We have no Police—no registry of the population
—noise of die ;skeins of repressing crime, adopted in
all other civilized eiountries. We are with our cri-
minate as the Turks ned Porlugese are with their
street dogs. The d0g5,..11418i) they find their num-
tiers exceed the offal, worry eakit other. In like
rammer, the thieves of London and oacer towns
know that the matter for plunder has its limits; AO
when their trade is overstocked, instinctively thrust
each other into the hands of justice, there being
the Awn() ill-will and envy among r:likeves that
there xre- in all other occupations. We owe
to this necessity of- ewe proportion betweea
the matter to be stolen and the gunber of thieves our
only security; totem Police, as Az As it goes, is
.positively a nuisance. The Glasgow and:* says,
that it is strongly suspected the cases lately dieeo-
vered are not the only ones. -We think it extremely !
probable that children may have ivee'D stolen by re.
surreetioa-med: It is well known that io the first
half of the last century a trade of kidnapping R.,44_
&ell for the plantations was extensively carried on;
and it was established on the trial 5n ;yhich Peter
Williamson obtained damages against Ole Magi-
strates of Aberdeen, that this ,nefarious tratle rta
sanctioned by the Authorities of trad4ng towns who
profited by it. It is es easy now as it was /Ito to.
decoy and carry off childra,a ; and we would appeal to
the higher rasiks—who might be indifferent to the
=ere consideration of facilitating the acquisition of
anatomical knowledge, froma conviction that money
twill always commaraskill, and that the **Rated

*yin improve themselves at the expente 9f :the Ays.v

and limbs of the poor, in behalf of their own children,
who are exposed to the hazard of, falling into the
hands of resurrectionists as well as the children or
the poor. They cannat always have their children
under their eye, but must trust them to maid., who
. promenade them in open and airy places. How
easy for desperate men to obtain possession of these
children ! We remember when a Learned Con-
! temporary of the New Times, who is now filling a
judicial office abroad, availed himself of some ex-
ploits in the way of cannibalism in Van Diemen's
Land, to maintain gravely that the description given
by Lord Byron of a feast on a human body at sea
had a strong tendency to communicate to English-
men a desire for the flesh of each other. This is at-
tributing to poetry power with a vengeance. But
though a man may not easily be brought to eat a
human body, he many easily convert one into what
will sapply him with palatable food. The instances
discovered in Edinburgh show that the danger,
which any retlectine man might have anticipated, is
not visionary. We consider the men in power more
to blame for these murders, than the wretches who
have perpetrated them.—Morning Chronicle.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, DRC. 12.
VINCENT V. DAVIES AND ANOTHER.
Mr. Sergeant CRoss and Mr. Sergeant JONES appeared
for the plaintiff, and Mr. Sergeant WILDE and Mr. Ser-
geant Sroexus for the defendant,.
This was an action brought by the holder against the
drawer of a bill of exchange for 200/. dated in December,
1827, and made payable at the Bank of England, three
months after date. It was accepted by a person named
John Cooke, and was endorsed by -Peter Fenn,] the per-
son now under sentence of death for forgery. It ap-
peared that Fenn had got Cooke (the party who subse-
quently prosecuted him, on one of the indictments for
forgery, upon which he was convicted) to put his sig-
nature to the bill before it had been drawn, and before
even the date or the sum for which it was to be drawn
was specified. The bill having been thus obtained, was
by Fenn endorsed over to Jones, in whose bands it was
when it became due, which was in March last. Before
that titne, ',however, Fenn had been apprehended on a
charge of forgery, and when Cooke was told on the 26th
of March that the bill in question accepted by him
would become due on the following day, he declared that
it had been obtained from him' by fraud, and that he
should not take it up. At the time that he made this de-
claration, Davies, one of the defendants, and Vincent,
the plaintiff, were present, and on Davies appearing to be
much agitated, exclaiming " Good God, here is another
loss of 200/.," Vincent said if it would be any accommo••.
elation to him he would take up the bill and hold it until
it would be more convenient for him to pay. Davies ap-
peared to be very thankful for the offer, and immediately
eceepted it, promising to pay the plaintiff when his divi-'
gentle were paid, which would be on the sth of April..
These were the circunistanees of the ease as stated by the
plaintiff, but the whole of the case turned upon a question
raised by the defendant, of whether Vincent had . not
Wien the bill up for the protection and benefit of
Cooke, and not upon his own account. It would
be proper- to observe here, that the case has ken once
before tried, and that a verdict was- then returned for the
plaintiff; but as the defendants hail since been able to
collect evidence which they thought would be able to
contradiet the evidence of Cooke, whom they accused of
perjury, a pew trial was moved for and granted by the
Court. The pug arcordinglynotv came down for a second
trial ; and to prove the pleintiff 's case Cooke was again
placed in the box, when he stated that Fenn bad duped
or swindled hint out of the bill in question, and that he
had therefore refused to pay it when it became due; that
Davies, who was present, exclaimed, " Good God ! here
is another loss of 200/. ;" that Vincent, who was also pre-
sent! seeing Davies touch distressed prepesed to take the
bill up for him, anti that Davies, thanking him very
heartily, accepted his offer, and promised to pay him
when his dividends were paid, fie also stated, that nei-
ther himself nor his mother, whose bueineee lie carried
on, at Holborn-bars, had provided Vincent with any part
of ;lee tmoney to take tip the hill ; but he admitted that he
had on tire 4-. etay paid Vincent 100/., which he said was
in discharge Gt. 4 ;eel?? which his mother had contract-
ed with Vincent. In additice. to this, he said, that as
Fenn's name was at the back of the bill, Davies was anxi-
oug that it should not be presented at the Bank of England,
and it waa.:brrefore determined that Vincent should meet
Jones, the holder, at Garraway's coffee-house, and give him
the money for 4 there. JO ca oas-examinatiou Cooke swore
that be lied never seen Jones hefore tbie arrangement was
made, and that ha 1;4 never met him at a meeting at the
defendant's house in Plainteeaestreet, Illuoreehury. He ad-
mitted that he had had bill transactions with Rim to the
eyeleunt of 4,000/. or 5,000/., but denied that lie carried or,
thelne;,eeee at Holborn•hars on his own account, although
the account at eleee Bank was kept in his name. He was
not in the habit or acce.eeting bills itt the manner that he
bed done this, which, he repeateil, he should not have done
had not Fenn worried and teased hini to have dope so, as-
suring hip; that j; was all quite right, and that lee had no-
thing to fear. In the eonrse of his examination Cooke
prevaricated so much, and ati.iiP his evidence in so Ant:fling
a manner, that the Chief Justice rooee than once warned
hi to he careful as to what he said. It was not without
much ellici;c:elty that the Learned Counsel who "'eoss-exa-
mined him 0044 get distinct answers to the questions he
put to him. He state:4,o42.f, he always gave either cash or
goods for Fenn's bills, an'tillitit Pe did not receive them as
an c4commodation. _
Proof ef the presentation and dishonour of th ilj was
then given; and that, with the evidence of Cooke, consti-
tuted.
the plaintirs
For the drfe,q4l4,s ict w AP-utented, that Vincent, as
the attorney of Cnraiie,, h. 174 xtkicep pp Ow bill for him, and
not for himself; .and in proof ,4 j; was stated that
many of the identical notes with which Vincent. !tad tak.-ert
up the bill, would be proved to have born
before ;In the hands of Cooke ; for they had the initials
" J. C." at tide.;; "Jack in his handwriting, and would he
traced from Jonee,iiieeeeeesem to whom they were paid, to his
banker, and from thence to tree flank of England. It was
eeirreitfed that Cvoke had, in some ril*Zik.V.:•;, explained the
manner :4 a--ehich the 100/. had been paid koWieeceEt, ;Ind
although that tti:k2arrd very improbable, it might, still he
received as an explareatieen ; hot it was not upon the fact
of that note's having !seeni ip ,t ,lee hands of Cooke, isnme•
diately before it was used to take up bite gill, that the de-
fendants tested their ease. It would he Foyed
4thit there
were seven Si. notes also bearing the initials pi feeoiee, end
which, as they weeen since discovered to have been pea to
Jones in pert payment of the bill, it was insisted must have
bee given to Vincent by Cooke iter that express purpose,
and that fact the bill was taken up fee: Cooke, and not
for the purpose of _affording any accommodation to the de-
fendants. Another peonf,to show that Vincent had taken
it on Cooke's account was this :,,-,Fenn's endorsement was
'',tuna the bill, and he was therefore iiahle ;o yinceAt if he
wa s the rna
e holder of the bill; yet when the s4tliiniseitere
of bankruptcy wa issued against Fenn, Vincent etvere
fore the Commiesiorene that be had no claim upon his
estate. Under these eircearree::anees, it was contended that
a vec,4i4 must be given for the tlefere4eats.
In 81111'9" Pt' this case Edwaid Jones. was and he
swore most positieeile- that he was present at the itieeeiele at
which Cooke had sworn lee was not, and that he had even
joiner hint
wasn4droratlilgerenteuratons conversation, and was
aware .64 "had beets made fyr Vincent to
meet hinr;),l; OArrnwf.,,i's, for the purpO'se of takirig sip the
bin, Vincent dial ;AMA hint, r8(1 paid him a 1004 note and ,
65 and !iiheeves not provided with
mO/i. more in y
e money' that
age,' lie. phe wieeeee) eeeeentit to
ati notes,
take an I 0 U for alie remae4,4l
the following day. The witness then
,wed that'_ he 114
y, e
had many hill transaction! with Fenn, by he 4,4.1
6 ;51., eseo; pi4:l 9.11
now become a great loser.
This witness was eross-exlll
alined at great length with re-
assett tnie:;earen private affairs, but the !acts elicited did
riot
touch the real queekign in the cause.
Two clerks from the 4.4.4: of England proved that a
100/. note and seven Si. atria, tie. ?inl
-e.eers of which
thee/
(described, were paid into the Bank 0r.i44;4;,,4 on the
27th, of refite:ch. The 100/. note bad
been paid out f4n by
day before.
1
A clerk from the bac4ef elaeuse of -Sir W. Kay and
...el
Co. stated, that all the small noteo ete been paid in the
day fhsToere to Jones's account.
John st:ouii4 'as here recalled, and after some liesita--Ant;
admitted that the Inil.al,s "J. C." on the back of each of
these notes, was hie lieudevii;iing; and he then gave a
avey confused account allow they come into his
Poaeeeeina,,eei how he bad parted with thorn to ...`ineeent.
Several othee witnesses were then called, all of whops
confirmed the Material
,pa,et of Jones's evidence.
James Cullard DaVies, one 0; the defendant's sons,
stated, that Vincent did not Pro'Ceed against .theetn for pay-
ment of ,the bill, until after the attorney bad refused to
eQz.;qtr in the preaecntion of Fenn, when Vincent said,
" Then I shall Took topayies.end Noithwood for payment
of the hill.
The whole of the evidence having been entielpded,
The LORD CIIIEF JUSTICE summed up, rind after Lav-
in remarked upon the nature of the itetion, told the jury