The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-06 00:00:00

CImY or 1- (_)N SESSIONS.
Cr II .1;:; DAY, )

'I he sessions for the City commenced this morning before
the Recorder, Mr. Alderman Humphery, and Mr. Alder-
man Kelly.
The RECORDER having addressed the jury a number of as-
sault cases were disposed of, after which
Edwin Bates was brought up from the Compter, where he
had been confined since the 6th of last June, in default of find-
ing bail to keep the peace towards John Masterman, jun., the
well-known banker of Nicholas-lane, Lombard-street.

The prisoner, who is a most respectable and gentlemanly.
looking piling man, described himself as an artist, and stated
the bail which he was required to find was two sureties in
1901. each, and himself in 2001. He said he was unable to
get more than one person willing to become his surety, owing
to certain transactions with the Northern and Eastern Counties
Railway, by which he lost a deal of money. He was here
about to enter into very lengthened details as to the nature of
those transactions, and the part which Mr. Masterman took in
them when,

The RECORDER said, this was quite irrelevant to the matter
before the Court.

The Clerk of the Court then proceeded to read the affi-
davit of Mr. Masterman. It was a most voluminous docu-
ment, and nearly an hour was occupied in reading it. It
detailed the contents of a number of letters addressed to the
deponent, by the prisoner ; and then went on to state, that as
a matter of kindness, he had from time to time given sums of
money to the prisoner, in order to enable him to pursue his
profession as an artist, until he thought those donations were
given as a matter of right. At length, his demands becoming
so frequent and importunate, the deponent was eventually
compelled to refuse to give him any more. The letters con-
tained most dreadful threats against Mr. Masterman's life,
such sentences as the following appearing in them :—" You
are a moral butcher." " You shall find to your sorrow
that I am no coward "—" You are a murderer in heart, and
your father, having other sons, he would not care if you were
shot, provided the honour of the family was kept clear; and as
for myself, all that would happen to me for shooting would be,
to be shut up in a lunatic asylum." Several other equally vio-
lent expressions appeared in those letters.
Alderman HUMPHERY said, as the prisoner had been first
brought before him, and he considered the life of Mr. Master-
man to a certain extent to be in danger, be had fixed the bail
so high. He now suggested that the prisoner should be brought
before his Lordship to fix the amount of bail.
The prisoner said he hoped the Court would consider six
months' imprisonment a sufficient punishment._

The RECORDER said the character of those letters was
marked by such a strong spirit of wild revenge against all the
parties, by whom the prisoner imagined himself to have been
injured in connection with his transactions with the Northern
and Eastern Counties Railway, and more particularly against
those who showed him most kindness, that it would be an act
of the greatest cruelty to Mr. Masterman, and the Court
would lie under an awful responsibility if any unfortunate
event occurred were the Court not to grant him the protection of
the law from an individual who had been capable of using
such threats to any person. He (the Recorder) thought that
Mr. Masterman, in requiring the prisoner to find bail, was
pursuing the most merciful course towards him. Under all
the circumstances of the case he thought the amount of bail
required in the first instance by the Lord Mayor was by no
means exorbitant, and he should not reduce it.

The prisoner, who said when he was leaving the bar, that
his professional prospects by the course now adopted would be
blasted for ever, as also his property ruined, was then taken
back to prison.