The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-18 00:00:00

NEW COURT.

(Before the COMMON SERGEANT.)
G. R. Mason, late traveller for Stephen Green, Im-
perial Potteries, Lambeth, was indicted by his employer
for embezzlement of three several sums, making to-
gether 311. 9s. L'cl.
Up to the 6th November last the prisoner had been
in the employ of Mr. Green for two years and a quarter,
during which time Mr. Green's business was consider-
ably improved by the efforts of Mr. Mason.
Mr. Green said he discharged the prisoner from his
employment on that day, the 6th November. After
making up the accounts Mr. Green asked whether he
had not received 141. 2s. 9d. from Mr. Robinson, Croydon.
The prisoner admitted he had, and said, on Mr. Green's
telling him it had not bet n accounted for, he was notcertain
of that, he thought he had accounted for it. He was
told that it did not appear on the memorandum of re-
ceipts ; he said he was going to Manchester, he would
look over the memorandums, and if he found it not paid,
the amount would be sent. Subsequently to this Mr.
Green discovered that he had received two other sums
not accounted for-131. 2s. 6d. paid by Mr. Diver, wine
and spirit merchant, Yarmouth, on the 26th of April,
and 4/. 4s. by Mr. Neil, china manufacturer, Chelten-
ham, on the 31st of August. The payment of
these sums was proved by the gentlemen ;
and a long correspondence between Mr. Green
_ _

and Mr. Mason, posterior to the 6th of November, was
put in and read. The tenor of the prisoner's letters
dwelt on the absence of any felonious intention on his
part, and his sorrow that his neglect had placed him in
so equivocal a position, but begging Mr. Green not to
ruin both himself and his family.
Mr. CLARKSON addressed the jury, and then called
witnesses to speak to character.
The jury, after consulting for some time, found the
prisoner Not Guilty.
Another indictment, for 151. borrowed by the pri-
soner from Mr. Green, was then brought beforo the
jury, but Mr. Bodkin, who with Mr. Huddlestone con-
ducted both cases for the prosecution, had instructior.•s
not to tender evidence on the second charge, and the jury
were directed to find a verdict of Not Guilty.
Rosina Eliza Waite, called in the calendar a widow,
was indicted for stealing 30 yards of cloth and a quan-
tity of wearing apparel, value 25/., the property of Baza-
leel Wall.

Mr. ROBERTSON, the counsel for the prosecution, said
that Mons. B. Wall, about the middle of Sept. last, was
going along London-bridge, when the prisoner accosted
him with a tale of distress. She seems to have won the
foreigner's heart, for a conversation ensued there and
then, and the result was that Mr. Wall agreed to take
her home to his house and his bed, to enjoy all the pri-
vileges of a wife sine ceremoniis, and to receive 10s. a
month. The counsel was interrupted in his opening by
the Common Sergeant, whose natural antipathy to long
stories from the witness-box or the bar is well known,
and who, in the present instance, cut short any collateral
disclosures of M. 'Wall's system of housekeeping, except
so far as it bore upon the facts of the charge.
M. Wall said he was a builder, living in Globe-fields.
He took the prisoner home to keep his house, where she
remained for about two months. It was on the 20th
of November that he went to one of his chests, and
missed a pair of trousers and some other articles. He
questioned the prisoner about them, who admitted
having pawned them, in order to get money to redeem
her box and clothes, lying at the terminus of the South-
ampton Railway. She had been to France, but on re-
turning had been unable to pay her fare from
Southampton. M. Wall urged her frequently •to
go with him to release her box, but on every occasion
she exhibited an unwillingness to go. The missing of
something more led him to a stricter scrutiny of the
house. He found that be had been robbed of bed-
clothes, woollen-cloths, and wearing-appaiel to the value
of 251. He found, also, thirty pawnbrokers' duplicates
in the keeping of the prisoner, the dates of which began
with the 7th of October.

Jacob Turner, a pawnbroker, identified two of the
duplicates found on the prisoner, given for silk hand-
kerchiefs, which he produced, and which M. Wall iden-
tified as his.

Jane Annesley said she lived next door to the pri-
soner, who had been in the habit of calling herself Mrs.
Wall; had been employed to pledge sev,,ral of the articles
mentioned in the indictment, and which were pledged
in the name of Waite, given by the prisoner as that of
her former husband.

John Freshwater said he had taken the prisoner into
custody, when she admitted that she had pledged the
things, but in the hope of redeeming them again.
Jane Scott, the searcher, found 3s. 9id. in money
on her, which prisoner said was the remainder of
money got for articles pawned ; the rest had been spent
for drink.

The prisoner, in exculpation, for she had no counsel,
said she had pawned with intention to redeem the goois
again; that the first time she had been at a pawnbroker's
was at the request of Mr. Wall himself, to pledge his
watch for 20s.

It was submitted to the Court by Mr. BALLANTINE, that
the prisoner was, to all intents and purposes, the wife of
the accuser; that she did not hold the position of a ser-
vant, ani therefore it could not be brought into Court
as a case of larceny. Several of the bar joined Mr.
13allantine in this defence.

The COMMON SERGEANT differed from the Learned
Counsel, and proceeded to charge the jury, prefa3ing it
with expressing his pleasure that the age of chivalry had
not yet gone by.
The jury found the prisoner Guilty, but strongly re-
commended her to mercy.
The COMMON SERGEANT said, that if individuals chose
to go and live with gentlemen as their mistresses, they
were not to suppose they could commit robbery on them
with impunity. He took a distinction between house-
hold property and jewellery, which might be given for
personal ornament. At the same time, be had to
remark, that there were circumstances in the prisoner's
case which justified the jury's recommendation. The
Court had to take care to evince to prosecutors that
they ought to come into Court with clean hands. The
sentence he had to pronounce would on that account be
light, which was, that sho should be imprisonel one
month, and kept to hard labour.