The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-31 00:00:00

house, on which the defendant without provocation raised
his clenched fist and aimed a violent blow at his face that
might have caused him some damage had it taken effect, but
witness fortunately warded it with his arm, and with the
assistance of a friend, who happened to be present, seized
the defendant to prevent other mischief. After restraining him
for some time in this manner, and no policeman making his ap-
pearance, the defendant, who made use of the most virulent ap.
pellations, said he greatly regretted that he had not come provided
with arms, and otherwise conducted himself with much violence,
was allowed to leave, and took a course across some neighbouring
fields, but was closely followed by witness and his friend, who at
length met a policeman, and the defendant was given in charge.
In answer to questions from the Magistrate, the complainant
stated that he and the defendant had married two sisters; that he
had received him, his wife, and family, from motives of friendship,
into his house, in which they had continued to reside until June
last, when a caption, on a civil process, was effected upon the de-
fendant's person, and though his wife and family had continued
to reside there until Saturday last, the witness had reluctantly felt
compelled to forbid the defendant himself to enter his house, in
consequence of ascertaining that he had cast some very gross as-
persions upon the character of witness's wife. He had been
tenant of the house for about four years, and had formerly rented
it of the defendant, but the original landlord, Mr. Slaw Lefevre,
Speaker of the House of Commons, had thought proper to eject
the defendant from his holding, and witness had since paid his rent
to the Speaker's agent.
The defendant severely cross-examined the witness with a view
to prove that he was still tenant in part of the house, which solely
by his advice the complainant had attorned to the Speaker, and said
that he now held four rooms its it, had paid for the chief part of
the provisions that entered it, had paid to the complainant, by
himself and wife, as much as 201., by way of rent, and that a large
quantity of his furniture was still under the complainant's roof;
in answer to nearly all which the Rev. Gentleman gave a positive
denial, and alleged as the reason of the defendant's property being
detained, that the broker of the official assignee had male a formal
seizure of Mr. Scales's goods, by taking some chaise cushions, and
left the most positive caution against the defendant's resuming
possession. _ _

Mr. Henry Hibbert Glover, the friend of the complainant above
alluded tD, described the iefendant's conduct, and the assault corn.
p'ained of, in nearly similar terms to those used by Mr. Symrs, and
characterised the blow as deliberately struck, and Mr. Scales's be.
haviour as extremely violent and offensive.

Sorrell, a policeman, 135 K, proved meeting the parties while
crossing the fields, and that the moment they came up with him
the complainant wanted to give the defendant into custody for
forcibly breaking into his house. Mr. Scales dared the witness, at
his peril, to take him ; said that the house was his own, and claimed
the right of entering it by force if he chose to do so. Witness con-
sidered it a disputed claim, in which he could not well interfere, and
requested them to accompany him to the police-station, which they
all assented to, and when they arrived there the charge was per-
sisted in by the Rev. Mr. Symes, and taken ; but the defendant
was not locked up, and bailed soon after.
In answer to the charge, the defendant (who expressed himself
with great bitterness towards the complainant, and at one time,
when referring to his wife and family, became so affected as to
stop and bury his face in his hands), entered into a lengthened and
melancholy detail of persecutions he alleged he had been subjected
to, the sum of which was that he had been committed to prison
by the Court of Chancery for contempt of court, bandied about
lion"' one prison to another, the governor of each not feeling au-
thorised to hold him—detention in prison longer than needful,
from inability to file his answer in Chancery—a vexatious at-
tempt to declare him a bankrupt—and finally, that when, on his
ultimate liberation, only the preceding day, from gaol, in a state
of exhaustion, and almost fainting from the turmoil he had gone
through, and want of food for many hours, he presented himself
at the door of that house in which he had left, when captured,
his property, wife, child, and grandchild, and nearly wearied
to death, and anxious to get to bed, he found it closed against
him, and was forbidden to enter its doors. He was naturally
indignant at this treatment, and attempted to enter by the window,
which was old and rotten, and broke with very slight force; but
the moment he did so he was pushed out violently by the com-
plainant and thrown upon his back in the court-yard, and before
he had time to recover himself was dragged a distance of Ave or
six yards along the pavement, and knelt on by one of his assailants,
while the other twisted his neckerchief so tightly it was almost a
miracle he was not strangled, for he was in such a debilitated state,
that when he was at last helped upon his feet, they were obliged to
hold him up, to save him from falling; in addition to which he
had been so cruelly treated by them, that there was no member of
his body that was not covered with bruises. When he at length
escaped from their violence, he was making the best of his way to
the police-station at Bromley to seek for protection, they followed
him, and having divined his intention from the course he was
taking, reached the policeman first, and delivered him over to his
custody. He would not deny the charge against him—he did
break the window; but the house was his own home and that
of his wife—they had no other to go to, and he would do so again,
though he would take care that the next forcible entry he made
should be effected legally, and so as to avoid such cruel results.
He concluded by denying the jurisdiction of the Magistrate on a
right to disputed property, and appealed to two Acts of Parlia-
ment in support of his position.
The Reverend Complainant and his witness, Mr. Glover, having
denied the statements made by the defendant, or that he had ever
' been in the house otherwise than by kindness and sufferance,
Mr. BROUGHTON told the defendant that he saw no reason for
attributing perjury to two such respectable persons as the com-
plainant and Mr. Glover, and if the defendant was satisfied they
had committed it, they were open to indictment for so doing. The
defendant had committed an act of violence which was clearly con.
trary to law, and, without deciding upon the forcible entry and
broken glass, which were matters for purely a civil action, it was
his duty to see that the peace was preserved, and as the defendant
had broken it, he should order him to find bail, himself in 501.,
and two sureties in 401. each, to keep the peace to all her Ma-
jesty's subjects, and to the complainant in particular.
The defendant complained of this bail as excessive, and wished
it reduced, but as the complainant expressed his apprehensions of a
less amount being taken, the Magistrate declined to accede to the
request, and the defendant was ultimately removed, apologising
for still disputing the competency of the Magistrate'sjurisdiction.
QUEEIN-SQUAii.L.
David Eagleion, a powerful young man between twenty and
thirty years of age, was charged with robbing John Walsh,
his brother-in-law, who had occasion twice before to com-
plain of his dishonesty, but had forgiven him in consequence of the
relationship existing between them.

•
The principal feature in the case was the extraordinary intre-
pidity displayed by Sarah Jennings, a girl between 12 and 13 years
of age, servant to the prosecutor. Having locked the door of her
master's apartments and placed the key under the mat at about 4
o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, she went out for half an hour
with an infant. On her return she found that the key had been
removed and that the apartments were locked on the inside. She
immediately acquainted the landlady with the circumstance, when
on a sudden her master's door was opened by the prisoner, whom
she recognised as her mistress's brother. She immediately entered
the apartments, and observing that the drawers had been ransacked,
and some of their contents scattered about the floor, she promptly

locked the door on the inside, and depositing the key in her bosom,
emptied a sack which had been filled with wearing apparel and
other articles ready to carry off, and then insisted upon searching
the prisoner before she permitted him to leave the rooms, and,
having satisfied herself by examining his pockets that he had no
property belonging to her employers, she unlocked the door and
permitted him to depart with the empty sack which he had brought
with him. On her master coming home she told him what had oc-
curred, and as a silk handkerchief had been carried off in the pri-
soner's breast, he was given into custody.
He was fully committed.
SOUTHWARK.
James Hall, described as an attorney, appeared upon his re-
cognisance to answer a charge of obtaining 41. 16s. from Char-
lotte Nicholson, under the pretence of employing counsel to de-
fend her at the Central Criminal Court.

From the complainant's evidence, it appeared that she kept a
small shop in one of the arches of the Greenwich Railway, and
that in the month of January last she was committed for trial
from this Court to the Central Criminal Court. That previously
to being sent to Newgate the prisoner came round to the cell in
which she was locked up at the rear of this court, and having in-
troduced himself to her, said that he would get her through the
affair, and promised to employ Mr. Wilkins to defend her when
the case came on for trial. He then said that he should require
the necessary pecuniary means to proceed in the business, and she
authorised him to receive money from her friends to enable him
to go on with, and he ultimately assured her that he had given
Mr. Wilkins a fee of two guineas to defend her at the sessions.
When the trial, however, came on in February, there was no
counsel to defend her, and she complained to the Court of the
circumstance, and Mr. Wilkins then said that a person had
applied to him to take a brief on her behalf, but that the party
making the application made some excuse in not paying the
usual fee, and the consequence was that she was unde•
fended. On that occasion the Recorder, on being made
aware of the conduct pursued towards the complainant by the
person who had undertaken the case, made some very severe re-
marks with regard to the manner in which she had been treated,
and added that the person represented as the attorney deserved to
be punished for the gross imposition it was alleged he had practised.
In the course of the complainant's statement she said that, in order
to raise the money required by the prisoner for her defence, she
was obliged to have her pig sold while she was in gaol, besides
being compelled to appeal to some of her friends. Since she had
come out of prison she called on the prisoner at Symond's Inn, with
a view that he might refund the money of which she considered she
had been robbed, but he treated her applications with contempt, and
only abused her for presuming to call upon him on such business.
John Simmondt, a witness, living in complainant's house, stated
that he had given the prisoner 41. las. 6d. on account of Mrs. Ni-
cholson, while she was in gaol, as he told him that he was autho.
rised by Mrs. Nicholson to come to him for money to defend her.
On one occasion the prisoner Balled and asked for money, when he
was told by witness that he had none; the prisoner then said that
there was a sovereign in the drawer, which was locked at the time,
and he took a knife off the table, and pushing back the lock, took
the sovereign and then went away. The witness added that he did
not try to prevent the prisoner from taking the sovereign, under
the belief that Mrs. Nicholson had desired him to take it.
The complainant, in reply to Mr. 'num, said she gave the
prisoner no authority to take the sovereign.
The complainant's son-in-law was then called, with a view to
ascertain if the prisoner, in obtaining a sovereign from him, on his
assertion that it was required to defend his relative, had made such
a promise at the time, or used such language on the occasion, as
brought him within the scope of the Act, so that the false pretence
could be sustained.
The MAGISTRATE, however, was of opinion that no specific in-
stance of the "false pretence" was established, to Justify him in
sending the case before a jury. No doubt a very gross imposition
had been practised by the prisoner, but he bad managed it in such
a way as to have just escaped the meshes of the law ; he the (Ma-
gistrate) must, therefore, dismiss the case.
The prisoner said that he wished to be permitted to enter into an
explanation, and would show that he exerted himself on the behalf
of the complainant, and was not even paid the expenses he was at
in conducting her case to the eve of trial.
Mr. Teams. said that every explanation the prisoner could give
would not have the slightest effect in producing any change in his
opinion as to the scandalous manner In which he had acted towards
the complainant, and that, therefore, it was quite useless for him
to say any more on the subject, as be was discharged.
Prisoner took the Magistrate's advice, and, whipping up his hat,
hastily left the Court.