Star.
London, England, 1810-09-13 00:00:00

ASSIZES.

At Presteigne Ailhes a lamentable 'instance of
early depravity occurred :—A boy, 12 years old, was
tried for a burglary, committed in company with two
-4
vs. 'bruit his iwn ages These young depre-
dators h.id acted with more artful caution than could
Jo. .expected from mach older offenders. One has
Skimped, and the second being admitted King's evi-
det.ce, brought the fact home to the third, who re-
• re;ved sentence of death ; but, tin account of his ten-
. Ors Years, was reprieved.

11ZIST01. ASSIZES.
ALLARD T. SoWEADY.--This was an action brought
by the plaintiff, for the recovery of £lBl. 13s. 6d. for
skill-mad labour exercised in his
,profession of a sur-
geon, and for medicines supplied, and who had per-
formed an operation for that dreadful disorder, the
stone, ..n the defendant's sox, a youth of about 17
years of age. The sum of £Bl., bad peen paid into
Court, and the action had been brought for the re-
•
attainder. The sum consisted of tutee -separate
charges, viz. 100 guineas for the operation and at-
tendance for six 'months, 30 guineas for strictures,
and £4O. 3s. 6d. for medicines, which were dispensed
by the" plaintiff at the request the defendant.
Mr. Serjeant LESS, in opening the case, paid a
.high compliment to the skill of Mr. A. declaring he
was second to no man in the kingdom ; and it was
proved that Mr. Hackett had paid 100 guineas for a
similar operation.
On the part if the defendant Mr. Jekm. addressed
the Jury, in a speech as brilliant and replete with sar-
castic humour as any that ever fell from his tongue.
After having observed that a case more bare of that
evidence which should entitle a plaintiff to a verdict,
was never brought into Court; that the exorbitant
charges of the plaintiff were unsupported by the tes-
timony of any professional gentleman in the same
city, that such were the usual and proper charges.—
(aMethinks (says Mr. J.) I view this gentleman re-
tiring. to his Sabine farm in Dorsetshire—he has
turned his spatula into a ploughshare, and his lancet
into a pruning knife; cultivating his c.wn rhubarb,
and 'using his syringe to water his plants, himself re-
clining under the shade of his Peruvian bark." He
hoped, when he viewed the streets of his native city,
that he wouldAo it without- a sigh ; and that he should
• have no need 'to exclaim with Gil Bias to his friend
Scipio, on, approaching the gates of Valladolid, 4, at
sight of this 1' place. I could not help heaving a
profound sigh, and my. companion, who perceived it,
asking the cause, "Child (said I), rpractised physic
afl.2.ne time ia this city, and my conscience upbraids
me with it at this moment I" Gentlemen, you will
believe me when I say, th ht against Mr. A.'s skill ther:
ean,he no objection raised ; but I did expect that to
it sustain this charge, some respectable professional gen-
tleman would have been called to spew the ordinary
fee I r such a job; what the regular tariff, what the
regular price. Mr. Hackett, it is true, has said he
paid 100 guineas ; but in charges, of this sort, a dis-
tinction of persons should be taken into the account.
Every professional man would make a d fference be-
tween sewing up the head of an apple-woman and a
Serjeant at Law. My Learned Friend opposite, Mr.
St.rjeant Pell, (whose head was bound up from an
accident he had met with) did not get his patch gra-
tis. The Learned &ntleman next adverted to the
separate charge for the strictures, contending that
when the operation Str the stone was performed, the
e one of the strictures was removed. The charges
for the medicine were then alluded to. He had cal-
culated the mass of medicine thiS poor boy had swal-
lowed, and found that it amounted to 469 drafts and
rnixtares, at 12s. 6d. per day. You have it inevi-
- deuce to be sure, Gentlemen, that the bottles were
returned, and this reminds me of a passage in a co-
medy of the caebrated Foote, where a medical man
exclaims, if Well, I have got back my bottles, so I
sball not be oat of pocket."
Mr. Baron WOOD recapitulated the evidence in a
concise and impartial manner, with very few obser-

'rations,
Sowerby having paid £B4 into Court, 50 gui-
neas for the operation and 30 guineas for the medi-
cine, the Jury gave a verdict for that sum, thinking
it a reasonable compensation to Mr. Allard.
CUMBERLAND ASSIZES, SEPTEMBER 5.
Sarah Bushly was Charged with the wilful murder
of her male bastard child -- The prisoner lived with
Holmes Morley, of little Corby, whose service she
entered at Whitsunday, 1809. From Lammas till
May 1, 1810, it was the general conversation of the
prisoner's neighbours, that she was pregnant. The
aunt and brother of the prisoner, about 6 or 7 weeks
previous to the Ist of May, took her to Mr. Holmes,
a surgeon, who gave it as his opinion, that the priso-
ner was with child ; but she denied it.—On the 30th
April the prisoner was visited by her aunt about nine
o'clock in the evening, who remained till eleven; she
proposed continuing all night, but the prisoner told
the witness that her maser was unwilling. About
four o'clock in the morning, William Elliott, who
was in the employment of the prisoner's master, had
occa,ion to go to his house, where the door was open-
ed for him by the prisoner. She appeared conside-
rably reduced in size, lo,,ked very poorly, and had a
cloak about her. A little after five, the prisoner's
aunt repeated her visit, and interrogated the prisoner
on the subject of having born a child, which she ac-
knowledged she had, ‘, but that it was dead, for any
thing she knew " About seven, Mr. Holmes, SLIT-
gIIO2, accompanied by a constable,visited the prisoner,
and found her in bed, and being satisfied in his own
naiad that the prisoner had born a child, charged her
ith it. -Leave not having been obtained from the
prisoner's master to search his house, applicatip&was
made to a Magistrate, and a search wart, having
been -bbt-ained, the Constable, attended by Henry
Faster, *boot one o'clock the santeday, proceeded to
• anAketbeateceisary investigation. •
A Alposkii witness, askantecing theism, saw a bap
- • t).l •. . :
• - .
• .

,`.

4t

-
'of chaff lying against the wall. This, it appears,
excited.his susplciOn, and he put his hand into :t,
and brought out a dark-coloured gown, pinned. in 1
welch WAS irclosod the body of a nerd bon male
child, dead.- This he brought into the, kitchen., ijnd
the surgeon. being a Second time sent for, .foiniti sPe
child lying on the kitchen table. He described the
child as having been laM on its back in dun,.,+, tt..e
belly was covered with chaff; there was a small mark
on the cheek, on the neck a great degree of redness.
Its mouth was filled with dung, which was in a very
dry state—and which witness thought was horse
dung. It appeared c-miprcssed, and in the opinion
of the witness was sufficient to have produced suffo-
cation.

The Learned Judge, in summing up the evidence,
directed the attention of the Jury to the consideration
of two particulars ; first, whether the prisoner had
barn the child alive ; and, secondly, whether she had
been its murderer ? --Verdict, Not Guilty.
Against William Masterman, charged with shooting
and wounding Corporal Thomas Nun, of the Suff .1k
Militia, the indictment was abandoned, on account of
insanity.
James Farber and Hannah Grape were then sen-
tenced to death, but were afterwards reprieved.

CIVIL SIDE.---LITTLE V. ELLIS.

This action was brought by the plaintiff against the
defendant, for a breach of contract, and was supposed
to originate from a private quarrel between tliern.
The plaintiff, Mr. Little, is proprietor of the Golden j
Lion Inn, Alston, and in the year 1803 let it with 1
three closes, consisting of seven or eight acres of land, '1
to the defendant, under this a :.ment—that the I
land should be managed in a air 'husbandry man-
ner. It was stated on this clause, to be the invariable
custom in the management•of farms, not to remove •
the manure from the farm on which it is produced;
but that every farm reaps the benefit of its own
manure. The evidence went to shear that the de-
fendant being in possession of another field, called
Mark's Close, in the year 1808, removed forty cart
loads of manure from his three closes attached to
the Golden Lion Inn, to this field : and at Whit-
suntide 1809, when he quitted the premises, they
were left destitute of manure altogether. It was
further alledged that a beaufet and some shelves were
removed from the Inn, and in consequence of
which damage was done to the premises. In the pro-
gress of tle trial, howevet, it appeared, that the De-
fendant, being landlord of the Golden Lion, had an
extensive business as an innkeeper, and with his own,
had of ten the horses of strangers to accommodate.—
To support this business, he, on an average, purchas-
ed annually hay and straw to the value of 40 or £5O.
This quantity of hay and straw was allowed to pro-
duce manure equivalent to the 4.3 cart•loads removed
from the premises. And the reason assigned why the
succeeding tenant found no manure at the G, Aden
Lion at Whitsunday, 1809, was, that it was removed
and laid on the three closes eie preceding Autumn.
Respecting the beaufet and shelves, nothing could be
proved prejudicial to the Defendant.
The Learned Judge, in summing up the evidence,
Observed, that Defendant might be justified in remov-
ing 40 cart-loads of manure from the premises at the
Golden Lion to Mark's Close in the autumn of 1808,
but he could net conceive him justifiable in leaving his
farm void of manure wren he quitted it atWhitsuntide
1809.—Verdict for (he Plaintiff—Damages £t.