The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-27 00:00:00

BURGLARY

On Monday last, Richard Whiteside, wheelwright; John
Birbeck, sawyer; Thomas Halton, padmaker ; and George
Challoner, mechanic, were brought before the magistrates at
the Town-hall, charged with having broken into the house of
Mrs. Wheeler, the Manor House, in Fulwood, and stealing
therein the sum of £9B in notes, gold, and silver : and at
the same time and place, George Moore, furniture broker,
was charged with receiving a portion of the money, knowing
it to have been stolen. The manner in which the discovery
of the robbery was effected was as follows :—The four men
named as the thieves had gone to the Wool Pack public-
house, on Friday night week, and on their going in they took
upon themselves to order a man, who acts as brewer at the
house, out of the room, when he suspected that their motives
for so doing could not be good ones, and he accordingly had
the curiosity to peep through a hole in the door, to watch
their actions, and he saw one of the men put his hand up the
chimney and serape down a quantity of soot, which he put
in his jacket pocket ; the men soon after left the house.
Meanwhile information had been given at the police-office,
and Curl and Hanby, two of the officers, proceeded imme-
diately to Fulwood, to learn if possible a description of the

burglars, but the disguised state in which they were when
the robbery was committed, and the fright and excitement
which their unseasonable and alarming visit had caused to
Mrs. Wheeler, prevented them from obtaining much infor-
mation ; they learned enough, however, to justify them
in their own opinions in at once taking into custody the
very parties who have turned out to be the actual perpetra-
tors of the burglary ; and after a short search they succeeded
in apprehending Whiteside, Birbeck, and Halton. Challoner
having heard of the " hue and cry" raised, suddenly absconded,
but strange to say he was overtaken by his own conscience
before he was made the prisoner of his pursuers ; he tra-
velled as far as Woodplumpton, and when there, under areal
or feigned sense of remorse, behaved in a very extraordinary
and extravagant manner, having once attempted suicide by
hanging, and another time by drowning, and finally he sur-
rendered himself, when he became the prisoner of an officer
in the rural police force, and was brought to the county
force station-house in this town, where he remained till
Monday forenoon, until he was taken to the Town-hall.
When the inquiry was to be gone into, it was found neces-
sary to admit Halton as evidence against his companions, a
circumstance somewhat to be regretted, for from all accounts
he was most actively concerned iu all the criminal prepara-
tions before, and the proceedings at, the burglary.— From
this man's statement, then, it seems that, after leaving the
Wool Pack public-house (where they had not anything to
drink), they went towards the Moor, and on arriving at the
serpentine walk in the Moor Park, they exchanged each
other's clothes, and at the same time blacked their faces
with the soot procured at the 'Wool Pack. They then went
to the house, and after trying all the doors and windows,
and, finding them fast, broke a square in the cellar window
and then opened it, and two of them went into the house,
and opened the front door and let in the third, the remain-

ing one t