The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-01-04 00:00:00

CARDWELL to tell the meeting at Oxford that he
owed his defeat at Liverpool to bribery; but he
must have formed a miserable estimate of the intel-
ligence of his auditory if he expected them to believe

him. We do not deny that bribery and corruption
have been practised at elections where party feeling
ran high, and numbers were pretty equally divided,
but who ever heard of a majority which topped a
thousand, and left plenty to spare, being gained by
such means ? It would be a political suicide of
which the most rabid Radical would not be guilty,
nay, even Mr. DYCE SOMBRE, who bought Sudbury,
and so helued to disfranchise it, would not have
dreamed of such a folly ; and yet, because the abuse
of an imperfect law allows it, such an unscrupulous
and unfounded charge is made, and months may
yet elapse before the slander can be officially refuted.
We have, however, still the proud consolation of
knowing that not a man even of those who make the
charge have the slightest belief in its truth.

WHOLESALE PLUNDER OF A LIVERPOOL
TRADESMAN BY HIS FOREMAN.

Yesterday, at the Police-court, a young man, named
William Henry Brook, was brought before the magis-
trates, charged with being concerned in an extensive em-
bmlement by his father—which seems to have been for
some time systematically carried on—of the goods of
his employer, Mr. Eastee, wholesale fancy merchant,
carrying on business in St. George's Crescent and Church-
street, in this town.
_ _

Mr. Clough, in-door superintendent of police, stated
that, on the 27th November, he received a letter from
Col. Hogg, the head constable of Wolverhampton, stating
that certain persons there had a quantity of goods in their
possession which they were disposing of in that town, and
he (Col. Hogg) had reasons to believe that such goods had
been improperly obtained, and that they came from
Liverpool. Afterwards, in consequence of some informa-
tion received by one of the detective officerb, he went to
Mr. Eastee's premises, and communicatedrwith that gen-
tleman. The officer himself would state to the magistrates
the circumstance which had led to the prisoner now before
them being apprehended.
Detective-officer Povey here said that, in conse-
quence of instructions which he had received from
Mr. Clough, he made a search, and found that cer-
tain articles had been pledged with a pawnbroker in
Mill-street, in this town. In a pocket book, (one
of the articles so pledged) he found a private mark, and,
having his suspicions aroused, he took it to Mr. Eastee's
place of business, when that gentleman identified it as his
property, and remarked " /t is my foreman's work."
Witness and Mr. Eastee then took a cab, and went to the
pawnbroker's, where Mr- Eastee identified the whole
of the articles pledged as his property. In the mean-
time they found that the prisoner's father had ab-
stonded, and that some one had gone up to the
prisoner's father's house, in High Park-street, to inform
them of what was going on. Immediately afterwards
witness took a cab, and drove to the house in
'High Park-street. On his going into the house the
mother of the prisoner went to a table, on which was a
large tin box. She made a " grab" at it., and begged him
not to let Mr. Eastee see the contents, as it would
be the means of raining the family. He took the
box, and on examining it, found that it con-
tained not less than fifty pawn tickets.; and in another
part of the house he found eleven •other tickets, making
in all sixty-one. Thy Mr. Clough's directions, witness and
Mr. Eastee afterwards went to Wolverhampton, and
there they received information that the prisoner, with
his uncle and aunt, and another person residing in Wol-
verhampton, had forsome time been pledging articles there,
and otherwise disposing of them in a suspicious manner.
Mr. Eastee identified a great number of these articles, as
having been taken from his establishment at Liverpool.
Some other evidence having been tendered, Mr. Clough
asked for a remand until the case was more complete, and
until all the parties were in custody, as there had evi-
dently been a -system well organized by the prisonei's
family in Liverpool, and the uncle and aunt in Wolver-
hampton, to defraud Mr. Eastee to an enormous extent.
Mr. Clough also stated that the uncle and aunt were now
in custody at Wolverhampton.
Ultimately the prisoner was ordered to be taken before
the magistrates at 'Wolverhampton, as, although he was
taken into custody in Liverpool, he was connected with
the suspicious sales and pledging of the property at Wol-
verhampton.
The property identified by Mr. Eastee as being in pawn
at Wolverhampton, is estimated at from £BOO to £l.OOO .;
and he has reason to believe that he has been defrauded
by the family of not lass than from £1,500 to £2,000.