The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-12-16 00:00:00

A FAVOUR REQUESTED BY A PRISONER

Michael Dunn and Robert Owen were charged with
having beaten and robbed of his wages John Foster, a
join:•r, living in Manchester, who was returning home
about eight o'clock on the night of Saturday, the 12th
November. The affair took place in Piccadilly, and the

joiner, who was in liquor, though tolerably sensible, re-
cognised Dunn as one of the parties who assailed him.
Owen, he thought, was another. Evidence was called
implicating Owen in the transac'ion, but the jury acquitted
him. Dunn was convicted. Dunn, when asked what he
had to say why sentence should not he passed upon him,
replied that he had Lever been imprisoned before : he re-
lied upon the mercy of the court. The Judge then sen-
tenced him to transportation for ten years. No sooner
had the sentence been pronounced than the prisoner asked
if he might be allowed to speak. Permission being granted,
The prisoner entered into a curious account of his his-
tory. He said—When I was eleven years old I first took
to thieving, and was fully convicted in Manchester about
six months after. I received three months' imprison-
ment and a month solitary, and to he whipped before dis-
charged. In two months after I was fully convicted
again, and received fourteen days upon bread and water,
and was flogged before discharged. When I was
about twel7e years and four months old I received two
months again, and at the age of thirteen I was trans-
ported out of my country. I was the oldest out of three
transported, and the Judge said—" My boys, it will be a
good j.)b for you ; you will be sent to the London Peni-
tentiary, where, with good conduct, you will learn a
trade - to read

-0, where.you will learn s and write. and become
good scholars." 'Well, I begun to think I might do such
a thing, and become ame nber of society perhaps. But

instead of sending me to the London Penitentiary, they
sent me to the Urilas, in Chatham Harbour, commanded
by Captain Steadman; and kept me there, along with
600 more boys. The oldest was only eighteen. On the
18th Octoher I was transported, and in May the ship
came into Chatham Harbour, and 335 boys were put on
board of her, and sent to Van Diemen's Land. This was
the " scholarship" I was going to learn, and the " good
trade !" When we got there we were all examined, one
by one, in the cabin, and tried by the Comptroller-General.
I received two years to a place called Point Pure, where
at that time were 1,100 boys. The trade they put me to

was carrying wood off the mountains, hoeing-, harrowing,

and cultivating the ground. We did go to school every
other afternoon, for two hours ; and probably I should
have learnt to read and write if I had paid a good atten..
tion to it ; but as for a trade, I did not know any. At the
expiration of seven' years, in October, 1848, they gave me
my freedom. In three weeks afterwards I shipped aboard
an American whaler, and was with her fifteen months ;
and now, my lord. all I have to say is, that you would do
me the greatest favour if you would put five more years
on that ten.

Mr. Baron PARKE.—I ain not here to do favaursto any
body ; and, therefore, I shall not do it. I think ten years
pass that sen-

a proper punisl
tence upon you

,e crime, and

STABBING AT PRESTON

John Noble, 25, indicted for stabbing Richard Gard-
ner, during a quarrel at Preston, on the 29th November,
was found guilty of unlawfully cutting and wounding, but
not of felony. He was sent nced to imprisonment and
hard hbour for one year. . _

William Hutchason, who was on Tuesday sentenced
to a year's imprisonment for a burglary at Manchester,
was recalled, and the measure of the punishment reduced
one-half, in consideration of the latter sentence having
been passed for a similar offence on Tuesday.
THURSDAY. _ _

When Mr. Baron Parke took his seat this morning,
Henry Johnson and Henry Neary, convicted of a rob-
bery, accompanied with violence, at Manchester, were
brought up and sentenced to transportation seven years.
John Charles Keith, a private belonging to the 45th
Regiment, who was found guilt y, on Tuesday, of stabbing
Wm. Pennington, at Preston, in August last, was brought
up for sentence.—The judge, in consequence of the excel-
lent character given of the prisoner by his sergeant,
inflicted the mitigated punishment of six months' impri-
sonment.

A WOMAN KILLED BY HER HUSBAND

John Hampton was charged with an assault upon his
wife, Mary Hampton, at Manchester, and inflicting upon
her such injuries as to cause her death. _ The evidence

went to show that the prisoner and his wife resided in a
court in one of the densely populated districts of Man-
chester. They had been married about six or seven years,
and did not live on the most amicable terms. On Sunday
evening, the 17th of August, the deceased had had some
friends at her house, and they had been drinking together,
but it did not appear that the deceased was in liquor.
Shortly before eleven o'clock a female in the adjoining
house was awoke by hearing a noise as of some one falling
down stairs, and there were other circumstances leading
to the suspicion that the prisoner was ill-treating the
deceased. Shortly after eleven the prisoner came out of
the house, and in reply to questions put to him, said his
wife had fallen town stairs and killed herself. This induced
several of the neighbours to enter the house, when they
found deceased lying undressed at thebottom of the stairs,
in a position in which it was thought she could not have lain
had the fall been the mere result of accident. The woman
died on the following Friday, and the point at issue was
whether the fall was the consequence of accident or from
the act of the prisoner.
The jury found a verdict of manslaughter.
ALLEGED MURDER AT ROCHDALE.

Charles Grindrod was indicted with killing Zachariah
Smith, at Rochdale, in November last. The prisoner
pleaded guilty, and, on account of his general good con-
duct, and the sorrow evinced by him for the fatal act, he
was sentenced to one week's imprisonment.

STREET ROBBERIES AT ➢IANCHESTER.
Sarah Foster (aged 55), and Joseph Brown (aged 24),
were indicted for having, at Manchester, on the 24th No-
vember, assaulted and robbed Joseph Bruce of £2 103.,
a tobacco box, a knife, and key. The case formed one of
many tried at these assizes, where women have assisted
men in committing robberies, with violence, in the streets.
In this instance the evidence was insufficient, and the jury
acquitted the prisoner.
Joseph Bostock (aged 33) was indicted for having, on
the 22d November, in company with a female unknown,
feloniously assaulted and robbed Anthony Battinson. The
prisoner was undefended. The prosecutor (an old, infirm
man) is a butcher residing in Manchester, and at one
o'clock on the morning in question was returning home
through Dcansgate from a friend's house, when he was
attacked by the prisoner and a female, who knocked him
down, and robbed him of Is. Pd. The old man cried out
" Watch," when a police-officer came up, and secured
the prisoner ; the woman escaped. The prisoner was
found guilty. His lordship, in passing sentence, alluded
to the great number of street robberies which had
taken place in Manchester. He was determined to enforce
the law by punishing with transportation the perpetrators
of those outrages. The prisoner (who was not known)
was then sentenced to ten years' transportation,