The Sun. — 1857-09-14 (London, England)

OLD COURT.  This morning the September Session of this Court commenced at the Old Bailey, before the Lord Mayor, R. Gurney, Esq., Recorder ; Aldermen Farncombe, Sir F. G. Moon, Sir R. W. Carden, M.P., and Phillips ; Mr. Sheriff Mechi, and Mr. Under-Sheriff Crowley. There are 72 prisoners for trial.  There was a very small attendance of grand jurors, and it was with difficulty the grand jury could be formed. The whole of the absentees who omitted to send legitimate excuses to the Court were fined 101. each. Several of those who attended asked to be excused on the ground of their being over 60 years of age, but they were informed by the Lord Mayor that age did not relieve them, in this court, from discharging the duties of grand jurors, ptovided they felt themselves physically capable of doing so. They all appeared ',o be strong, healthy men, in the full possession of their faculties, and ❑ot liking to be considered infirm in any particular they went into the box and were sworn. _ _  The Recorder, in addressing the grand jury, adverted to the bill introduced last session for the abolition of grand juries, and said 'that when he laet discharged his duties in that cow t, ho scarcely imagined he should have to address another gland jury there, believing that the bill then before Parliament would have been passed into a law. That was not the proper place to discuss measures that might have engaged the attention of Parliament, but this he might say, that the grand jury system stood on a very different footing in that court from other parts of the country, because they had to enquire into cases that bad been before fully in vestigated by magistrates of learning and experience, and in which there could' be but very slight legal difficulties. The bill, however, was withdrawn, he believed, from the shortness of the session, and as the institution still exlsted, grand juries would have to continue to discharge the duties which by law were imposed on there. The cases to be tried were few in number, owing probably to the short time that had elapsed since the last sessions, but he regretted to say that several of them were of a very serious description. There were no less than three charges of wilful murder, and two of wcuuding with intent to murder. One of the cases of murder was of a peculiar character—that of Antonio de Salvi, for the murder of a person named Robertson, a prisoner at the time in the Qieen's Beach Prison. Thelearned gentleman having stated the particulars of the case and the fact of Salvi's trial and conviction of the former sessions for wounding, with intent to murder, informed the jury that it, would be their duty to put the case in train for further investigation in that Court; the circumstance of the prisoner's having been tried for another offence did not in any way affect them. The second case of murder was that of Cornelius Denny, between whom and the deceased there was some ecufliling, when the accused stabbed deceased with a knife, from the effects of which he died ; and the third case of murder was that of James Preston, who, whilst a prisoner in Horsemonger-lane Goal, struck the deceased, another prisoner, on the head with a pail, from the effects of which he died. There might be some questions arise as to the prisoner's sanity, but they had nothing to do with them. They would have to be considered In that court, and if it were found that the prisoner was insane, he would be confined in all probability for life. The two cases of attempted murder were—one that of a convict who inflicted serious injuries upon the warder of the prison in which he was confined, and the other that of a woman who attempted to destroy her child by strangulation. Neither would present any difficulty to them. The only other ease requiring notice from him was that of a young man charged with uttering a false certificate of baptism to obtain a situation in a public department. In some departments of the public service persons were not admitted under a certain age, and in order to secure admission the accused altered the certificate given to him by the clergyman, which represented his age as 17 years, best ad of, as in reality, 15 years. The grand jury then left the Court to enter on their duties.