Star. — 1813-08-13 (London, England)

HUTCHINSON V. PIPER AND ANOTHER.  This was an action which WAS tried the third time. It was to recover penalties on the Statute of Usury against the Defendants, who were Bankers at Dorking, f )1' usury, in discounting various Bills of Exchange for Mr. Peter Botham, formerly a Magistrate, and well known in this county. The account of the transaction, as he detailed it, was, that in the years 1809, 10, and 11, he dealt with the Dorking Bank, and they accommodated him with discounts : that, in 1810, he had a conversation with Mr. Dewdney, who told him they could not discount on the usual terms of five per cent. and that he must take bills which had some time to run—accordingly, when he discounted paper with them, he took as cash other bills which were not due, and which sometimes he had himself previously discounted with them. With respect to the particular transaction, it was one which took place on the 30th of April, when he discounted with them a post-dated cheque, payable on the 16th of May, in return for which they gave him a bill which they had before discounted for him, drawn by himself, and accepted by one John Ault, without allowing him the discount ; and that he had paid for discounting this note, and again received it as cash on discounting the cheque, so that he had actually paid £5 per cent. twice over, making it £lO per cent. Lord ELLaNsonotion, in summing up this case, told the Jury that it was necessary to prove a corrupt contract for an illegal interest, and looking through his notes, the witness had not said a single word as applicable to this transaction, and had stated a former conversation, in which the Banker had :stated that he could not do business at £5 per cent. ; but, in his opinion, it was necessary to slew that that was the principle upon which the actual discount was taken, and there was not a single word in the evidence to establish that fact. Under this direction the Jury found the Defendants—Not Guilty. On the Crown side the cases were wholly insignificant, and finished at an early hour.  ExactiTtow.—Friday -morning, at half-past seven o'clock, Azubah Fountain and G. T. Rowell, convicted at the late Lincoln Assizes of the murder of the husband of the former by poison, were taken in a cart to the usual place of execution, in the neighbourhood of Lincoln, where they joined in prayer with the Clergy man for a short time, and then ascended the fatal steps, with mere resolution and composure than could be expected from persons in their awful situation. The ropes Were soon adjusted, and the steps thrown down, forcing the trembling sinners into an ' awful eternity. After hanging the usual time (about au hour) the bodies were removed to a building in the Castle-yard, there to undergo the further sentence of the law.—Rowell persisted to the last in denying that he knew to what purpose the laudanum was to be ap*plied, while his partner in guilt continued to assert that they both had frequent conversations upon the subject, and that he knew when he got it that it was to poison Fountain. The day being extremely wet, the cron d who witnessed the execution was not ,o great as was expected. Rowell was a native of Melton Mowbray, at which place he bore a very bad character ; and from 1807 to 1809 he worked as a cooper, witir Mr. Skinner, of Bingham, who frequently told him, when reproving him for his bad practices, 0 that he was fearful, when he left his servitude, it would be his lot to suffer the vengeance of the law" —a prediction which has proved but too true. This vicious and irreclaimable young man was also to have been married to the eldest daughter of the unfortu, nate Fountain, having paid his addresses to her for some time.  . mule k OIL #.llProitii she (stie declined saying, could mate the %A peeientation of her own affliction herself. Mrs Ca.