The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1839-01-01 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

JESUS CHRIST. "CHOLERA, BLOOD, FIRE, and Co. " Extra Executors. " Earthquakes, Panicks and Co. Witnesses." "P.S.—The above was directed to "The Parish Sexton, Clerk, and Beadle, Preston-cum-Sutton, Dorset."  DARING BURGLARIES NEAR OLDHAM, &c,  A series of most daring burglaries have been committed, within a very weeks past, in the neighbourhoods of Oldham, Ashton, and Stalybridge some of them accompanied with a degree of coolness and &termination remarkably indicative of the confidence of the burglars in their strength to overcome any resistance made, on the part of the household, in the dead of the night; and, altogether, evincing a resolute and reckless spirit, very unlike what is usually manifested by the common midnight robber. On the morning of Friday week, about three o'clock, the family of the Rev. Joseph S. Roberta! Evans, a magistrate of the county, who resides at Woodfield, near Staylybridge, was attacked. Mrs. Evans, hearing some one moving about in the house, and supposing that one of the servants was taken ill, arose, went upon the landing near her chamber door, and, looking over the balustrade at the head of the stairs, she saw a man standing at the kitchen door with a light. She called to him, and asked him what he was doing there; and he replied, with a savag,e uath, that be would murder her, if she did not getaway. She hastened back to her room, took a bunch of keys from the outside of the lock, locked the door inside, and then awoke Mr. Evans, and told him there were thieves in the house. He arose, and immediately loaded, with a ball, a single-barrelled pistol, which he had in the room; and he had scarcely done this when the thieves, or some of them, came to the bedroom door, and attempted to force it open with a crowbar or jemmy, making great efforts to accomplish this, as may be inferred from the fact, that Mr. Evans observed the end of the jemmy thrust, between the door and the jamb, into the room, and saw that it was what is called a crow's-foot jemmy, from its being forked at the wedge end. Fearing'the burglars would succeed in forcing their way intothe room, Mr. Evans said to them, "The first man that enters this room I'll shoot him." A voice replied, "Shoot away, and bed--d." The efforts were renewed, with great violence, to force open the door, by prizing against it with the jemmy; Mr. Evans resisting, as well as he could, by applying his left leg and foot to the door, and bolding the handle down with his left hand, while he repeated his warning, that he would shoot the first man that entered.- Threat did not appear, in the least, to deter the villians, and, as the same voice replied, " Shoot away," Mr. Evans fired through the panel of the door, the ball taking an oblique direction upwards, and penetrating about half an inch into a wall about three or four yards beyond the door. The burglars—for, althouglere had been only one voice heard, Mr. Evans could distill7uish the footsteps of several—now appeared to abandon all further attempts to force their way into the room, and he heard them leisurely descending the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Evans then went to the ' window, threw it open, and cried, "Thieves! murder!" on which some of the gang, who were stationed outside, and near the angle of the house, said, "Oh 'ou are there, are you ! If you don't go in, we'll murder you." After a short pause, hearing no more of the thieves, and supposing them to have decamped, he opened his bed-room door, and proceeded to examine the house. The thieves, he found, had been ruin,. maging through every part of it: they bad carried away eight bottles of wine and eight of brandy front the wine cellar sit. s ver spoons, two pistols, and as much money as they could'find Mr. Erans's bureau. A considerable part of the furniture the house was damaged front the violence with which it had •been used. Four empty bottles were found in an adjoining • * eld, where it is supposed, they staid to regale themselves •:',11; after quitting the house. Three men have been apprehended on the charge of being concerned in this and several other _ burglaries in the neighbourhood, and have been committed LNJ,s; for trial at the assizes. Their names are, James Shaw, Tho=as Greenwood, alias Hartley, and James Taylor.