The Sun. — 1855-08-07 (London, England)

DAY.)  HOME CIRCUIT-CROYDON.  The commission for the county was opened yesterday by Mr. Justice Cresswell, with all the usual formalities. The learned judge met with such a reception as has not been witnessed in this town for many years. Their lordships commenced basiuess this morning, Mr. Justice Cresswell presiding in the Crown, and Mr. Justice Wightman in the Civil Court.  The calendar contains the names of only 11 prisoners for trial. One for child murder, one for concealment of birth, one for perjury, one for an unnatural offence, one for stabbing, one for bigamy, and the rest for burglaries and larcenies.  On the civil side there are no less than nearly 200 causes for trial, among which is the important case of "Boyle v. Wiseman."  CRIMINAL COURT,  Mr. Justice Cresswell sat in this Court, and the grand jury having been empanelled and sworn, Sir W. G. Hylton Jolliffe was appointed foreman. The learned judge proceeded to deliver his charge to them, congratulating them and the county upon the short list of criminals for trial. His lordship, after carefully looking over the depositions in all the cases in the calendar, said that it was very probable the grand jury would reject them. There was one charge of child murder which was remanded from the last assizes, which was the case of a young woman named Beldham, who was charged upon the coroner's inquisition with the wilful murder of her new-born male child at Farnham. The case was certainly one of strong suspicion, but whether or not it would form a subject for conviction his lordship thought the grand jury would do well to put it into a course for further investigation. His lordship, however, considered, after looking at the evidence, that the charge was one of murder or nothing. As to the case of the felonious committal of an unnatural offence the whole rested upon the evidence of one individual, and probably the grand jury would consider it right to reject the bill. The case of feloniously and maliciously stabbing was the case of two brothers, and was one showing the mischief that arose from intemperance. It appeared that the prisoner and his brother had been drinking at Barnes, that a quarrel arose between them, and that on falling on the ground together, a knife, with which the prisoner had been eating bread and cheese, wounded his brother. The only question was, whether that wound had been inflicted by accident or on purpose? His lordship, after referring to the other cases in the Calendar, referred the grand jury to their duties.  A sentence recently passed in Switzerland upon a man found guilty of sacrilege shows considerable ingenuity in the art of punishment. The criminal is to be eaposed for a quarter of an hour in the iron collar used at executions, and under the surveillance of the executioner ; to receive publicly sixty strokes of the rod from the hand of the same dread officer ; five years of hard labour ; to remain ten years within the boundary of his native commune ; never to be able to marry, and to lose all civil and political rights ; to pass through certain religious exercises ; and, finally, to confess his crime in. the church—a rod in his hand and a cord round hifi neck ! The tribunal from which this sentence proceeds is that of Obwald.  AZ ,