The Sun. — 1849-11-28 (London, England)

COMMON-SBRGEANT Frederick Williams, a respectable looking man, surrendered to take his trial for embezzlement. Mr. Ballantine prosecuted, and Mr. Parry defended. The facts of the case were these :—The prisoner, who had been for some years in the service of the South-Western Railway Company, and was ticket collector at the Richmond station, had, amongst his duties, to receive at that station all excess of fares from those persons who had taken tickets for the intermediate stations, and had come on to Richmond. All amounts so received were entered in a book immediately after their receipt, and at night were handed over to a desk appointed for their receipt. From some suspicion that arose in the minds of the authorests at the Waterloo-road station Thomas Bent, a police constable, was instructed in the matter, and on the 25th of August he instructed two young women to take tickets as far as Putney, and then go on from reere to Richmond, and pay over the difference, amounting to ls. 4d., to the prisoner, which they did. Upon examining the excess of fare bock the sums so paid were not found to have been entered to the train from which it had been paid, but other sums were entered as excess of fare to trains at a later hour. On the 2d of September two other persons went down, and made similar payments by the 10 minutes past 4 o'clock train, and upon inspection of the books no sums were found so entered, but, as on the former occasion, sums were entered down to a train at a later hour. In consequence of this, the prisoner being unable to account for the circumstance to the satisfaction of the authorities, he was taken into custody, and after several hearings before the Richmond bench of magistrates was committed for trial, bail being taken for his appearance. The cross examination proved that a great want of due caution against the possibility of fraud by servants existed on the part of the company, the book in which the amounts were entered not being in a printed form, but merely filled in by the two ticket collectors at the station, and the trains by which the excess fares had arrived were also specified in handwriting. It was also the custom of the company, during the fine weather, to run extra special trains, so that besides the traffic on the line being considerably increased, sometimes the up and down trains would arrive at the station at the same time, and the ticket collectors would be too much engaged to make the required entries separately, but would enter the aggregate amount or else put down the sums to the subsequent trains. Mr. PARRY, in an energetic speech, commented upon the character the prisoner had borne, and the possibility that the whole charge had arisen out of a breach of discipline on the part of the prisoner, which had been provoked 1•y y the style in which the company had allowed their regulations to be neglected, and the immense press of business that the extra trains imposed upon the station clerks. , The jury having consulted a few minutes Acquitted the prisoner. Just before the rising of the Court a true bill was found against Henry Bathurst Monkhouse for feloniously shooting at and wounding John Farmer Monk' house, ss ith intent to murder bins.