The Sun. — 1848-01-13 (London, England)

WORSHIP-STREET.  John Larney and James Lepine, one aged but ten years, and the other scarcely a twelvemonth older, and both diminutive for their respective ages, were charged with committing a series of robberies at the shops of various tradesmen in the neighbourhood of Hackney. Police-constables Clarke and Francis, of the N division, were passing through the Cambridge-heathroad at five o'clock on the preceding evening, when they met the two prisoners, who were evidently trying to avoid observation, and noticing that Larney, the youngest, had something bulky secreted beneath his jacket, they stopped and searched him, and discovered a lady's shawl, of a valuable description and nearly new, rolled up in a bundle, while concealed in his trousers were a new pair of women's shoes and a pair of French clogs. Larney accounted for his possession of the articles by stating that they had been given to him by his componion to carry for him, and :the other said that he picked them up in the street, but from subsequent inquiries they had ascertained that each of the articles formed the produce of a separate robbery. Mr. James Abbott, a dyer, in Mare-street, Hackney, identified the shawl, which he said was worth at least two guineas, and stated that he had seen it safe behind the counter less than two hours before the prisoner's apprehension, and the theft had been committed so cleverly he had no notion he had been robbed until, to his surprise, the officers brought the shawl back for his identification.  Mr. Richard Cole, a haberdasher in Sussex-place, in the same neighbourhood, recognised the shoes produced as his property • they must have been stolen about the same time as the shawl from Mr. Abbott's, but, as in that person's case, he was not aware of his loss until asked if the shoes were his.  It was intimated by the constables that if a remand were granted they should be able to establish one or more other charges against the prisoners, one of whom had been before in custody, and the other wa known to have been for a long time past a most indefatigable young thief,:and generally effected his robberies without suspicion by watching the shopkeeper out of his shop, then darting in with a box of lucifermatches, which he presented for sale with a distressed tale and face if detected, and if not, disappeared with whatever he could lay his hands on. Alderman, the gaoler, proved that Larney, young as he was, had been twice previously convicted of felonies, and each time sentenced to a lengthened term of imprisonment, both of them having occurred since the month of March last.  The prisoners now mutually recriminated upon each other, each declaring that his confederate had stolen the goods and handed them to him, while the other as stoutly denied it, and Mr. HAMMILL at length ordered them both to be committed eupon the two cases at present gone into, and directed them to he brought up again for the production of the others deposed to by the officers. A morose-looking fellow named Joseph Jebb, a marine-store dealer in Spitalfields, was next charged with the following brutal conduct to his wife : The wife, whose clothes were much stained with blood, and who exhibited a fearful triangular cut across one of her eyes, sufficiently deep to admit the end of a finger, said that her husband had been for a long time past in the habit of beating her cruelly with a rope as thick as her wrist, and having on the night before refused to allow her to go to bed, and compelled her to sleep on the floor, on the following morning suddenly seized her, without the slightest provocation, by the neck, beat her about :the head with his fists until she was stunned, and finally struck her a blow in the face, which produced the cut then visible, and which she felt satisfied must have been inflicted with some instrument. Her husband was then proceeding to beat her with the rope beforementioned, but was deterred by a neighbour whom her cries of " murder " had alarmed, and she availed herself of that opportunity to escape into the street, and place herself under the protection of the police. The prisoner generally denied all that had been stated against him, but the magistrate gave no credence to his assertions, and sentenced him to pay the full penalty of 61., or two months' imprisonment, and in addition to put in bail for his good behaviour for the next three months. He could not do either, and was carried off in the van.