The Sun. — 1868-02-29 (London, England)

CAPTURE OF A BURGLAR.  At the Woolwich Polite-court, John. Adams, aged 38, of 27, Ordnance-road, Woolwich-common, was charged with burglariously entering the mansion of Sir James Wilde (judge of the Divorce Court) at Shooter's-hill, and also with committing burglaries at about a dozen other gentlemen's residences in the same locality. He was further charged with cutting and wounding P.C. Lincoln, 146 R, on the latter's attempting to arrest him. The prisoner is a most desperate and successful burglar, and within the two years he has been out on a ticket-of-leave, it is believed, from the proceeds of burglaries found at his house, that he cannot have had less than an income of £5OO a year derived from his midnight depredations. He has on several occasions been detected by the police in the act of committing burglaries, but by the use of firearms and knives has managed to escape. On one occasion he successfully escaped from a force of five constables, and has never hesitated to resort to the most desperate and murderous acts rather than be made a prisoner. He has undergone eight years' penal servitml- for a burglary Deptford, and at the time of hit .est by the Shooters-hill police his ticket of leave had not expired. He has been in the habit of reporting himself and receiving- help from the Prisoners' Aid Society, and was dressed in their clothinit- at the time of his capture. Within the last two years almost every house on Shooter's-hill bas been entered, from that of Lord Truro down to the labourer's cottage, and it will be proved in evidence that the prisoner had broken into three or four houses in one night, and he had latterly become the terror of the district. Inspector Monahan said there were a great many charges of burglary against the prisoner, but he only proposed going into the case of Sir J. Wilde that day, and then to ask for a remand.—Police-constable Lincoln said that he and another constable named Billham, 57 R, stopped the prisoner as he was making off through a field with the proceeds of the burglary committed at Sir James Wilde's. As a precautionary measure witness rubbed him down, and took a knife from one of his pockets, when the prisoner threw away the stolen property. Billham was in the act of going to pick up the bundle, when the prisoner drew forth another knife which he had secreted about him, and disabled witness by slashing it across his hands several times, and ran off into Shooters-hill-wood, in the darkness and intricacies of which he escaped. They secured the proceeds of the burglary, and circulated a description of the burglar. Police constable Carr, 232 R, said he received a description of the prisoner, and the previous night came upon him at the Star public-house, Plumpstead Common. Witness told him the charge against him, when the prisoner, taken aback at the suddenness of the arrest, exclaimed, " Good God ! " Knowing the dangerous character of the prisoner, he instantly threw him on his back, and held him down until assistance arrived, the prisoner meantime making a desperate resistance. He said he would be —if he would go, and a female with him, named Mary Ann Brown, with whom he had been cohabiting, tried to rescue him, and told -the policeman to be aware of what he had got in his pockets. Having got the prisoner to the station, he ran to the prisoner's house, and arrived there before the woman, and brought away a cart-load of property and sixty-seven duplicates relating to articles which there is no. doubt will turn out to be the proceeds of burglaries. On hastily looking over the things, the police identified articles belonging to about a dozen cases of burglaries committed in the Shooter's-hill subdivision. The female Brown, finding the house stripped, went to the Shooter'shill Police-station, where she was at once placed under arrest. Mr. Patteson remanded the prisoners, both of whom are most forbidding and desperate - looking characters.