The Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1864-09-24 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

YUITTFIFUL FORGERS.—OTI Friday, a well-dressed and very handsome boy, aged fifteen, named Charles Brown, was brought before the Lord Mayor of Louden, charged with being concerned in forging a cheque for £350. The case excited an unusual degree of interest, partly from the circumstances related in evidence, and also from the extreme youth both of the prisoner and of the principal witnesses, one of whom, a boy of sixteen, named Harden, son of a tradeaman, now undergoing a sentence of penal servitude on a couvice tion arising out of the same transaction, had been brought to give evidence from the gaol of Newgate under A writ of loPscas corpus. Harden in the course of hie examination, gave an account of how he had been tempted by the prisoner to forge the isignatrrre of his employers to cheques, with the proceeds of which they purposed going abroad, Brown an a young lady. Another boy named Honig, aged li, whom Broryp had tempted to commit a similar crime, also gave evidence against the prisoner, and said that he had remodstrated strongly with him on the criminality of his proceedings. Witness fiaid, "I called him a silly fellow to have such a notion in his head, and told him the ;lcrUlUelltn—namely, that he would go where Harden DOA was. 1 AMA LOW OM that. I e6.u1.1 tO him any more, as he was a dangerous character. He replied that if it should go so far that he was captured he could implicate me iii the matter. I Baiil be could not implicate me if I had nothing to do with it. lie replied that his ' yes ' and 'no' were as good as mine." The prisoner was committed to Netvgate for trial." EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES !—The Court 4 Assizes of the One has just tried two brothers named' Pierre and Louis Petal, the former charged with at. tempting to murder his own mother, a widow, residing ; at Venette, and the latter with being the instigator of . the crime. About 3 in the morning of the 2jrd of. May last the garde-champetre of Venette, named Diatton, was awakened by widow Pete!, who told him that an attempt had been made to murder her during the night. The poor wcman being covered with blood, and in a state of great exhaustion. blatton and his, wife rave her every assistance in their power, and AA FOOD WI she was able she told them that a person had entered her bedroom about midnight and had attempted to strangle her by putting cora with a slip knotxound her neck, but that she had managed to get her hand into the moire its ail to prevent complete strangulation. She cried for help, and resisted her &remnant as well as she could, but he thrust a handkerchief into her mouth to stop her cries and then pulled the cord with such violetios that eh.; RSA drawn off the bad and fall on the floor in a fainting fit. Tie, murderer thinking her dead, took thy handkerchief from her mouth and lieu, She added that she believed her younger son Pierre to be the criminal; that her elder son Louis had twice tried to poison her, and that the niotive for thee. Crimes was her son's desire to obtain possession of her hones and property. l'ierre, who was in the service of a farmer at Compiegne, was at once arrested, and on his person war found a handkerchief stained with blood, and were also his own clothes. It as like airy proved by his master that ho bad been absent part ot the night from the farm. Before the examining magistrate Pierre confessed his guilt, and stated that be had committed the crime at the Ruggeetion of his; brother, who had previously tried tv poison their mother but failed. As this oonfeasion was fully supported by collateral evidence, the jury found both prisoners guilty, lint with extenuating circumstances, and the Court accordingly sentenced them to bard lalsoir for life.