The Sun. — 1846-06-18 (London, England)

COURT.  SENTENCE ON THE SELF-CONFESSED ROBBER AND MURDERER.— SINGuLArt Cam—William Henry Sorman, aged 26, described in the calendar as a labourer, was indicted for stealing gold and silver moneys to the value of 501., the property of Wm. Hoof, his master. Mr. Clarkson appeared for the prosecution. The prisoner on being arraigned pleaded guilty, and handed in a paper to the bench, which was read by the Common Sergeant to the Court. It ran as follows:—" That your humble petitioner, in pleading guilty to the offence with which he stands indicted, wishes the Court to take into consideration, that he was not a responsible agent at the time of committing the act, and that in committing that and other crimes, he dace but follow the path of destiny marked out for him. As, however, such crimes should not go unpunished, he begged to make three propositions to the bench. The first was, that he (the prisoner) should play the Learned Judge a game at billiards, a hundred up the board. Secondly, that he should play him a game of draughts, best two out of three. Thirdly, he should play him either at chess or cricket; that if prisoner was the winner he was to be set free, and if on the contrary, he was content to be hanged by the neck on the following Morning till he was dead." Whilst this extraordinary petition was being read, the prisoner kept grinning and staring about the court in an apparently demented state. The Common Sergeant inquired of several of the officers, and also of Mr. Cope ,the governor of Newgate, under whose surveillance the prisoner has been, whether there was any ground for thinking him insane? They all said decidedly not. Mr. Clarkson then went on to state to the Court the facts connected with the case, which, as they have been so fully and recently before the public, we give in as brief a form as possible. The prosecutor was a builder at Kensington, and the prisoner a clerk in his employ. In the early part of the present year he was sent with the sum named in the indictment to make a payment on behalf of his master, with which he absconded. Ito then addressed him a letter, stating that he was an illegitimate outcast in society, going into a detail of robberies he bad committed, and that he had taken part in several murders ; and that on one occasion he had robbed the Custom-house in Calcutta, where he had a situation as clerk. Seve. ral of the robberies he confessed to as having been committed in England were found to be true. Some time subsequent to the robbery on Mr. Hoof, he was met in Liverpool by a gentleman who knew him in the Custom-house in Calcutta, and he gave him in custody for the robbery committed there, and he was taken before the police authorities at Liverpool, who, having heard of the robbery committed on Mr. Hoof, at once sent him up to London, and the charge of robbing the Custom-house at Calcutta was abandoned, in consequence of the difficulties of gaining a conviction. The COMMON SERGEANT sentenced him to seven years' transportation, observing that if there was any ground for supposing him insane, there would be ample time to discover it before he left Newgate; and then the sentence Gould be reversed.