The Warwickshire Herald. — 1899-01-19 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

SOLICITOR, THIEF AND  SWINDLER.  At the County of London Sessions, Clerkenwell, On Tuesday, before Mr. McConnell, Q.C., chairman, a smart-looking, fashionably-dressed young man, named William Arthur Horrox, twenty-six, a solicitor, recently struck off the rolls, pleaded guilty to four indictments, one charging him with theft and the other three with fraud. He admitted that he stole on December 17th, from tee arrival platform of Euston Station, a dress-basket containing two rings, a cheque-book, and a quantity of wearing apparel, the property of Miss Ellin, of Edge Hill. Liverpool, and valued by her at £65; and also that he defrauded Horace Hammel, a hosier, of Old Bond-street, W., of a suit of pyjamas and a rim, value £7 12s. 6d.; Samuel Last and Co., of 165, New Bond-s reef., of a dressing bag, worth £l4 10s. ; and A. H. Watson, gunmaker, of Old Bond-street, of a revolver and two hundred cartridges, valued at £8 55., all by the passing of worthless cheques.— Mr. Kershaw prosecuted, and stated that at the end of last August Horrox was convicted of stealing a cycle and some books in Cheshire, and was 'Sentenced to four months' imprisonment with hard labour. In consequence of the committal of those offences the prisoner, up to that time a Manchester solicitor, with offices there and at Chester, was struck off the rolls. Released from Walton Gaol on December 7th, he travelled ten days after from Liverpool to London. Miss Elkin travelled by the same train, and she changed at Willesden, but there was not sufficient time for her to claim her luggage from the guard's van. At Euston station, according to the prisoner's own statement, there was great confusion, and when the porter asked him if the prosecutrix'a basket belonged to him, he, demoralised as he was, gave way to temptation, and said "Yes," and the basket was taken with his own luggage to the Euston Hotel. Here he discovered that amongst the contents a the basket was a cheque-book, and he confessed that he tiled up several of the cheques and victimised tradesmen in Bond-street with them. The prose. cutrixs two rings he sold for 14s. Detectivesergeant Reid and Cunningham arrested him at St. Pancras Station, and he at once admitted his offences. When his room was searched another stolen portmanteau was found. The prisoner explained that he had led a very extravagant life, and since his father's death, in 1893, he had "fallen to pieces." He was brought up in extremely good circumstances, and last year he ran terribly into debt, and his family were considering sending him abroad, but he put an end to their efforts by stealing.—He was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour.  A petition is in preparation praying for a reprieve • of Kate Marshall, who lies under sentence of death for the murder of her sister, Mrs. Roberts, in Spitalfields. The date of execution is Axed for January 31st. The Baryanatta outpost, in the vicinity of Senna, on the North-West Frontier of India, was entered a few nights ago by a daring gang of thieves, who Overcame the garrison'of seven men, bound them, and decamped with eleven rides. The Bishop of London visited the works of the South Metropolitan Gasworks Company in Old Kentroad, London, on Saturday, and delivered an address to the employes. This, it was stated, was the first occasion on which a Bishop had addressed th• employes of a gas company at their works.  At Upho land, near Vl ig a, LI at .atett shot Jane Eckersley, with w en he I •e-rly ,med. bred at her mother, and the,, shot hiluse.t.  Ann Withenshaw, sixty, wife o a farm,.r. was fined aor two months for stea in a rah if from Northwich Market, and boots from a shop. Colonel Morgan, Mayor of Brec ii, has signified his intention 01 laying down at his own cost plant for the electric lighting of the town.