The Warwickshire Herald. — 1899-04-27 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

PLAINTIFFS RECORD.  In the Queen's Bench Division, Mr. Justice Day and a special jury concluded the hearing of the action in which Mr. W. L. Howard sued Mrs. Helen Haltom, to recover the sum of £314 15s. 11d., an amount alleged to be due for work done and money paid away. The defendant denied liability, and said the plaintiff had already been paid for work he had done.—l'laintiff was severely cross-examined on Friday by Mr. Marshall Hall, who suggested that the plaintiff was a "begging-letter writer," and as "Captain Arrowsmith, 8A.," was on the -warning" list of the Charity Organisation Society; also, that, acting on some information which he possessed about one of Mrs., Hartopp's sons, who was expelled from college, he used this information in order to blackmail her. This, however, be denied, and the case was adjourned without the cross-examination being concluded. On Monday,when the case was called on, Mr. Howard did not appear. Mr. Crump said he had received a letter from:the plaintiff to the effect that he was too prostrated to appear. Of course, said counsel, under the circumstances, he would submit to judgment. Mr. Marshall Hall said that, in the interests of the public, lie thought be ought to tell his lordship something about the plaintiff. Twenty years ago he was sentenced to twelve months for fraud, afterwards he obtained money from a servant-girl, representing himself as a single man. For this he was discharged from his then employment. Since that time he had written begging letters to people, usually seizing on some family or other incident as an occasion for addressing them. When Constable, the jockey, died, he wrote to Lord Rosebery, asking for £25, which the jockey owed him at the time he d. As he (Lord Rosebery) would not like a stigma to n main on Constable's memory, Lord Rosebery sent the money, not to the plaintiff, but to Constable's brother, who, instead of handing it over to Howard, returned it to Lord Rosebery. Counstl said he had letters written by Howard under the names of Grant, Slingsby, and Arrowsmith. In fact, the y Olga t,isat ion took special precautions against this man, who at one time was, as he said, in ill-health, at another a victim of the Glasgow Bank smash, and later on a Liberator victim. He usually wrote his letters from an address, i 2, Rensal-green, which did not exist. He really lived at 72, Kensal-lane; but by some arrangement the letters reached him. There was no doubt that the man was an imposter, who thought this isior lady would pay him this money unaer pressure of the i formation he held about her son. Under the circumstances, he asked for judgment with costs, although as to the latter he did not know that his die, t would ever get them. His lordship, in giving judgment for the defendant, said he was not surprised that the plaintiff was "prostrated with illness." (Laughter. )  Lt West Ham a clerk named Thomas Ingram has been remanded on a charge of fraud. It is alleged that by representing a brass chain as being 18-ct. gold he disposed of the article for £2 10s.  From South Woodford comes an almost incredible story of how a six-year-old boy was kidnapped by organ-grinders, who placed him in a box, from which he escaped unobserved at Mile End.  Thomas Martin, a labourer, one hundred and three years of age, died on Sunday at fiarkway, near Saffron Walden. The deceased wilt halo and hearty up to the time of death. Martin was a notorious chtracter, and was concerned in the murderous affray on Mr. NSilkes's estate at Elnulon, in 1834, in connection with which twenty tnen wore trAnsputai  At Lynn, a horse attached to a waggon boited and knocked down two children. A little girl was killed and a boy injured, but not seriously. At a meeting promoted by the East Lancashire District and National Union of Teachers at Bury, a resolution was passed that the half-time system is dstrimental to the physical and moral and intellectual well-being of the children. The Parts Court or uassation has Mammal the appeal of Madame Flianchini against the judgment of the Court of Assizes sentencing her to five years' railia.al servitude for attempting to poison her husThe body of Mr. E. Cole, draper, of Dawlish, South Devon, has been discovered in a cave at the east aide of Langstone Rock, where it has been washed by the tide. The face was mutilated, and it is surmised deceased either fell or jumped off the edit