The Sun. — 1848-01-06 (London, England)

WORSHIP-STREET. _ _  A powerful old Irishman, named Richard Richardson, was charged before Mr. liammill, with the following brutal outrage on his own daughter, a middle-aged woman, named Mary Briant : The complainant, who presented a very shocking appearance, her hair being completely matted with blood, which had poured from a fearful gash in the side of her head, run down her face and bosom, and thoroughly saturated her clothing, stated that she had sometime since, out of natural affection, taken her father into her house, and provided him with board and lodging, but that ever since she had done so he had conducted himself so offensively that he had been the constant cause of discord and quar rels between herself and her husband; in addition to which he was of such a violrit and uncontrollable  'emper, ' that, upon her venturing to remonstrate with him in three or four instances lately, he had upon each occasion seized the first implement that came to his hand, and either knocked her down with it, or beaten her so severely that she had been seriouily ill afterwards. After breakfast that morning he again renewed his annoying behaviour, and made such a disturbance about her daughter (a girl of 13) going to school, that she told him she would endure it no longer, and requested him to get a lodging somewhere else; upon which the prisoner flew into a violent passion, loaded her with the most disgraceful epithets, and finally ran to the street door, from behind which he took a heavy stick, and, raising it in both his hands, dealt her such a terrible blow on the head that she was instantly felled to the ground almost senseless. He then threw himself upon her, placed his knees upon her chest, and was proceeding to further acts of violence when she partially recovered herself, succeeded in gaining her Net, and, covered with blood, struggled with him and clung to him until assistance was procured, when the prisoner attempted to escape over a wall in the yard, but was caught by a constable and taken into custody. The stick spoken of by the daughter was produced, and was certainly a very formidable bludgeon ; it was nearly an inch in thickness, had a large knob at the end, and it was a matter of surprise that the woman had escaped as she had.  A lodger in the house corroborated the daughter's statement, and said, that hearing a violent struggle in the passage, and loud screams of "Murder" in the complainant's voice, she ran down stairs to her assistance, and found her engaged in a furious contest with the prisoner, the blood streaming down from a terrible wound in her head, inflicted with the stick produced, which the daughter had just wrested from him.  When called upon for his defence, the prisoner at first pleaded that he was a poor old man, 67 years of age, who did everything he could for his daughter and her child, but in the very next breath entered into a long tirade against the former, replete with the foulest abuse and most scandalous insinuation, which the daughter indignantly refuted; upon which Mr. HAMMILL told him, that whatever cause of complaint he might have against his daughter, the violent course he had taken was not the %%ay to redress it ; and as it was obvious, from the very appearance the complaint presented, that he had been guilty of a scandalous outrage which nothing could justify, he should not be doing his duty if he did not inflict upon him the highest amount of penalty he could impose, namely 51., or in default he must stand committed to the House of Correction for two months.  Upon hearing this decision the prisoner Exclaimed, with an air of insolent defiance, "Five pounds, eh ? Why, you should not have five farthings out of me if I hyd five thousand pounds. I would rot in prison first ;" and to prison he was accordingly conveyed in the van.