The Sun. — 1844-01-06 (London, England)

SESSIONS. Cr II .1;:; DAY, )  'I he sessions for the City commenced this morning before the Recorder, Mr. Alderman Humphery, and Mr. Alderman Kelly. The RECORDER having addressed the jury a number of assault cases were disposed of, after which Edwin Bates was brought up from the Compter, where he had been confined since the 6th of last June, in default of finding bail to keep the peace towards John Masterman, jun., the well-known banker of Nicholas-lane, Lombard-street.  The prisoner, who is a most respectable and gentlemanly. looking piling man, described himself as an artist, and stated the bail which he was required to find was two sureties in 1901. each, and himself in 2001. He said he was unable to get more than one person willing to become his surety, owing to certain transactions with the Northern and Eastern Counties Railway, by which he lost a deal of money. He was here about to enter into very lengthened details as to the nature of those transactions, and the part which Mr. Masterman took in them when,  The RECORDER said, this was quite irrelevant to the matter before the Court.  The Clerk of the Court then proceeded to read the affidavit of Mr. Masterman. It was a most voluminous document, and nearly an hour was occupied in reading it. It detailed the contents of a number of letters addressed to the deponent, by the prisoner ; and then went on to state, that as a matter of kindness, he had from time to time given sums of money to the prisoner, in order to enable him to pursue his profession as an artist, until he thought those donations were given as a matter of right. At length, his demands becoming so frequent and importunate, the deponent was eventually compelled to refuse to give him any more. The letters contained most dreadful threats against Mr. Masterman's life, such sentences as the following appearing in them :—" You are a moral butcher." " You shall find to your sorrow that I am no coward "—" You are a murderer in heart, and your father, having other sons, he would not care if you were shot, provided the honour of the family was kept clear; and as for myself, all that would happen to me for shooting would be, to be shut up in a lunatic asylum." Several other equally violent expressions appeared in those letters. Alderman HUMPHERY said, as the prisoner had been first brought before him, and he considered the life of Mr. Masterman to a certain extent to be in danger, be had fixed the bail so high. He now suggested that the prisoner should be brought before his Lordship to fix the amount of bail. The prisoner said he hoped the Court would consider six months' imprisonment a sufficient punishment._  The RECORDER said the character of those letters was marked by such a strong spirit of wild revenge against all the parties, by whom the prisoner imagined himself to have been injured in connection with his transactions with the Northern and Eastern Counties Railway, and more particularly against those who showed him most kindness, that it would be an act of the greatest cruelty to Mr. Masterman, and the Court would lie under an awful responsibility if any unfortunate event occurred were the Court not to grant him the protection of the law from an individual who had been capable of using such threats to any person. He (the Recorder) thought that Mr. Masterman, in requiring the prisoner to find bail, was pursuing the most merciful course towards him. Under all the circumstances of the case he thought the amount of bail required in the first instance by the Lord Mayor was by no means exorbitant, and he should not reduce it.  The prisoner, who said when he was leaving the bar, that his professional prospects by the course now adopted would be blasted for ever, as also his property ruined, was then taken back to prison.