The Sun. — 1862-11-26 (London, England)

CLAUDE DUVAL—one of whose most redoubtable exploits was celebrated, a season or two back, by the gifted Academician whose brush pourtrayed that Hero of the Road gracefully dancing a minuet or a coranto with a lady whose release from captivity is assured to her upon that one condition. "Your money or your life," though an unpleasant alternative enough— still was an alternative. Nowadays there is none, A blinding blow—a throttling grapple—and the victim lies there upon the flag-stones in a state of insensibility, his clothes torn open at the breast, his watch gone, his pockets rifled : the garotter gone as well as the watch; and nothing for it, when the tardy policeman comes up, but to obtain a stretcher as quickly as possible and to exercise his discretion promptly as to whether the victim shall be borne off to the nearest police station or the nearest hospital. The evil is becoming, nay, has already become, most serious. The magistrates—though dealing as rigorously as they may (and do) with the exceptional few among the garotters who are caught—acknowledge themselves, more and more frankly upon every opportunity, powerless to deal with these deadly criminals now haunting our widest streets and lurking in our obscurest 133' ways. It is not forgotten yet how, in the midst of last session, a member of the House of Commons was struck down by one of these garotters--while crossing the open space where Pall-mall and Waterloo place converge, Just in front of the Guards' Memorial—when on the way to his Club from the Houses of Parliament. A frequently by burning, as the miserable cases of death in consequence of the cruel persistence of our fair county", In and destructive°fashienin maintaining the ridiculouson of crinoline—as frequently as the instances of child-murder brought to light perpetually in all P this metropolis— aro the evidences of thei ;its of man of the Ticketof-Leave system in affordinga sortityof semi-official license to the most skilled among the adepts in the science or art of Garotting, These, in fact, are the three crying evils of the hour—becoming fast (each of them) more and more frightfully multiplied. " Infanticide ! Burning to death through crinolineGarotting—or, as the slang phrase for it is, Puttin, the Mug on !"—in the highways and byeways of 14.)ndoti and Wes!minster Resulting, as the from the operation of the latter evil glaringly does, horrible Ticket-of-Leave-Leave system, it becomes manifest that the Legislature, must, immediately after its re-assembling in February, adopt the most energetic measures with a view to the suppression of this social curse by a careful and vigorous and discreet revision of our criminal la ws, so far as that revision can in any way tend to affect these infamous Garotters. Meanwhile—if every person attacked would act as promptly and as energetically as a gentleman connected w ith the Customs did only the other day,  when suddenly robbed of his purse by a woman passing by, and immediately afterwards set upon by three ruffians, manifestly her accomplices! Mr. BIRT was the hero of this little incident : and we honestly commend to her MAJESTY'S lieges generally the adoption at once of a system of Birtiny, by way of retaliation to the savage marauders. It will be the most effectual means, we are satisfied, ' of at once putting down this brutal system of Garotting. The case was simply this—for it Is ' really worth giving exactly as it was related by the reporter at the Mansion House, whither the accused were brought before the bench on Saturday. Their intended victim,EDWlN JOIIN BIRT, belongings o the EXAMIIIer s-office in the Customs, stated th " about a quarter-past 7 o'clock he was in Church-passage (a narrow, dark alley, leading from Fenchurch-street, underneath the Blackwall and North London Railway to Crutched-friars), and had his purse in his hand, taking some coin out, when he was suddenly accosted by a female, who, snatching his purse away, darted off down the alley. He followed, but i suddenly the prisoner HART came out of a doorway, where he concealed himself, and, stopping him, asked ' what his game was.' Prosecutor not liking the man's appearance, turned round to get away, when he was confronted by two other men who were close behind, and who instantly seized him by the throat, and endeavoured to throttle him, at the same time his coat was torn open to get at his watch. Getting away from their grasp, he struck out with a heavy-loaded stick, hitting at them indiscriminately. He felled one of the men by a blow on the head, who called out, 'Oh GOD! my head,