The Sun. — 1848-03-13 (London, England)

ALDERSON.) This morning his Lordship attended to try the only prisoner in the city for trial, at the very early hour of half-past eight o'clock. Having congratulated the grand jury on the lightness of their duty, and remarked that the offence charged often carried it own punishment along with it, they retired, and in a short time returned a true bill against John Malthouse, for bigamy. On being called on to plead, though Mr. llears/ey was instructed to defend him, be pleaded Guilty. His LORDSHIP then called the second wife and inquired whether or not he had deceived her, by pretend. ing that he was a single man Y She said he had told her that he was a widower, and had buried his former wife at Darlington. Both were young. His Lordship sentenced the prisoner to 18 months' imprisonment, with hard labour. At 12 o'clock the Courts were opened at the Castle, Mr. Baron Alderson presiding on the Civil, and Mr. Baron Rolfe in the Crown Court. Mr. Baron ROLFE charged the Grand Jury. He said the calendar contained several cases of great enormity. Among others, two cases, where the charge was murder, as to one of which there could be no doubt, if the witnesses were believed. In the other ,case the questioa would he, whether or not the parties could he satisfactorily identified. The evidence o.i that point was not the most sa.isfactory kind of evident., but it was in law receivable. That evidence was the statement made by the deceased, who could nut, of course, when he made it be cross-examined so as to test its accuracy. In another case, also, the evidence would be tendered given on a former occasion by a party since deceased; but the objection was not so strong, as it was given in the presence of the party charged. There was another case which, though not a case of murder, was very nearly akin to it; it was that of maliciously shooting at a gamekeeper, and it was a melancholy instance of the evil consequences of night poaching. One of the poachers lost his life on the occasion. In that case the statement made by that person would be tendered in evidence. There were also cases of wounding, with intent to do grievous bodily harm. Some of them arose out of quarrels, and in such cases it was incumbent on them to look carefully into the alleged intention, as they could not find such a bill unless the intention do grievous bodily harm was proved. For his own part, he thought there was too much disposition to commit— the practice was too prevalent—on such charges, when there was no evidence of such an intention, but on the contrary, the suddenness of the affray rather led to the conclusion that the party had no intention at all. Now, the statuteable offence consisted in the intention, and not in the injury actually done, however grievous the wound or bodily harm might be. If they asked him to define what was to be the grievous bodily harm which the party should be proved to have intended to do, he confessed he could not do so —neither the statute, nor the decisions upon it, enabled him to do so; but he thought he should, if in their situation, 'expect the wound intended to be inflicted to be in some way dangerous to life, or something of that kind. Again if several were charged, though all might be legally guilty of the injury actually cone, it behoved thew to consider how far this evidence proved the intention alleged as it regarded each of them, for it by no means followed that all had the same intention. Finally, though perhaps it was a subject rather for remarks in the Legislature than in a court of justice, he could not help remarking on the very small portion of the persons charged who had not the smallest portion of education. He almost always found that the persons charged with crimes of violence were wholly destitute of education. Persons might be too sanguine as to the effects of education, and though it was by no means a corollory that if persons were all educated, there would be no crimes of violence, he thought it fair to assume that a more extended education of the people would materially diminish their number.  ::The Grand Jury (Mr. Bothell foreman) then refired to their room.  The cases tried were unimportant.