The Sun. — 1845-05-24 (London, England)

THOMAS." Society, it might have been supposed, was interested only to know—first, whether a murder had been committed upon the child; secondly, by whom; and upon neither of these points was the slightest doubt expressed, either by the jury or the judge. The flaw in the indictment, however, being pleaded by his counsel, was held to be fatal, and he escaped that doom which it would be an affectation of delicacy to suppose that any individual in the country, who had perused the evidence tendered at his trial, ever doubted that lie had most richly merited. In these distressing cases, wht re the meshes of the law may be said to break through after having netted their prey, natural instinct usually deters the monster which has broken out of them from ever ven turing again into their vicinity. So, in those rare cases where a technical informality has overridden the whole force of direct proof, positive depositions, and circumstantial evidence, the lucky delinquent has generally been too happy to withdraw himself from the yell of public indignation and the pointed finger of scorn and infamy, in the safe retreat of obscurity and silence. In the police reports for Wednesday last, under the head of Worship-street, we read of a WILLIAM SHEEN, brought up for having assaulted and threatened the life of a respectable publican. The ease was proved to the satisfaction of the magistrate, and SHEEN was bound over to keep the peace, himself in his own recognizance for 1001., with two sureties of 50/. each. These were very readily procured, for this SHEEN, it appears, is a prosperous personage, possessing household property in the vicinity of the office to the amount of more thin 701. per annum. It is further stated that he is the same man, we were going to say, who, having cut off the head of his infant child, was allowed, through the carelessness of the Clerk of the Arraigns, to slip his own out of the halter. We had no expectation of ever encountering this " wolf-head" again. We had thought that even the most obscene and darksome purlieus of Shoreditch and Spitaladds could have vindicated themselves from the imputation of harbouring such inhabitants. But this is an age of surprises. It must be imagined that the public like to renew old acquaintances of however questionable a reputation under any circumstances however startling. For our own parts, we are beyond the reach of such emotions. Nil admirari is the motto we take up with. We should scarcely utter an interjection were we told to-morrow that the injured and scientific experimentalist, Mr. BELANEY, was endeavouring to get enrolled as licentiate in medicine and surgery under a new Charter for " particular " instead of " general " practitioners. Yet we do marvel at our law of bail, or the discretion of our magistrates in administering it. To-day a gentleman of great respectability is brought before one magistrate, for soundly horsewhipping the seducer of his own daughter in the person of his brother-in-law, her uncle. Application is made to bail the gentleman who has, under such irrepressible feelings of resentment, committed such an act of violence. The Magistrate, Mr. TWYFORD, refuses under circumstances thus -special to accept bail, and asks, with a simplicity quite touching— ‘‘ Why should he ?" To-morrow you shall have a notorious murderer, with no other recommendations but those of his luck in defrauding the public executioner, brought up on a charge of -wanton and brutal assault, without any such provocation of intolerable injury, before another magistrate. The charge is proved to his satisfaction, and this Magistrate, on bail being tendered for the notorious offender before him, accepts it with a facility that seems to ask—" why should he not?'  (