Weekly News. — 1889-10-31 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

LONG CAREER OF CRIME.  At the Central Gran ml Court on Saturday the Recorder had before liini.the case of a most respectable - looking man named John Plowden, 30, described as a clerk, who had, in the course of a comparatively short life, ben engaged in more frauds than had been attributed to any prisoner at the Old Bailey for along period. He pleaded guilty to five indictments charging bin) with getting goods on false pretences, whereupon Mr. Grain gave a brief outline of the prisoner's antecedents. After being long tinder the eyes of the police, he was iconvicted, with a solicitor and two other persons at Manchester in 1882, for some " nexl-of-kin " frauds with a view to set aside the will of a gentlenian of fortune and divert the property into the wrong channels. Next he seems to have taken up his quarters in London, and, with the aid of confeder ates, he had managed to get possession of enormous quantities of property from Messrs. Atkinson and Co.. Messrs. Swan and Edgar, Messrs. Tarn and Co., and hosts of others. His system was to get per mission from small stationers to use their places of business for letters, giving different names at each place. He then took highly-rented houses in fashionable quarters, and gave references to one or more of the names and addresses at some of the little stationers. Then, the houses having been secured, he went to work and had goods sent to them on the faith of the same references. This system had been going on for some years, and the prisoner was only caught at last by a strategem.—The Recorder said it was an extremely bad case, and sentenced the pri.' sonar to 10 years' penal servitude.  The last mail from the Straits Settlements brings news of the death of Ismail, ex-Sultan of Perak, at Polo Sendan, in Johore. When Ismail was Sultan of Perak his rights were assailed by Alxlullah, and he was deposed by Sir Andrew Clarke, then Governor of Singapore. Abdullah ascended the throne in 1873, and agreed to accept British protection, but finding the Resident a check on his proceedings, and growing restive under the new system, he conspired with Ismail, it is alleged, to procure the murder of Mr. Birch, then British Resident at Perak. This led to the expedition of 1875 and the Perak war, the de- ' thronement of Abdullah, and his exile to the Seychelles; while Ismail, who was supposed to be less implicated, was sent down to Johore, where he has just died. A festivity of • semi.civio character has taken place at Colchester. It is termed the "oyster feast," and , has been held annually for so many years that its origin is lost in the early records of the borough. More than ordinary interest was taken in the proceedings this year on account of the Corporation celebrating the confirmation of its prescriptive rights and privileges, which were granted in the reign of Richard I. The guests numbered between 500 and 600, and they were presided over by the mayor (Mr. E. J. Sanders), supported by Lord Brooke,M.P., and other prominent local men. Oyster cultivation has from time immemorial been a staple industry in Colchester, and the town vies with Whitstable in the quality of its productions. It is computed that about 15,000 bivalves were consumed at the east.