The Sun. — 1844-12-02 (London, England)

COLTMAN.) John Richards, aged 26, pleaded guilty to the charge of uttering, at Bristol, a forged Post-office order, with intend to defraud the Earl of Lonsdale, her Majesty's Postmaster-General.  The prisoner, a simple-looking mechanic, had received a letter from his mother enclosing an order on the Bristol post-office for 55., when, unconscious of the counter-check deposited with the office by the person transmitting the amount, the prisoner added the sum of 21. to both order and letter, and applied at the office for the 455. The variance between the documents at once created suspicion, and occasioned his apprehension. The Learned JUDGE, considering the facility of transmitting money by means of these orders to be most useful to the public, especially to the lower classes, and being fearful that if frauds were successfully practised against it, the benefit might be withdrawn, sentenced the prisoner to transportation for ten years. Richard Young, aged 45, was charged with having, at Cheltenham, on the 11th of October, feloniously and maliciously stabbed Elizabeth Young, his wife, with intent to maim, disable, or do her some grievous bodily harm.  Mr. B. Williams conducted the prosecution, and Mr. Cooke the defence.  The prisoner, a coal-dealer in Cheltenham, was in October very much affected in mind, labouring under the supposition that he was pursued by "a thousand evil spirits." These fits of aberration were of frequent recurrence, and productive of much violence to his family, towards whom at other times he displayed the utmost affection and kindness. On the 10th October he awoke his wife in the middle of the night to " wipe away the blood from a thousand spears which had penetrated his side," and called up the children and his wife to look at the wretches who persecuted him, and whom he described to be standing at the foot of the bed—there being, in fact, no blood nor person visible except to his own disordered imagination. His conduct very much alarmed his family. Medical Advice was obtained in the morning. The prisoner was bled, and took willingly the medicine prescribed, but in a few hours after insisted that poison had been administered to him. He seemed so evidently determined on suicide, that his razor was secreted by his wife, and he retired to rest apparently tired and composed. In the middle of the night of the 11th his wife was awoke by a stab in the abdomen inflicted by a penknife, which the prisoner had provided himself with. The wound bled profusely, but was only skin deep, and by the surgeon's evidence had not been inflicted with much force. The poor woman, greatly alarmed, shouted "Murder I" the children fastened themselves in their own room, and the whole neighbourhood was thrown into a state of great excitement. The prisoner denied any intention to injure his wife, and on hearing that she would probably not recover from the effects, expressed his determination to die with her, and cut his throat in three places with the same knife. An eminent surgeon, on being called in, found the wound on the wife to be not at all dangerous, and sewed up the throat of the prisoner, who seemed on his trial to be recovered from the effects of the injuries. In a very feeling address, the counsel for the prisoner contended that the wounding was accidental, or amounted only to an assault at a moment when the prisoner was not responsible for his actions. After a very careful summing up from the Leaned JUDGE,  The jury Acquitted the prisoner of the felony, but found him Guilty of an assault at a time when he was not in his right mind. The grand jury have ignored the bill for murder. Only ten cases have been disposed of to-day.