The Sun. — 1852-01-05 (London, England)

CRIMINAL COURT.-(THIS DAN.)  OLD COURT.  The January session of the Central Criminal Court was opened this morning in the usual form. The calendar contains the names of sixty-three prisoners. The Grand Jury having been sworn and impannelled, The RECORDER proceeded to charge them. He said the state of the calendar was such as to require but little observation. The number of prisoners they had upon the list was small. He was glad to perceive that in that number there was only one serious case, namely, the charge of murder which stood over from last session; but as a true bill had already been returned against the accused, they would not be troubled with the case at all. There was but one other case involving the destruction of human life, and that was a charge of manslaughter, which appeared to have arisen out of an unfortunate broil produced by excessive drinking. The case, however, presented no legal difficulty, and it was therefore unnecessary for him to detain them further upon it. He was glad to observe that the calendar contained but a small number of those serious offences which excited so much alarm about this period last year —he meant those daring burglaries and street robberies which generally attended the winter months. Whether this was to be attributed to the example of the punishment inflicted upon previous offenders, the increased vigilance of the police, or an improvement in the moral and physical condition of the people could not exactly be ascertained, but it certainly was to him, and no doubt would be to the jury, a matter of deep congratulation. There was one other case to which he must briefly advert. It was a charge against two persons of having within three months of their bankruptcy obtained large quantities of goods under the false pretence that they were trading in the ordinary course. That was an act which made the parties liable to be indicted for misdemeanour, and in this case it appeared the prisoners had pawned the goods which they obtained in this way, instead of applying them to the usual purposes of trade. There was another case in the calendar upon which he had intended to make a few observations, as it was one which deeply the due and proper administration of justice in this and other courts. It was a charge of obtaining money from a prisoner under the pretence that the offender was a clerk to a barrister, and enabled to secure the services of his employer, when in point of fact he held no such position, nor was he competent to render any assistance whatever to the prisoner, from whom the money was obtained. Now that was an offence which, it established, would subject the party accused to a severe punishment; but it was not necessary that ho should go into the circumstances of this particular case, because, since the court was opened, the unfortunate accused had ceased to exist. He was aware, however, that there were other parties of his class lurking about the Central Criminal Court, and he had therefore thought it right to warn them that if the offence could be brought home to them, it would be the duty of the Court to visit them with the severest punishment. He would not detain them further, but, thanking them for the attention they bad given him, he would at once dismiss them to the discharge of their duties. The grand jury then retired, and in a short time some true bills of a minor nature were returned into court and the trials were immediately gone into. The last case referred to by the Learned Recorder was that of the man Henry Martin Flanigan, who stood charged with having obtained money from a person under the pretence that ho was the clerk of, and would secure the services of, Mr. Hurry, the barrister. It transpired that the unfortunate man bad committed suicide while the Court was sitting by immersing his head in a bucket of water, and keepint it there until life was extinct.