The Nuneaton Times. — 1875-09-25 (Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England)

SENTENCES ON OFFENDERS. SUICIDE OF A CITY MERCHANT. The city coroner opened an inquiry at St. Bartholo. The following remarks concernin, ee ntences on offenders are contained in the report of the Howard mew's Hospital into the circumstances attending the Association :—A Recorder informs the association that death of Mr. Anteleen Joseph Ruffin, aged 32, a having occasion to consult two judges about a certain merchant living at 121, Gower-street, and carrying offence, one advised a sentence of six months' imprison- on business at 60, Watling-street, E.C., one of the rnent and the other of seven years penal servitade ! sone, it is stated, of the Chamberlain to the King of Too much of such discrepancy ',observable, especially Bavaria. Thomas Hart, a clerk, said the deceased amongst judges at &mires. An English prison gover. came to the office on Friday morning, the 17th inst., nor informs theassociation :—" I have known prisoners and was perfectly rational and collected. Shortly for attempting to murder my officers, get respectively afterwards witness went out to purchase some stamp, twenty years, ten years, and three months! I have and upon returning heard a heavy fall in his master's known • nice little boy, well inatructed, and with ap. room. He went there and found deceased lying upon parently, • good religious father, get one month in the floor in a large pool of blood. Deceased had been very anxiously expecting a letter for the past week, gaol and five years in a reformatory, on a charge of begging, which he described as being with a boy who 1 and seemed very depressed at its non-arrival. Witopened a cab door for a lady! Such cases occur daily." nes, saw two letters in deceased's hand when he was Ile adds-'-"! look upon sentences as a kind of lottery." lying upon the floor, lie could not account for de. During the past year or two much Popular indignation . ceased taking his life. M. Emile Portia!, a merchant, has been expressed at a series of harsh and unequal i said that deceased had latterly seemed to be in rather sentences, especially on children. And it is a peculiarly straitened circumstances, and had applied to witness painful circumstance that such sentences have more for money on one or two occasions, the last occasion often emanated from clerical than other magistrates. being the previous Mondey, when he (witness) refused. IFor example, in the case of the poor women and Mrs. Ruffin and the deceased appeared to be ou very good children sent to gaol, not long ago, at Chipping Nor. terms. They had only been married a very short ton, clerical juaticies were concerned; also in the mat- time. Deceased was very quite and methodical in his ter of the child imprisoned at Spalding for plucking a habits, and never threatened to commit suicide. The flower; and is various other similar instances. At letter marked A (produced) was in the handwriting of Penzance, in March, a clergyman actually summoned Mrs. Ruffin. Dr. 'lames, house surgeon to the hospital, a lad for whistling in the market, for which the latter said that a bullet wound was found in deceased's had to pay 95. 6d.) This is to be deeply -regretted on mouth, from which blood was flowing. A post-mortem many accounts. A recent act (38--39 Vic. cap. 54) is :examination showed that death had resulted from likely to improve the English magistracy by widening laceration of the brain caused by a bullet which was its ranks. As to the ministers of the Gospel, they are Sound in the brain. Dr. Arcedeekne Duncan, of 88, so increasingly active in works of charity and piety Gower-street, said that deceased was a very excitable that, to use the words of one of their own number, "an I snan, whom he had attended for some time. He knew already overweighted clergy should be relieved from the deceased and his wife well, and they appeared to magisterial duties.'' This would also exempt the ma- live upon very good terms. This jury returned a verjority of them from the mischievious reproach brought dict of temporary insanity. upon the whole order by an unworthy few. It must, however, be remembered that some clergymen are most useful even as magistrates. For instance, the successful results of the " Luton experiment" in suppressing crime are largely owing to the aid of a clerical magistrate, the Rev. Hugh Symth. Further, there . . . .  „ are Some remote rural parishes where a clergyman may be almost the only person suitable to act as a justice. The Rec. Charles Kingsley was an example of the sort of clergyman who may exert a magisterial influence for much good.