The session of the Central Criminal Court was opened on
Monday. In addressing the Grand Jury, the Recorder made some special remarks on Redpath's ease. It had created considerable public attention, he said, from the position of one of the accused persons and the large amount of money that was alleged to have been obtained. The facts disclosed in the depositions left no doubt that the prisoner Redpath had been led into the commission of those frauds and forgeries in order to repair the losses he had sustained in speculating on the Stock Exchange ; and the frequency of cases of this description had led him [the Recorder] to consider whether some means really should not be taken to prevent such proceedings. These sort of spe,culations could only be carried on through the medium of the established brokers connected with the Stock Exchange; and he could not help thinking that it was the duty of those gentlemen to exercise a little more caution in such transactions, particularly when they were dealing with persons who were in the position of the prisoner, and others whose cases had recently been before the public. It was clear that a very little inquiry on the part of the brokers who had been concerned in some of these transactions must have satisfied them that the parties with whom they were dealing had no means of paying their losses except from the coffers of their employers, and that if those employers had been made aware of the course of proceeding in which they were engaged, they would not have been retained for a moment in the position of responsibility which they occupied. It appeared to him that the same caution should be observed in transactions of this kind as would be exercised by all honourable men in dealing with any property or goods belonging to others, and that the same care should be taken to prevent the chance of being supposed to have any share in a guilty transaction, lie was aware that there is no law applicable ta the subject; but he knew that the brokers of the City of London, as a body, are men of the highest honour and integrity, and he felt assured that it was only necessary to direct their attention to the matter to induce them to exercise a greater degree of caution than had certainly been exercised in .many of these cases.
In passing a sentence of penal servitude on Wednesday, Mr. Justice Wiles corrected an error into which he had fallen at Warwick Assizes, where he stated that sentences of penal servitude were shortened by ticketsof-leave : it appears that, as a rule, all such sentences are carried out to the -full extent ; the prisoners who have been liberated before the expiry of their time having been pardoned on peculiar grounds, without any reference to the ticket-of-leave system.
Jacob Israel was acquitted of a felonious assault on an idiot girl named Cohen. There was no doubt, however, that he had seduced her.
Two of the three men accused of garotting and robbing Mr. Hagan in Kent Street were convicted. It may be added to our former account of this case, as showing how you may get garotted, that Mr. Hagan was the worse for liquor when he entered Kent Street at one o'clock in the morning and " stood " drink to two women.
On Thursday, Policeman Compton was convicted of burglary on the premises of Meagre. Benham in Wigmore Street ; committed while this false guardian of the citizen's property was on duty at night. Sentence, transportation for life.
Stannard, the eabman whose drunkenness caused the death of Sarah Tydeman, was convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to imprisonment for one year.
A speculator outside the Stock Exchange has absconded, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest on a charge of forging a power of attorney for the sale of 5501. Consols. It was ascertained en Thursday that be had obtained an advance on forged certificates of 400 shares of the Peel River Company.
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