25 JANUARY 1851, Page 2

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The Court of Common Council assembled in great strength on Thurs- day, for the first time since the election on St. Thomas's Day ; but no business Of importance or interest was transacted. The Commissioners or Trustees of Smithfield Market are about to make an appeal to the senses of the citizens in favour of their plan for the alter- ation of the market. They have erected a wooden building on the vacant space at the Cheapside corner of Paternoster Row, for the exhibition of a model of the new market on a large scale. The model will be open for inspection next week.

In the Court of Chancery, on Saturday, Lord Cranworth announced some arrangements for promoting the despatch of business. He remarked, that if the state of the paper of causes was formidable at the end of the long vaca- tion, it was still more so at the present moment, the arrears having increased at the rate of fifty per cent. Mr. Bethel!, the inder of the bar, said he had been furnished with a return, by which it appeared that, exclusive of motions and petitions, there were considerably more than a thousand matters stand- ing for hearing in the general paper.

In the insolvency of Duppa Jenkins, before Mr. Commissioner Phillips, on Saturday, it appeared that the insolvent had drawn bills upon Mr. Richard Dorington Dickenson, clerk in the Journal Office of the House of Commons, for that person's accommodation. Mr. Dowse, the insolvent's counsel, stated that his client was a law-writer in the service of Messrs. Vacher, the law- stationers ; but his duties were chiefly performed in one of the offices of the House of Commons, of which Mr. Dickenson was the head, and Mr. Dicken- son had induced him to lend his name, "by an influence which the Court could easily understand." Mr. Commissioner Phillips dismissed the petition for a technical reason, and then remarked on the demoralization of the pub- lic offices which the Insolvent Courts are exposing— If this system were to continue, he could not tell what would become of the credit of the country. Here was a clerk in a public office, who came to the Court with three debts in his schedule for bills which he had drawn upon his principal in the office for his accommodation. What expectation could the insolvent have had of meeting them, one bill alone being for 2501.? It was an intolerable system, which was every day increasing, particularly in public offices. He had, however, reason to think that in some of these public offices the persons at the head of departments had become at last fairly alive to the misconduct of their clerks, and that they had de- termined to adopt the rule of dismissal in all cases like the present, and there was really no other way of stopping the system.

At the Marlborough Street Police Office, Williams, Colter, Johnson, Gos- ling, and Moran, five burglars bearing many slang aliases, and known by the Police as part of Hackett's gang, were charged with an attempt to rob the house of Mr. John Varley, tailor, of 44 Tottenham Court Road. At two o'clock on Saturday morning, a Policeman saw two of the men slink to the back-door of Mr. Varley's premises and tap there ; presently two others of the men came out and joined the first two; the Policeman got aid and cap- tured two of the four, but the other two broke away. On alarming Mr. Varley, he found a quantity of his goods packed up and placed ready for re- moval in the passage close to the door at which the prisoners came out. Housebreaking implements were lying near the goods. Some hours after- wards, Mr. Varley thought he heard a noise from some person concealed in his lower premises • he made a close search, and at last discovered Moran up his kitchen-chimney, seated in a deep recess, and enveloped in Mr. Varley's own coat.

At the Mansionhonse, on Monday, Daniel Smith, John Watson, and Richard Haynes the eldest only eleven and the two others under nine years of age, were charged with picking pockets. A lad who followed these ur- chins had, to his surprise, seen one of them slide a email stick into the pocket of a gentleman, and open it for inspection ; and he had seen the pro- cess repeated on several succeeding customers, but, as it chanced, without disclosing any prospect of spoil. The two companions kept close they covered their leader's operations, and were ready to receive the booty and bolt. The smallest of the boys exclaimed—" Don't you believe a word he says, my Lord : it's all nothing but out and out lies." Lord Mayor— "What did you carry that stick for ? " Boy—" What for ? why, to keep away any boys that might want to whack me, to be sure." The other prisoners said their accuser was a replier liar, and no mistake ; and he would nap it some day for what he said against innocent people. The eldest of the boys said he had neither father nor mother; that he lived with a woman in Mint Street, to whom he paid a penny a-night for his bed ; and that he grubbed about for his victuals in the day. Lord Mayor—"I shall cause inquiries to be made about you, and send you to the House of Occupation." Boy—" Don't do that. If you let me go, you shan't have me anymore, I'll promise you." Lord Mayor—"No; you shall have some pro- te_ction. As for the other two they shall be whipped in the presence of their parents, who are here, and discharged."

On the same day, at the Worship Street Court, two diminutive creatures of the same age, named Charles Baldwin and Thomas Green, were charged with picking the pocket of a lad named George Barker, during Divine ser- vice at St. Mark's Church, Old Street, and generally with frequenting places of worship for felonious purposes. Barker was listening to the sermon when a lady beckoned to him and told him that Baldwin had taken something from his pocket and passed it to his companion. He found that his clasp- knife had been taken' and taxed Baldwin with the theft ; the latter pro- tested his innocence, but with his companion hastily left the church. Barker followed them out, and seeing them enter a chapel, he took a Policeman after them. They were found standing in the centre of a well-dressed group of persons in the gallery, and were giving an apparently. devoted attention to the preacher. On search, Barker's knife was found in one of Baldwin's pockets ; and in another of the same boy's pockets was found a Bible with the name and address of one of the congregation written in it. The Police- man stated that both prisoners were habitual thieves, and that Baldwin had be en convicted four times. Baldwin—" Well, now i , f that ain't a reeler crammer ,• for I've only been twice convicted, and both times I was inno- cent." The mother of Baldwin' a careworn woman, confessed that hereon was a reprobate ; he had been turned out of a philanthropic institution as

incorrigible.

An inquest was lately held by Mr. Wakley on the body of Moses James Barnes, a pauper inmate of Armstrong's Peckham House Lunatic Asylum. It seems that Barnes was an obstinate lunatic, who would not undress him- self at bed-time : two of the pauper lunatic patients generally undressed him when he was in this mood ; but sometimes he would resist them' and then Hill the keeper was fetched, who summarily and forcibly undressed Barnes. On the Monday before Christmas-day, an intervention of this sort was ne- cessary ; and in the course of the compulsion then practised by Hill, Barnes received a fall, which probably caused his death in the following week. But the evidence of the violence used was solely that of lunatics for Hill con- cealed his share of the matter ; and at the inquest Mr. Waley deemed it his legal duty to reject the evidence of lunatics ; so the inquiry ended in an open verdict. Last Saturday, Samuel mu was brought before Mr. Norton the Lambeth Magistrate, and charged on behalf of the Commissioners of Lunacy with the manslaughter of Barnes. Mr. Proctor, the Lunacy Commissioner, appeared to authorize the proceedings, and 1,41-. Bodkin acted as his counsel. Mr. Bodkin stated, that the Coroner had taken a mistaken view of his duty in excluding the evidence of the lunatic inmates ; and Mr. Norton acceding, Richard Conelly, "a funny little Irishman," the lunatic who had tried to undress Barnes before Hill was called to aid, was put in the box. He took the oath in the usual way, and then gave this connected narrative— "I am an Irishman, and have been in Mr. Armstrong's asylum for about four years and four months. I knew the deceased man William Barnes. I recollect Christmas-day ; it was on the Wednesday ; and en the Monday evening before, between six and seven o'clock, the deceased, who was a sulky man and easily excited, was desired to go to bed; but he would not till Hill (the prisoner) came. The prisoner behaved a little more harshly than usual, and took hold of Barnes with both his hands by the upper part of the arms and threw hint down suddenly on the ground. I don't remember whether the prisoner fell upon him or not, but Barnes came down with his left shoul- der undermost. Hill lifted him up, and proceeded to strip him. Deceased said he should not let Hill or myself putt= to bed if he bad not been hurt; and I then said, You have got your Christmas-box. poor man.' This I said to Barnes in allusion to the fall he received from Hill. Hill put the deceased to bed the night after without his making resistance. 1-believe there was a slight struggle between prisoner and deceased before the fall. The fall was a bard one ; and a few minutes after prisoner was gone, Barnes called me to look at his shoulder, and he complained of being hurt. I felt his collar-bone, and found that it was not broken ; and I tried to make as light of it as I could, not thinking at the time that he had received any severe injury. The morning after that fall the prisoner dressed him. The deceased complained to Hill that his arm was very sore, and I think I then said the collar-bone was not hurt. I saw Muncaster, one of the other keepers, coming into the infirmary one morning; and deceased complained to him about his arm, and the prisoner then lifted up the arm, and it slided down, as if powerless. Hill said there was nothing the matter with it ; and I then lifted it up, and called the prisoner's attention to the hand, which I observed was swollen. I do not recollect Hill striking the deceased ; but he dressed him every morning, from the Monday to the Friday, when Dr. Hill came."

At the conclusion of the witness's evidence, Mr. Norton remarked that he had never heard evidence given with greater truth.

Dr. Hill had stated at the inquest that he found the bone of the upper arm broken, and the fractured end of the bone thrust into the arm-pit ; and there were additional injuries BO serious as to make them a sufficient cause of death : but the patient was otherwise in a bad and declining state of health.

The prisoner was committed for trial at the Old Bailey, on the charge of manslaughter; and bail was refused.

The bodies of the men who were drowned in the Islington sewer from the bursting of the New River tunnel were both recovered on Saturday last ; one was found at.the mouth of the sewer near London Bridge, and the other was discovered entangled in the piles of the old bridge under a lighter there moored. An inquest was held by Mr. Payne on Monday. The brief accounts given last week to someextent implicated Mr. Cox, the owner of the house from which the drain that indirectly caused the accident was to be carried : Mr. Cox was now absolved. His builder, Mr. Kesteven, had obtained the Commis- sioners leave to make the drain. He had sunk a shaft in Mr. Cox's cellar to a depth of sixteen feet, and had begun to drive from the bottom of the shaft a sloping gallery, to run under the New River tunnel, which is about twelve feet under the surface, into the sewer beyond it, which is at about twenty-four feet below the surface. The Sloping drain had been carried under the tunnel by the night of Thursday ; the soil appeared sound, and there was no leakage that seemed to come from the tunnel. On Friday, - Mr. Kesteven started to the office of the Commissioners to ask leave to complete the drain by working from the sewer backwards unto that part of the drain which he had completed. In his absence, Bevan, the workman whom he employed, entered the sewer, without waiting for the formal leave that his master was gone to solicit, and began to pierce the soil with a searcher, in order to feel his way towards the end of his drain, which he deemed to be about six feet off. While thus engaged, the bed of the New River tunnel gave way, as he describes it, in some direction sideways of that in which he was exploring, and then the torrent burst in. He escaped with extreme difficulty. Four men were looking on ; and of these four Ellis and Berlin; were drowned. Mr. Frank Forster, the engineer of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, gave his opinion, that though the drain had been made in an irregular manner, the accident was one that was not to be anti- cipated. The New River tunnel is two hundred and fifty years old, and is worn out. It seems possible also that a tank as old as the tunnel itself, which the men had discovered under the middle of the road, may have had something to do with the accident. The Jury returned a verdict of "Acci- dental death."

The New, River Company will probably replace the brick tunnel by one of cast iron.