In the Central Criminal Court, on Tuesday, sentences were passedon
the prisoners convicted at the Sessions just over. Nine were sentenced to be transported for life; seven for fifteen years ; two for fourteen years, (the gradation of crime must have been slight between those sent abroad for fourteen years and those sentenced to fifteen years' banishment) ; and forty were ordered to be transported for seven years. In all, sixty-eight are to go to Botany Bay; and of these only eight are women. At every session of every court of justice in England something is done to augment the depravity of the "most depraved community that ever existed in the civilized world."
It is said that for some years past Horsemonger Lane Gaol was never so full of prisoners for debt as it is at present. The Governor has, in consevence, been obliged to cause a supply of beds and bedding to be furnished in two of the strong rooms of the gaol for sixteen or eighteen tersons.—Pest.
At the Mansionhouse, on Monday, a gunner of the Royal Artillery was committed for kicking a Policeman in a dangerous manner. The prisoner was a " deplorable instance of the effect of gin." His ser- geant said that he was a capital soldier when sober—as strong as six or seven ordinary men. The Lord Mayor told the prisoner that he would rob somebody and be sent to New South Wales, where he could join the bush-rangers, tend be shot like a mad dog, and all for gin ! The sol- dier, whose name was Hogg, said that he had never done any thing " disgraceful "—he had only behaved like a brute to "civilians."
The inquest on the body of Mary Ann Jones, stewardess of the Apollo, was resumed at Gravesend on Tuesday. The only additional fact of importance given in evidence that day was, that the Apollo had only a light at her mast-head, not at her bows, and that having no light at her bows, she might hove been supposed to be lying at anchor. The charge of the Coroner went rather to exculpate the Monarch ; but the Jury found the following verdict- " That Mary Ann Jones was drowned in consequence of the collision of two steam-boats, called the Monarch and the Apollo ; and which collision took place in consequence of culpable negligence and a bad look-out on board the Monarch. and they, therefore, levy upon the Monarch a deodand of 5001.
[ Surely the owners of the Monarch will appeal from this verdict.]
On Tuesday night, a policeman who had been seven years in the " force," and bad a good character, was detected in breaking open the house of Mr. Constable, near Battersea. Mr. Constable's house was undergoing repair, and only the gardener slept in it, to take care of the property. The Policeman and the gardener had a fierce struggle ; but the Policeman was overpowered, and given into the custody of the Mounted Patrol. On Wednesday, he was committed for trial.
A Coroner's Jury, on Monday, found a verdict, that one Thomas Combos had died "a natural death produced by drinking a large quan- tity of rum." The Morning Post is facetious on the occasion, and says that "the Jury evidently did not belong to the Temperance So- ciety," or at any rate that they were " tea-totallers of a rather rum class," who thought it quite as "natural" to die of a quart of rum as of apoplexy or fever.
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