The February session of the Central Criminal Court commenced on
Monday, and has continued through the week. The case of the Sloanes was the first tried on Wednesday ; and the Court was thronged at an early hour. Mr. Sloane entered with a hurried agitated stop; his wife followed, in such a state that she could hardly walk, and on her leaning against the dock she was allowed to have a seat. As she wore a thick black veil, and held a handkerchief over her face,. her features were only seen when she pleaded to the arraignment. She is described as "a sallow-complexioned, plain-looking, little woman, from thirty to forty years of age, with nothing either strikingly prepossessing or repulsive in her expression." Sloane is described as "toll, and like a gentleman in dress and manner; his features are regular, his hair and complexion dark, his cheeks sunken, and the face generally rather careworn in character. He wears spectacles, and appears to be from thirty-six to thirty-eight years old." He turned several times to his wife, as if for the purpose of encouraging her ; and it appeared to be at his request that a chair was brought for her. When asked to plead to the indictment, he did so without hesitation, but in a tone which betrayed the full consciousness of his degraded position. He then leaned forward, and appeared to tell his wife what to say for, in a broken voice, she immediately repeated the words which he had ;tied, "Not guilty as to the first two counts, but guilty as to the rest." The indictment seems to have been framed with the usual multiplicity of counts, framed to meet every possible circumstantial variety of facts that might come out. Three of the counts charged the offences against Mrs. Sloane as an unmarried woman ; as it seems that she is married, these were abandoned. The counts to which the prisoners pleaded guilty were those 'which variously charged the assaults ; those to which they pleaded not guilty embodied the charges of starvation.
The leading counsel for the Crown Mr. Montague Chambers, having stated his intention to go on with the starvation counts, Mr. Clarkson, for the prisoners, objected that they were bad in point of law : but Mr. Justice Coleridge called for the opening speech. It was made by Mr. Chambers; and nearly at its close Mr. Tustice Cresswell observed, "Yore have said nothing about the age of Jane Wilbred."
Mr. Chambers—" She was fourteen or fifteen when she was taken from the school."
-Mr. Justice Cresswell—" At the time the alteration in her food took place, then, after Christmas 1849, she was sixteen: a most important fact as to this part of the charge."
This interlocution points to the ground of objection successfully, urged against the starvation counts. At the close of the opening speech, Mr. Justice Cresswell observed, that a person sixteen years old cannot be considered an infant of tender years, or a person incapable of self-action. A person younger than that can contract marriage and enter into other important relations ; and upon motions for the writ of habeas corpus, children of ten or twelve are permitted to elect whether they will go to live with a parent or not. Mr. Justice Cresswell added—Common sense points out that a child or rather a young woman of this age is competent to do that which nature would dictate, and obtain a proper supply of food. In this case there is no evidence that any sort of duress was practised to restrain her or prevent her from going out. Mr. Huddlestone, for the Crown, urged that the question of age might go to the Jury with reference to the mental capacity of Jane Wilbred. But Justice Coleridge answered, that his application involved the principle that you may treat a person thirty years old as a child of tender years. After further argument, the Judges determined, that without doubt the starvation counts could not be supported. Under the direction of Mr. Justice Coleridge, therefore, the Jury found a verdict of "Not guilty" on those counts. Mr. Clarkson applied for leave to file affidavits in mitigation of punishment ; but, in conseluence of an observation that fell from the Court, he withdrew his application. At a later period in the day, Mr. justice Coleridge delivered sentence on those counts to which the prisoners pleaded guilty. The Court had read the depositions before the Magistrates. They did not accede to the application for leave to file affidavits in mitigation of punishment, "partly from the circumstance named by you, namely your poverty, and therefore from a desire to avoid putting you to unnecessary expense," and partly because the facts speak for themselves and seem to defy contradiction. The Judge proceeded" It is impossible not to take into consideration the position of the parties charged with such an offence: one of you, agentleman devoted to the study and practice of the law, who must be taken to be thoroughly well versed inn matter so simple as this, and who must have known what was his duty; the other, I reuet to say, a woman and a wife—one who, it might have been thought, would have been the first to protect a young helpless girl who was placed in her power, but who, I regret to say, appears by the depositions to have taken an equal if not a greater part in all the indignities that were practised. I do not state these circumstances with any view of giving unnecessary pain. I trust that reflection has already caused you more pain than any remarks or punishment the Court can inflict. I have thought fit to make them, because it is quite right that the public should know, that in every case where it is satisfactorily shown that a master or mistress has acted with cruelty towards a servant, the Court is determined to institute a strict inquiry into all the circumstances and to award severe punishment. It now only remains for me to pass upon you the sentence which has been decided upon for your offence ; which is, that you be severally imprisoned for two years."
The prisoners heard the sentence without betraying any emotion ; and at the close of the Judge's address they retired hastily from the dock.
The sympathy for Jane Wilbred has shown itself in numerous presents through the medium of the Magistrates of the Police Courts. On Saturday last, a large parcel of comfortable clothing was forwarded by the mistress of the City Arms Tavern, Holborn, as the result of a penny subscription ; and a gift from St. Petersburg was acknowledged—of N. for the purchase of warm clothing.
On Thursday, Ronald Baxter, engine-driver, 'was tried on the Coroner's inquisition charging him with the manslaughter of-Vincent Lodwick. Vincent Lodwiek was the night-officer employed at the Ponder's-End station of the Eastern Counties Railway, whose death was caused by an express-engine conveying Mr. Haviland to the deathbed of his father at Cambridge, and driven by the prisoner. We described the proceedings at the inquest when they occurred; and the reader will not have forgotten the ensure on the management of the line which the Jury added to their verdict. Mr. Ballantine, the counsel for the Crown, now stated that the Grand Jury had refused to find a true bill; and he believed the evidence he should adduce would not afford the slightest chance of a conviction. He therefore abandoned the case. It was very doubtful if there was any blame in the case ; or if there was, whether it did not attach to other parties than the prisoner. Mr. Parry, the prisoner's counsel, added to Mr. Ballantine's candid admissions, the statement that Baxter up to this time has borne the character of a skilful and steady driver. Mr. Justice Coleridge concurred in the propriety of the course taken by the Crown counsel. The prisoner was acquitted and discharged amidst cheers.
In the New Court, Joseph Armstrong was tried by the Common Sergeant for an ingenious misdemeanour, whereby Mr. Walter Justice, solicitor, was defrauded of 681. Mr. Justice had a client named Rowe, whom he never saw, and whose instructions he had always received by correspondence ; hisclient was blind. On the 18th November a cab drew up at his door, and a blind man assisted by a boy enteredhis office. When this person introduced himself as Mr. Charles Rowe, Mr. Justice at once supposed it was his own client come on his first personal visit. This client instructed him to sue Armstrong, a tenant at Mile-End, for 68/. money lent, and for half a quarter's rent of a house ; and intimated that he had found a new tenant_ for his house and should require Mr. Justice to prepare the leases. Mr. Justice inquired for his new address, as he heard Mr. Rowe had lately moved : the blind man produced a letter-envelope directed to him as "Mr. Charles Rowe, 3 Warwick Street, Vauxhall Road." Mr. Justice wrtite to the debtor for the loan and rent. The debtor came on the second day at noon, and was very indignant at having a lawyer's letter : he would not think of paying more than half the quarter's rent, as he had not occupied more than a few weeks ; but as to the loan, he would pay that at once and have done with it ; so let Mr. Rowe have the pledged deeds ready that same afternoon at four o'clock, and Armstrong would be there with the money. At two o'clock the blind man came again in the cab, and was surprised to find that Armstrong had been so quickly brought to book. He would give the deeds immediately ; but the fact was, that he himself had redeposited them with other deeds in the hand& of a friend for a larger amount : Mr. Justice readily volunteered his check for the 681., and the blind man set off with the check to get the deeds, and be back by four o'clock to meet Armstrong. When neither party returned Mr. Justice saw that he had been duped. Rewards for the apprehension of the swindlers being published, the cabman who drove the blind man came forward, and by his means the Police managed to catch Armstrong; but the blind man remains dark, and to this moment cannot be found. Armstrong was convicted, and was sentenced to be imprisoned for eighteen months.
Thomas Johnson, a shoemaker, sixty-three years old, was indicted for the murder of his wife. The couple frequently quarrelled ; and Johnson has been heard repeatedly to say, 'I'll do for you." On the 10th of January he came home late, very drunk : his lodgers heard wrangling and struggling; the voice of the woman faintly said, " lint call yourself a man !" the struggling continued without more words, there was a heavy fall, and then all was silent. Early in the morning the prisoner called a Policeman to see his dead wife—hinting that she had committed suicide : but his manger and words turned the Policeman's suspicion against himself; he was bespattered with blood, and gave improbable and contradictory accounts of that fact. The Jury found him guilty of manslaughter; and he was sentenced to be transported for life.
Jane Brown was tried for the manslaughter of her husband, John Brown. Two months ago, Jane and John quarrelled violently; he attempted to stab her ; she caught up the poker, and drove its worn and sharply-pointed end against his forehead, piercing a hole ; six weeks afterwards, J ohn Brown died of abscesses on the brain, caused by the wound in his forehead. Verdict, "Guilty," with a recommendation to mercy : sentence, imprisonment for nine months, with hard labour.
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