At the Bow Street Office, on Monday, a lad of
fifteen, calling hem- self Henry O'Connell and a natural son of the Metnber for Dublin, with a female pretending to be his mother, who says her name is Ellen Courtenay, applied for a warrant against Mr. John O'Connell, M. P., for an assault. After some demur, the warrant was granted by Mr. Halls. The woman pressed the Magistrate to read a pamphlet, which she had ready, and which she said was a statement connected with the case ; but Mr. Halls refused to look at it. The next day, Mr. John O'Connell, Mr. Morgan John O'Connell, Mr. Maurice O'Connell, Mr. Sheil. and Mr. Fitzsimon, Mr. O'Con- nell's son-in-law, attended at the office. The boy stated that he had been struck several times, and his coat was torn, by Mr. John O'Con- nell on Sunday morning, in Cavendish Square, without any provocation on his part ; and that Mr. O'Connell interfered and prevented his son from giving him a more severe beating. Mr. John O'Connell ex- plained, that the lad was in the habit of annoying his father, by follow- ing him in the streets ; that on the morning in question, he persisted in following him on his return from chapel, although desired repeatedly to keep off; and that he (Mr. John O'Connell) was certainly pro- voked by this conduct to strike him with his umbrella, but not so as to hurt him. Having thus admitted the assault, Mr. John O'Connell was fined 20s. and costs. Mr. Fitzsimon then applied to the Magis- trate to interfere to prevent the repetition of this annoyance from the woman and her lad; whose story he declared to be utterly without foundation. But Sir F. Roe said that the application must be made personally by Mr. O'Connell, or by his solicitor. In the mean while, he told the boy, that he must desist from following Mr. O'Connell in the streets. The mother was very noisy and troublesome during the proceedings, but was prevented by Sir F. Roe from holding forth on the subject of her wrongs. The probability
is that the same parties who got up the Raphael plot, have hired this woman and the lad to
follow Mr. O'Connell about the streets : one job would be as dirty as the other ; and such is the depth of degradation to which the Tory
assailants of the Member for Ireland are reduced, that the Times has actually published two leading articles on the subject of this trumpery affair. This at least is proof that the faction is conscious of the utter failure of their other attempts to run down Mr. O'Connell-1
At the same office, on Tuesday, James Barnes, one of the Super- intendents at the General Post-office, was committed to take his trial on six different charges,—the first being for stealing two letters, which were found in his possession when taken into custody; and the other charges relating to the embezzlement of vat ious letters and small sums of money received by him, as postage upon letters sent by mistake to the Foreign Office, Instead of being forwarded for inland delivery. [This man had a salary of 5001. a year.
At the Guildhall, on Thursday, a boy was charged with having 2000 copies of the unstamped Weekly Times, dated March 20th, in a truck, which be was drawing from the printer's to the publisher's in Bride Lane. The papers were retained, and the boy admonished and dis- charged. Alderman Birch said, that the manufacturers of these un- stamped papers went on at a fine rate ; they quite laughed at the law.
Between six and seven o'clock on Saturday evening, as Mr. Matthew Welch of Bedford Street, was Crossing Norfolk Street, he was suddenly surrounded by five or six men of respectable appearanre, who robbed him of a gold repeater watch, chain, and .seals; with which they made .off in the direction of Temple Bar, and succeeded in effecting their • escape.
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