At the Town-hall, Southwark, on Saturday. the Master of the
Pro- testant Dissenters' School in Maze Pond, Wilkinson by name, was charged with brutally flogging a child seven ye as of age, one of his pupils. It appeared that Wilkinson had received a letter complaining of the boy having trodden upon a gentleman's toes; and on his entering the school, he was stopped, pulled over a large box, and five boys were employed in holding down his head, arms, and legs, while the defendant cruelly beat him with a large rod. The child was stripped in the presence of the Magistrate, and his body exhibited marks of cruelly severe treatment. The defendant said the boy had used had language to the gentleman, and he considered it his duty to mildly chastise him. The defendant acknowledged that he did not know the party who wrote the letter complaining of the boy. Alderman Farebrother severely reprimanded Wikinson, and the investigation was suspended until the Committee for managing the School should have made particular inquiry into the case. [A sound flogging of the Master himself would be his proper punishment.]
The gentlemen of the Stock Exchange have been a good deal an- noyed within these few days by an extensive fraud committed by Mr. Laketnan, one of their members. This person having contrived to get possession of about 50,000/., decamped to Boulogne ; where, how- ever, he was arrested, though afterwards allowed to go to Paris. His property was detained, and will probably be made over to his creditors ; though Lakeman pretends that be cannot legally be deprived of it, by the French laws, as he is merely an absconding debtor. Lakeman seems to have been a very dashing fellow. The Times says- " He resided at the corner of the Quadrant in Piccadilly, in the house the lower part of which is used for the Steam-Packet Company's offices, and occu- pied the whole of the upper apartments. The rooms are handsomely furnished and fitted up with great taste. The furniture is valued at 10001. He kept a cabriolet, stanhope, and two horses, and in fact lived in a fashionable and splendid style. His furniture and other property that has been dicovered is now in the custody of the Messenger of the Bankruptcy Court. Lakeman's wife was informed on Tuesday evening of the report that her husband had been taken, and that he had 50,0001. in his possession."
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