In the Court of Common Pleas, on Saturday, a Special
Jury case having been called on, only three Jurymen answered to their names. Chief Justice Tindal said this was not to be tolerated; and he ordered the absentees to be fined ten pounds each, except Sir Edward Barnes, who died some time ago. Among those who had been summoned, was Colonel Fitzgibbon, M. P.
At the Middlesex Ses,ions, on Wednesday, Mr. Sergeant Adams complained that he had been remised of improper interference to pro- cure mitigation of the punishment of Mary Stewart, who had been sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for ill usage of a gill in a house of ill fame which she kept. The facts were these,—that the principal witness was proved to be a girl of most infumous character, not an innocent creature decoyed into the house ; that her evidence was false in several important points; that the offence was not so ag- gravated as had been stated ; and that the prisoner was suffering from a cancer in the breast, sure to prove fatal if' the term of imprisonment were not shortened. Under these circumstances three months out of twelve were remitted to her.
A thief has only to allege before the Recorder, Mr. Mirehouse, or other City Judge, or before Sir Peter Laurie, Mr. Conant, or other Justice, anxious to gain credit for a more than usual share of hums. airy, that he stole because he was starving, and that he was starving be. cause he had been refused relief under the new Pour-law Amendment Act ; which, if they knew the law they presume to administer, they must know to be a refusal not under, but against the act, constituting an offence on the part of the officer so refusing, when he obtains com- miseration and a mitigation of punishment in consequence of his plea. The other day a thief, convicted at the Old Bailey before Mr. Mire.. house, advanced such a plea, and declared that he applied for relief at Birmingham, and had been refused. No iliquiry was made as to its truth ; and though he had previously been convicted as a thief, the Judge appeared to give credit to it, and let loose the depredator upon society with all the advantage he could derive from commiseration. A more gross ca,e of direlietion of duty we have seldom witnessed even in a Corporation Judge.—Morainy Chronicle.
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