Excerpts from the London Chronicle July 17-18, 1810

ARCHES COURT, DOCTORS’ COMMONS, July 9

ANDREWS v. BONE.

This was originally a cause of the office of the Judge, voluntarily promoted by Loveday Bone, wife of William Bone, of Plymouth Dock, in the county of Devon, against Grace Andrews, by reason of adultery alleged to have been committed with the said William Bone, her husband. It appeared that the Consistorial Court of Exeter admitted the allegation in this cause, from which admission Grace Andrews prosecuted an appeal. On the part of the appellant (who resided in the house of the respondent in the capacity of shop maid) it was contended, that the party had no opportunity of defending herself against a charge of this nature in the manner the articles had been pleaded before the Court, no specific fact having been set up. It was also contended, that under an act of parliament of his present Majesty, it was enacted, “That a suit of this description must be brought within eight months of the offence alleged to have been committed between the parties.” After the learned Civilian had been heard on the part of the respondent, the Learned Judge (Sir John Nicholl) observed that suits of this kind were very rare; that he did not recollect any other being brought during his attendance at Doctors’ Commons; at the same time he was bound to attend to it, but it was a suit of a very novel nature, it being brought by a married woman against a single woman, for adultery committed with her own husband. The Learned Judge further observed, he was not aware that a married woman was allowed to be the voluntary promoter of a criminal suit, without the consent of the husband, therefore he would be sorry to establish the principle. The Learned Judge, after several other observations, rejected the allegation, and dismissed the party.

Yesterday afternoon, as a young man was going up Holborn-hill he was assailed by a banditti, as being one of the party who resorted to an infamous house in Vere-street, Clare-market; he was shockingly pelted, especially by the women; and, to save his life, ran into Crown-court, and struck into Saffron-hill, where he lost the populace.

On Sunday evening last, about half past nine o’clock, several very dreadful shocks of thunder and lightning were felt at Osmaster, near Ashbourne, in the county of Derby. At a barn belonging to Mr. PORTER, of the above place, the lightning forced its way through the top of the gable end, by the coping stone of the barn, down between a double brick wall, upon a stable loft adjoining the barn; then through the rack into the stable, where there were four horses in two double stalls, and killed two, by striking one on the ear and the other on the nostril, as appeared from those parts being singed: what is singular, the two outside horses remained unhurt. Fortunately the servant had filled the racks with grass instead of hay, or probably the hay would have caught fire. A fork which he placed against the stable wall was entirely shattered to pieces. The servant had providentially left the place a very short time before the event happened.

The late thunder storms have traversed the whole of our island which, within the space of two days, was more or less visited with their terrific but salutary and seasonable effects. The storm, which was felt in the metropolis on Sunday evening the 1st inst., where considerable damage was done, took a northwardly direction, and may be traced, according to our different provincial papers of the week–through Lincolnshire, an arm of Northamptonshire, and across the whole sweep of Yorkshire. At Sheffield, during the night, it appeared to have reached its height; and this town and its neighbhourhood exhibit numerous lamentable traces of its destructive course. A succession of dark and rolling clouds which followed as the retinue of the storm have scudded the inland counties nearly the whole of the last week; and a general and gradual rain has given vigour and profuseness to the vegetable world. The effects of this seasonable relief have already been partially felt on the different corn-markets of the kingdom, which have experienced a general depression; and on the western coasts, where the immense importations have occasioned a general glut in the market, the prices have fallen below the fair level of the market.

POLICE.

BOW-STREET.

On Sunday night, in consequence of some private information received by the Bow-street Magistrates, a strong party of police officers repaired to a public house, the sign of the Swan, in Vere-street, Clare-market, said to be the rendezvous of a society of miscreants of a detestable description. The officers proceeded to search the house, where they found a company of 21 persons, the whole of whom, together with the landlord of the house, they apprehended, and lodged for the night in the watch-house of St. Clement’s parish. The house was a place of call for coffee-house and tavern waiters and most of the persons taken were of that description. There were also amongst them some private soldiers of the Guards.

Yesterday morning, at eleven, the Bow-street officers proceeded with three coaches to the watch-house, to bring up the prisoners for examination; but the concourse of people was so great that the carriages could scarcely proceed. Bow-street, and all the avenues leading to it, were also immensely crowded, and so continued till past five in the afternoon.

The prisoners underwent a long examination. Several were discharged the proofs against them not being sufficiently strong to warrant their detention for trial; but their liberation was instantaneously productive of the most dangerous consequences. The multitude, male and female, fell upon them as they came out. They were knocked down, kicked, and covered with mud, through every street, in their endeavours to escape.The women, particularly those of Russell-street and Covent-garden market, were most ferocious in the application of this discipline; but the lower order of the male spectators were by no means lax in their exertions to mark their detestation of those wretches.

Out of the whole number, eight were ordered to find bail for the misdemeanor, and in default were committed to prison. They were housed for a time at the Brown-bear, in Bow-street, until the crowd should disperse. The crowd, however, continued to block up the street and its avenues. A coach was drawn up before the door of the Brown Bear, for the conveyance of a part of the delinquents to prison. This afforded a fresh signal to whet the eagerness of the mob, who pressed close round the carriage and could not be kept off by the constables. It was, therefore, seen that any attempt to convey the prisoners that way must have exposed them to extremely rough handling, if not to murder. It was in consequence deemed prudent to detain the coach there, and by that means to fix the attention of the multitude, while the prisoners were taken about half past four, over a wall, at the rear of the Brown Bear, and into a large yard behind, which has an avenue to Russell-street through which after some time, they were conducted, handcuffed three together, to coaches and conveyed to prison.

One of those committed is a soldier; the rest of them flashy dressed fellows in coloured clothes, with nankeen trousers, silk stockings, &c., all hale robust fellows, the oldest not above 33.

July 18, 1810

POLICE.

__________ Elfe, an officer in the navy, was charged yesterday at Marlborough street Office, with stealing a watch, the property of Mr. Pring. It appeared the prosecutor was insensibly inebriated on the night of Friday last, and at three o’clock on Saturday morning he awoke on the pavement in Covent-Garden, and found that he had been robbed of his watch and 1l. 15s., his hat, shoes &c. The prosecutor described the watch at several pawn-brokers on Monday, and found that it had been pledged at Dobree’s, in Oxford-street, on Saturday, by the prisoner, in the name of  Pring, such being engraved on the watch-case. He called at the pawnbroker’s yesterday to borrow more money on the watch, when he was taken, after running off. The prisoner said he bought it of a woman of the town, in Drury-lane on Friday night, for a pound note, and that he had no more money, and was obliged to pledge it the next day. He was remanded for another examination.

Early yesterday morning as Mr. Gumbridge of Epping was going up Holborn-Hill, he was hustled by a gang of villains who pretended to be drunk, who picked his pocket of his book containing 30l., in bank notes, and made their escape with their booty towards Field-lane; they are supposed to belong to the Chick-lane gang, who infest that quarter.

About three weeks since, as two girl servants of Mr. Weston and Mr. Hobbs of Newick, near Lewes, were walking out with several children under their care, they were accosted by a vagabond, well known in that neighbourhood, who requested they would show him the way to Chailey, which they innocently complied with, by conducting him across two or three fields which led to a wood, but refused to go any farther, having then entertained some suspicion of his intentions; when the villain, on finding that he could not entice the intended victims of his lust into the wood, took an infant from the arms of Mr. Weston’s maid, and having carried it to the middle of the field, returned to the girl at the corner, where he proceeded to take indecent liberties with her, and pursued them until he fully accomplished his purpose, by violating her person, when he entered the wood, and got clear off, before Mr. Hobbs’s servant, who ran away, could give the alarm. The girl, on recovering from her fright, made the best of her way home, and immediately communicated the circumstances to her mistress, who soon gave it notoriety and occasioned the good matrons and virgins of the village to threaten vengeance against the offender should he ever fall into their clutches. On Wednesday last the culprit was brought before them, when guilt flew in his face and sentence having, in consequence been passed upon him, it was immediately carried into execution, by seating him in a tub and keeping him about a quarter of an hour under the discipline of the pump, and his face and mouth being then besmeared with rotten eggs, he was ordered to quit the tub, and march to the horse pond on the green, where, after being well tossed in a blanket, he was chucked from it into the water, and this was repeated until it was thought his courage was sufficiently cooled, when he was suffered to skulk from an offense, which otherwise treated would probably have claimed of him the forfeit of his life. One of the young women assembled felt the more indignant, in consequence of his having once made a similar attempt upon her.