London, U.K.
8 August 1888
SHRIEKS AND WAILS IN COURT.
At the Liverpool Assizes, yesterday, Mr. Justice Stephen passed a severe sentence upon four young lads named Jas. Mulholland, Richard O'Neil, Jas. Moore, and Edward Bray, each aged about seventeen, for ribbing a woman named Margaret Armstrong of a shawl and 3s. 2d., using personal violence. The complainant, a charwoman, was the worse for liquor, and the accused dragged her into an empty house, and there criminally assaulted her. They then took her money, notwithstanding her piteous appeal that it was all she possessed to buy bread for herself and her daughter. His lordship, in passing sentence, said: "If I knew that any one of you had kicked or struck her in the manner described, your punishment would have been even more severe than it will be; but it will be very severe, for you are just the kind of people who commit the worst crimes which appear to be committed in the city of Liverpool, and it is utterly intolerable that a set of rascals like you, just between boyhood and manhood, should be allowed to be a terror and a plague to decent people. I shall pass a sentence upon you which I hope will make an impression upon others like you. Each of you will be kept in penal servitude for 14 years." The severity of the sentence came upon the Court as a great surprise, and the female friends of the prisoners - several of whom were in Court - uttered despairing shrieks.
TO THE EDITOR OF "THE EVENING NEWS."
SIR-Perhaps it is not generally known that since the opening of the Tower Gardens free to the public, the H Division police band performs a selection of music in the grounds every Saturday afternoon from five to seven, which will continue till the end of September. The expense of this is borne by Samuel Montagu, Esq., M.P. Might not this example be copied by many of our philanthropists in other of the open spaces of the metropolis? - I am, &c.,
M. VAN THUL.9, Great Alie-street, E., August.
TO THE EDITOR OF "THE EVENING NEWS."
SIR-Under the original Police Act the appointment of Sir Charles Warren as Chief Commissioner is clearly illegal, as the Act specially enacts that the Chief Commissioner must be "a barrister of seven years' standing." I write these few lines, having read the letter signed "Ratepayer" in your issue of Saturday last.-I am, &c.,
AN OLD POLICE-CONSTABLE UNDER SIR RICHARD MAYNE.
About four o'clock yesterday morning a woman was found in George-yard, Whitechapel, stabbed to death. There were twenty-four wounds in various parts of her body.
It is rumoured that one of the soldiers quartered in the Tower has been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the murder.