Part 14 (2/2)

Feb 29, 1849, _Central Cried 47, staymaker, Mary Duncan, his wife, who surrendered to take her trial, and Pierce Wall O'Brien, aged 30, printer, were indicted for conspiring together to obtain money from the London and North-Western Railway Company by false pretences

From the statement of Mr Clarkson and the evidence, it appeared that the charges ainst the prisoners involved a most impudent attempt at fraud It appears that on the 5th of September last year an accident occurred to the up hton Buzzard station, but, although some injury was occasioned to the train, it seeers received any personal injury On the 26th of October following, however, the company received a co compensation on behalf of defendant, Robert Duncan, for an injury alleged to have been sustained by his wife upon the occasion of the collision referred to, it being represented, also, that her brother, the defendant O'Brien, as travelling with her at the time from York, had likewise received serious injury by the saentleman to the place described as the residence of these persons, No 59, George Street, Southwark, and he there saw the erously ill, and that the result of the accident on the railas a preer

Mr Porter was then introduced to the fereat pain, and she confirmed her husband's statement

In the same house the prisoner O'Brien was found in bed, and he also told the same story about the accident on the railway It appeared that soeneral character of the transaction, and they had been instituting inquiries On the 2nd of November they received another letter from the prisoner Robert Duncan, in which he made an offer to accept 60 for the injury his wife had received, and also stating that Mr O'Brien illing to accept a sie he had sustained At this it appeared Mr

Harrison resolved not to have anything further to do with the matter, unless he received satisfactory proof of the truth of the story told by the parties; and another solicitor was eainst the coed injury, and he proceeded so far as to give notice of trial The case, however, never went before a jury in that shape, and by this time it was discovered that there was no truth in the story told by the defendants

It was proved at the period when the accident was alleged to have occurred to the fe with her husband, and was in her usual health With regard to O'Brien, there was no evidence to show that he was upon the train at the ti to the testiotiation was going on with the company, O'Brien requested him to write a letter to Mr Harrison to the effect that he was riding in the sae with Mrs Duncan and her brother at the ti been injured, and gave him a written statement to that effect, which he copied This witness, in cross-examination, admitted that at the time he wrote the statement he was perfectly well aware it was false, and he also said that notwithstanding this, hewhat O'Brien requested, and also that he should have been ready to make a solemn declaration of the truth of the statement if he had been required to do so

A verdict of ”Not Guilty” was taken as to the fe under the control of her husband The jury returned a verdict of ”Guilty” against the two male defendants

Mr Clarkson said he was instructed to state that, at the period of the catastrophe on board the Cricket steam-boat, the prisoners obtained a sued, by the false pretence that they had received injury upon the occasion

The Recorder sentenced Duncan to be imprisoned for twelve, and O'Brien for six ister_

A BRIDE'S LOST LUGGAGE

The trouble which is bestowed by railway companies to cause the restitution of lost property is incalculable So lady lost a portht, for she was a bride starting on a honeyroo-had not noticed the misfortune When the loss was discovered, and applicationseen it at the station whence they started, then again at a station where they had to change carriages; she saw it also when they left the railway; it was all safe, she averred, at the hotel where they stopped for a few days She was also certain that it was aain started for a watering-place; but, when they arrived there, it washabit, value fifteen pounds The search that was instituted for this portmanteau recalled that of Telemachus for Ulysses; the railway officials sent one of their clerks with a _carte blanche_ to trace the bride's journey to the end of the last s of the strayed trunk could be traced He went to every station, to every coach-office in connection with every station, to every town, to every hotel, and to every lodging that the happy couple had visited His expenses actually amounted to fifteen pounds He cath the treasure was found; but where? At the by-station on another line, whence the bride had started from home a maiden Yet she had positively declared, without doubt or reservation, that she had, ”with her own eyes,” seen the trunk on the various stages of her tour; this can only be accounted for by the peculiar flustration of a young lady just plunged into the vortex of matrimony The husband paid the whole of the costs

THIRD-CLass PassENGERS

The conveyance of passengers at cheap fares was froreat public concern, and it was soon found necessary that the legislature should take action in the ulation of Railways Act, 1844, all passenger railere required to run one train every day froers at a rate not exceeding one penny aat hours approved by the Board of Trade, travelling at least twelve es protected froed the poorer classes in railway travelling; but the coulations cheerfully The trains were timed at most inconvenient hours; to undertake a journey of any considerable length in one day at third-class fare was alhted policy of doing al was adopted by the Co journey, thinking to be able to travel all the way third-class, would find at soe of the route that he had arrived, only a few minutes perhaps, after the departure of the cheap train to his destination, with no alternative but to wait for hours or proceed by the express and pay accordingly Moreover, the third-class carriages were provided with the very minimum of comfort It was not seen by the railway executive of that time that the policy adopted was actually prejudicial to their own interests

_Our Railways_, by Joseph Parsloe

IMPROVEMENT IN THIRD-CLass TRAVELLING

The Rev F S Williams, in an article in the _Contemporary Review_, entitled ”Railway Revolutions,” reo back so far as the tiers had to stand in a sort of cattle-pen placed on wheels; it is only a few years since the Parliaations of Parliament, and when a journey by one of the better than a necessary evil To start in the darkness of a winter'sto catch the only third-class train that ran; to sit, after a slender breakfast, in a vehicle the s of which were coest alass, and which were carefully adjusted to exactly those positions in which the fewest travellers could see out of thenificant; and to accomplish a journey of 200 miles in about ten hours-such were the ordinary conditions which Parliament in its bounty provided for the people Occasionally, ress was interrupted by the shunting of the train into a siding, where it oods to pass”