WEST BRITON and CORNWALL ADVERTISER 17 OCT 1851, Quarter Sessions, Part 3 SECOND COURT - Before C. B. G. Sawle, Esq. RICHARD BRAY, 25, pleaded Guilty on two several indictments; the one charging him with stealing, at Southpetherwin, on the 2nd of October instant, a brass pan and two cider taps, the property of GEORGE RADDALL; and the other charging him with stealing at Lezant, on the 30th of September, various articles of clothing, the property of BERNARD PAYNTER. A previous conviction was proved against the prisoner, at the October sessions, 1850, of stealing from the person of JAMES MEDLAND, a purse, and between three and four pounds in sovereigns and silver. For this offence the prisoner suffered eight months imprisonment. CHARGE OF KITTING - JOHN PROUT, 26, a young man of very respectable appearance, was charged with feloniously taking and removing three pounds weight of tin ore, found in Polberrow New Adventure mine, in the parish of St. Agnes, the property of Michael MORCOM and others, adventurers in the mine. Mr. STOKES conducted the prosecution; Mr. HOCKIN the defence. Mr. STOKES stated the case as follows: The prisoner was indicted under the act, 2nd and 3rd Victoria, passed for the prevention of kitting. The prisoner had been employed for some time as a tributer at Polberrow tin mines, and was so employed in September last with others of his pair. They raised a quantity of tin ore, which was sent to grass to be prepared in the usual way, for sampling. Their stuff was divided into piles, one of which contained their best work, according to usual practice; and on the 13th of September last, the piles belonging to the prisoner and his pair, were on their floors, and samples were taken in the ordinary way on the 13th and 15th of that month, in the presence of the prisoner. On Saturday the 13th, the samples were taken from the prisoner's piles and sent to the sampling-house; and on the 15th, there were some other samples placed in the sample-house, from the prisoner's piles. At Polberrow, the sampling-house is near the floors; it consists of an upper room, into which the samples are conveyed in barrows over a tram-road; and there is an under room, immediately adjoining which, and under the same roof, is an assay room. When the samples are brought into the sampling-house, the practice is to have the barrows locked, and the sampling-house itself also locked, and the keys of the barrows and of the sampling-house are taken to the counting- house. One set of keys of the barrows is also kept in the sampling-house. They went there late in the evening, and saw the barrows in proper order on the upper floor of the sampling-house, containing samples from different parts of the mine, and among them the samples from prisoner's piles. They placed a small piece of heath on the barrows, and on the Monday morning, they found that, although the sampling-house was locked up on the Saturday evening, and the key kept at the counting-house some one must have been in the sampling-house - the pieces of heath placed on the prisoner's piles had been removed, and his samples had been 'prilled' - that is, richer stones of ore had been put into his samples for the purpose of making it turn out richer than it fairly would have bee, so that the prisoern and the pair, instead of receiving GBP3 per man per month, would have received upwards of GBP 6 per man. On Monday afternoon, the prisoner went to one of the captains and told him that his pair had some more tin stuff on the floor ready to be weighed and sampled; and a fair sample was taken, in the prisoner's presence, and sent into the sampling-house. On the Monday evening, the captains saw that the sampling-house was all right - the floors swept - and inside the - the sample barrows in regular order - and inside the cover of each barrow a tin box containing a paper with the name of the tributer's pair to whom the sample belonged. The sampling house was locked up and the key taken to the counting-house. The captains again, on Monday night, put some pieces of heath on the barrows, and then two of them went into the assay-room to watch during the night; both the upper and lower rooms of the sampling-house being locked; there being a communication inside by means of stairs, between the under and upper rooms, and the lower sampling-room communicating with the assay-room by a door. About eleven o'clock, the two captains, sitting concealed in the assay-room, saw some one come towards the window and look in, but could not see who it was. The parties, whoever they were, tried the door of the assay-room, and, finding it closed, the captains immediately heard footsteps going round the house, and presently heard that door tried and persons entering, and footsteps going up the stairs into the upper room. The captains next heard the iron lid of one of the barrows lifted. One of the captains went to the lower door, and the other to the upper door of the sampling-house. Captain HANCOCK, who was at the upper door, saw the door opened from the inside, by a man who immediately closed the door again and retreated. Both captains - HANCOCK and MARTIN - then moved off a little, and two men rushed out, one from the upper and one from the under door. The one who came out of the upper door was seen by Capt. Hancock to be the prisoner, and Capt. Martin, who was below, was also near enough to see the prisoner, and would positively swear to him. Hancock chased him, but not being able to catch him, went to prisoner's house and found he was not there. Hancock then returned towards the mine, walking along by a ditch so as to be unperceived, and heard the voices of two persons coming along the road, and that one of them was the prisoner. Hancock then rushed forward and took the prisoner into his custody, and proceeded to give him in charge to a constable. Prisoner protested that he was innocent - that he had not been near the spot - that he had just come from TOM TREGELLAS's public-house. Hancock said, I know you are the man, but if Tregellas will say you have just come from his house, I will let you go. They then went to the public-house, and, in answer to a questions from Hancock, Tregellas said Prout left there about eleven o'clock. Prout then said "Why Tom, I don't think you can very well tell what time I left." and Tregellas said "Well, perhaps I can't, for I went to bed rather 'aly'; and it might have been an hour or two later." Hancock, however, was confident that prisoner was the man he had seen come out of the sampling- house, and gave him in charge to a constable named PARNALL. On the captain's going into the sampling-house immediately afterwards, it was found that the barrows had been moved, and that on the floor there was a small bag containing some stones of rich tin ore; this bag being near the barrow which contained the samples last brought in from the piles belonging to prisoner and his pair. The stones in that bag Captain Hancock believed to have come mostly from the prisoner's pile of best work; and some of the stones the captains believed to have been brought from some other mine, the stones were so extremely rich. Mr. STOKES concluded that it was not necessary, in support of the indictment, to prove an actual mixing of the rich ores with the samples; it was enough for him to give evidence to warrant the jury in believing that the prisoner took and removed the rich stones of ore, either from his own best pile or from some other place, for the purpose of defrauding the adventurers. One of the men concerned with the prisoner on the Monday night had decamped, and could not be found; and the other was not known. The witnesses for the prosecution were THOMAS NICHOLAS, labourer at Polberrow mine, engaged chiefly at the sampling-house; Capt. NICHOLAS DUNSTAN, an agent of the mine; Capt JOHN HANCOCK, and Capt. RICHARD MARTIN, the two agents who watched at the sampling-house. The defence mainly consisted of evidence that Captains Hancock and Martin had, shortly after the alleged act of kitting, made statements contradictory to their evidence now given; and of an alibi. WILLIAM NICHOLAS, a mine tributer, stated that he was at Polberrow mine the day after the occurrence which formed the subject of the indictment, and heard Captain Hancock say he could not exactly swear to Prout, and that when he saw him in Goonown lane, on the night of the 13th, he thought he had changed his dress. Captain Hancock, when cross-examined in anticipation of this defence, positively denied that he had ever expressed any doubt of Prout's being the man who came out of the sampling-house; and in explanation of his observation concerning Prout's dress in Goonown lane, he said that when in pursuit of Prout on the night in question, he caught sight of HARRIS, who was dressed in different coloured clothes from Prout, and for the moment he imagined that Prout had changed his clothes. JOHN BENNETTS, another miner, was also at Polberrow at the time spoken of by the witness William Nicholas, and confirmed his evidence that Captain Hancock said that when he came upon Prout in Goonown lane, he could not exactly get near to him, as he thought he had another dress on. HENRY ROUSE saw Captain Martin on the Saturday following the occurrence, and asked him what he thought about the affair at the mine. Captain Martin told him that the two men who were in the sampling house bolted, one through the window and one out at the door, and consequently he did not know who the men were, and could not swear to Prout. Capt. Martin, when cross-examined in anticipation of this defence, positively denied that either of the men in the sampling-house bolted at the window; and he equally denied that he had ever said so. WILLIAM PARNELL, constable at St. Agnes, was called up on the night in question, by Capt. HANCOCK, to take charge of Prout. He asked Capt. Hancock if he was sure that Prout was the man he chased out of the mine as he (Parnell) did not like hap-hazard cases. Capt. Hancock said he believed he was. HENRY HUDDY, master shoe-maker at St. Agnes, stated that at eleven o'clock in the night in question, as he was coming out of Tregellas's public-house, he saw Prout going in there. Witness went into the Church-town, and was talking with JOHN DANIEL, and about half-past eleven, Prout came up to them and remained with them till the clock struck twelve, and then went away with Daniel, who asked him to come and take some supper with him. JOHN DANIEL stated that the prisoner went with him from St. Agnes Church-town on the night in question, to his (witness's) house, which they reached a few minutes after twelve; prisoner had supper with witness, and left his house at half-past twelve. The jury consulted for about five minutes, and returned a verdict of Acquittal. THOMAS WYCROFT, 30, pleaded Guilty of stealing on the 3rd of September at the parish of Kea, one shirt, the property of NICHOLAS HODGE. RICHARD RICHARDS, 23, and JAMES COOMBS were severally indicted for feloniously breaking and entering the dwelling house of NICHOLAS HODGE, at the parish of Kea, and stealing articles of clothing, both pleaded Guilty. RICHARD RICHARDS was indicted for having, on the 3rd of September, feloniously broken and entered the dwelling house of TEMPORANCE GROSE, widow, in the parish of Kea, and stealing a silk dress and shawl, her property, pleaded Guilty; but when arraigned on a count which laid the property in ELIJAH GROSE, the prisoner pleaded not guilty. Of course, he was not tried on this latter count. A previous conviction was proved against Richards. At the July sessions, 1850, he was convicted of having stolen on the 10th of April, 1850, a shirt, the property of PAUL EVA; for which he suffered three months' imprisonment. A previous conviction was also proved against James COOMBS. At Wells, Somerset, in 1850, he was convicted of having stolen two pair of boots, the property of the Guardians of the Bedminster Union. He suffered six months' imprisonment at Shepton Mallet gaol, which fact was proved by WILLIAM CARTER, a turnkey of that gaol. JOHN THOMAS, 67, was found Guilty of stealing, on the 1st of September, at Ponsanooth, in the parish of Gluvias, a collar, the property of Mr. JOHN ANDREW. The end..... until next week! Julia Mosman, OPC for St.Austell,Charlestown, and Treverbyn Website at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~staustell W. Briton newspaper transcripts at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wbritonad Please visit the OPC website at http://cornwall-opc.org