BOW STREET.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3101, 6 June 1881, Page 4

BOW STREET.

The old police-court at Bow-street was used for magisterial cases for the last time on April 2. Mr Flowers sat throughout the day, and was therefore the last Magistrate to give judgment in this famous old building, associated with the names of the two Fieldings, Sir William Addington, Sir Richard Ford, Mr Read, Sir Nathaniel Conant, Sir Robert Baker, Sir Richard Birnie. Mr T. J. Hall, Sir Thomas Henry (by whose perseverance and industry the grant was obtained for the present new courts), and Sir James Ingham, who is the present chief magistrate. Tbe above represent the chief magistrates from 1750 to the present time. The salary of Fielding and his contemporaries was £400. This was afterwards raised to £600. The Bowstreet runners were dispensed with about the year 1829, when Sir Robert Peel's Police Act came in force. One of the principal of those magistrates was Sir Richard Birnie, whose name became famous in connection with tho Cato-street conspiracy. The more recent of the clebrated cases heard in the present court were the attempted assassination by the Baron de Vidil of his own son, who himself was prosecuted for not giving evidence against his father ; the attempted assassination of the late Emperor of the French by Orsini, &c, and the prosecution of Dr. Bernard for making or employing the bombs for the purpose ; the charge against the " Flowery Land" pirates ; against Muller, for the murder of Mr Briggs; tho Fenians for partially blowing up the House of Detention, Clerkenwell, in order to liberate the other imprisoned Fenians, Burke and Casey ; the prosecution of Governor Eyre ; the Bolton and Park case ; an attempt to assassinate Her Majesty the Queen by the boy O'Connor; Jean Luie for perjury in the Tichborne case ; the prosecution of four detectives and a solicitor for assisting the criminals in the De Gkmcourt turf frauds ; the two "Spiritualism" prosecutions, one against Dr. Skde for "spirit " slate writing, and the recent charge against Mrs Fletcher, for defrauding Mr Hart Davies of £10,000, which last case is now being tried.