A Ghost in the City.
The Peckham window-breaking “ghost” has apparently transferred itself to the City. About the beginning of last month, just when Peckham began to grow quiet, several of the shopkeepers in Lombard and Gracechurch Streets began to be annoyed by the mysterious smashing of their windows. The outrages began first in Bell-alley, Lombard Street, where several windows belonging to the Langbourne Coffee House were broken, Messrs. Barclay & Bevan had a skylight smashed, as also had the Lombard Exchange. In Gracechurch Street, Messrs Blanch, gunsmiths, the Grasshopper Grocery Stores, and the Queen Insurance Company were among the sufferers.
The “ghost” was evidently an aristocratic one, for he disdained the use of common stones, and used large marbles, with occasional variations in the way of penny bottles of ink! A reward was offered by the inhabitants, a spiritualist medium was sent for, and detectives set on the watch, who met with better success than their brethren in Peckham, for we understand they have at length discovered the “ghost” in the shape of a foreigner, who, snugly ensconced in a room in one of the houses in Gracechurch Street, amused himself with firing missiles through the open window by means of a catapult. The law, however, would appear to be rather defective in dealing with such wanton perpetration of mischief, for it is stated that the indictment of the offender is the only means the sufferers have of bringing him to justice. Whether this is so or not, we trust that should the case be conclusively proved the offender will receive as severe a punishment as will deter him and others from exercising their mischievous propensities at the cost of their neighbours . – South London Press.
Morning Advertiser, 11th December 1871.
Discharge of Missiles from a catapult.
At the London Mansion House, on Friday, Mr Morris Ranscelot, a well-dressed young man of twenty-three, appeared before the Lord Mayor to answer a summons, obtained on an information at the instance of Messrs. James Innes and another, of 16, Mark-lane, charging him with a wilful act of damage. The complaint was laid under a provision of the Malicious Injuries Consolidation Act, 1861, 24 and 25 Victoria, cap, 97, and the circumstances were peculiar.
Mr Humphreys, solicitor, attended to prefer the charge, and Mr George Lewis, jun., solicitor, appeared for the defendant. It appeared that for some time past large stone bullets, about an inch in diameter, and with a polished surface, have been found about Lombard, Gracechurch, and Fenchurch-streets. They had been thrown with considerable force from some place of concealment, and had done much damage to the windows of banking-houses and offices in the immediate neighbourhood. These missiles are supposed to have been propelled by a catapult, from certain circumstances, but of that there is as yet no positive evidence. Damage to the amount of £6 is said to have been done to the windows of one banking-house in particular, and in consequence the police have been watching the neighbourhood for some time.
Yesterday Ann Carroll was called as a witness. She and her husband are housekeepers to Messrs. Innes and Company, the complainants, and have charge of their offices in Gracechurch-street. About half-past five in the afternoon of the 28th of November she was in the house there, and heard a crash of broken glass, and distinctly saw a stone bullet, which she now produced, come through the staircase window. From the window she could see the house called St Benet’s-chambers, with which the defendant is connected, and which is used for the business of the “Societe Generale.” She heard more windows broken on the same afternoon, and the stones rolling along the roof. A skylight window was broken, and the window of one of the lavatories. It was all done in three or four minutes. She thought a stone could not be thrown by the hand from the defendant’s office to her masters’ premises. She did not know the defendant at all, and had not seen him before.
The husband of the witness deposed that he had previously heard the crashing of broken windows in the neighbourhood. The glass of the skylight that was broken was a quarter of an inch thick; another was starred; two bullets were found in the gutter, and he picked up four more on the roof, all similar in size and appearance. Four windows were broken on the 28th of November in the premises of his employers, and the damage might amount to about £5.
Frederick Lawley, a detective policeman, who, with three others, had been set to watch the neighbourhood, said he was stationed in a bedroom on the third floor of an adjacent house on the day in question, and saw the defendant about half-past 5 in the afternoon, come to a second-floor back window of another house, and lift the bottom sash a little way up, and then pull the top sash down to a level with it. Witness had been keeping watch there several days. He heard a click and something strike against a wall, rebounding three or four times and then falling into the street. The click was repeated about half-a-dozen times, and immediately after each click there was a crash of broken glass, one being immediately below where witness was standing, and the others at a distance. That continued about a quarter of an hour, and after the fire had ceased he saw the defendant come and close the window. He saw no one else there. He went directly, with other detective officers, to the defendant’s office, and rang the bell. The front door was opened, and he saw the defendant coming down the stairs. He told him his business, and accompanied him upstairs. The defendant denied that the window had been opened that afternoon at all, and said he should summon “the lot of them;” adding that he knew nothing about throwing stones. Being asked if he had a catapult, he replied that he had not. Witness did not see anything in his hand when he appeared at the window. There was a large block of buildings between the defendant’s office and the premises of the complainant, but a bullet thrown by a catapult might strike the block and rebound in that direction. None of the windows in the defendant’s office had been damaged at all, but those of Messrs. Barclay’s bank and of several of the neighbouring houses had been, more or less seriously.
Another detective officer spoke to seeing the defendant open a window and put himself in a position as if he were shooting a bow and arrow, immediately after which something struck a signboard with great force. He saw him do the same thing five times afterwards at intervals of about two minutes. He had no doubt the defendant was the man. He had been watching seven or eight days. A stone thrown with a catapult would go a great distance and with immense power.
Elizabeth Martin, living with her father at 53, Gracechurch-street, deposed that, on hearing the crash referred to by the witness Lawley, she saw the defendant, whom she well knew, on a table, in the act of closing a window.
Evidence was given by the police that they had picked up about 400 or 500 of the stone bullets in the neighbourhood, and that since the 28th of November, the day in question, not one had been thrown.
Mr Lewis, in reply, said the defendant utterly denied the charge, and felt the greatest indignation at it. He was in business with his father, and paid a rent of £500 a year for the premises they occupied. He called as a witness in his defence Frank Drummond, one of their clerks, who explained that the room at the window of which the defendant was said to have been seen was that of the manager, who had been abroad five or six weeks, and that, it having smelt much of smoke in his absence, and from not having been occupied, the defendant and witness used to put it up three or four times a week and close it towards evening, both standing on a desk in front of it for that purpose, the window being very heavy. They closed it together on the evening in question, and went into the room and came out together. The defendant threw nothing from the window, and had nothing to throw. The defendant’s father, M. Jules Ranscelot, gave corroborative evidence for the defence, and bore testimony to his son being a young man of exemplary character, and actively engaged in business from day to day.
The Lord Mayor held that the charge had been made out to his satisfaction, and fined the defendant £5 in respect of the damage, and £5 more by way of penalty, being the highest he could inflict, with £2 2s. costs. The money was paid.
Mr Lewis gave notice of his intention to appeal, and undertook to deposit £100 to meet the necessary costs.
Cork Constitution, 20th December 1871.