Source: The Daily News, 14,452
Date:  28 July 1892
Place:  London

COUNTY OF LONDON SESSIONS
(Before Sir P. H. Edlin, Q.C., Chairman, at Clerkenwell.)

THE USE OF THE REVOLVER. - A German, aged 28, who described himself as a mason, and gave the assumed name of Joseph Higgins, was indicted for stealing five watches and other articles of the value of 60l., the property of Henry Pluckrose, of the Cunningham Arms, Uxbridge-road. He was also charged with assaulting a carman named Root and a police-sergeant who followed and apprehended him, by threatening them with a revolver. - Mr. Blackwell prosecuted. - Mr. Lawless, who appeared for the prisoner, explained his presence in Mr. Pluckrose’s apartments, by the fact of his having mistaken a private room for a lavatory, and seeing the watches there yielded to temptation, he having lost all his money a night or two previously in Piccadilly. With regard to the revolver, he regretted having produced it, but the learned counsel reminded the Court that the prisoner had only just returned from America, where, unfortunately, the practice of carrying revolvers seemed very prevalent. - The Chairman: Indeed. Is that so? It certainly seems to be becoming the practice here. - Mr. Lawless further urged that the prisoner did not intend to use the weapon, but only to frighten his captors, for he had said to the policeman: “I will not take what I cannot give back - life.” - The Chairman: Did that remark apply to the property he took also? (Laughter.) - Mr. Lawless replied that the prisoner had intended to intimate that he would not take a life that he could not give back. - The Chairman then asked whether the prisoner could find sureties for his good behaviour, and Mr. Lawless said not in this country. - The Chairman ordered him to be imprisoned with hard labour for four calendar months for the larceny, to be followed by a further period of four months for the assault, and that he afterwards enter into his recognisances to the sum of 100l. to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.