From the Richmond Dispatch, 8/30/1864, p.1, c. 7

Mayor’s Court, yesterday – Recorder Caskie presiding. – Granville Montelle was arraigned for the fifth or sixth time on the same charges: those of stealing a horse from Henry Debell and one from the Confederate States. From any connection with Debell’s horse he was promptly discharged. With regard to the horse said to belong to the Confederate States, he was sent on for examination before the Hustings Court. (This is a case that has been before the courts for several weeks past, the evidence in which has already been published.)

Reuben, slave of Thomas Branch, was charged with stealing a teapot, valued at $100, and a ham of bacon, worth $50, all the property of Emma Cummings. Owing to the absence of important witnesses, the case was continued till this morning.

Frank Gray, a free negro, charged with living in the city with Goochland papers, was dismissed on the ground that he would leave the city for his native county as soon as possible.

James Dunn, a white boy, recently escaped from the poor-house, was brought forward on the charge of stealing iron from the Petersburg railroad depot. The offence was fully proved; but the Recorder, in consideration of his youth, and a promise that he would go where he belongs and sin no more, released him.

Robert, slave of St. Clair Hartman, charged with receiving fourteen bedquilts and one oilcloth, knowing them to have been stolen, was ordered to receive thirty-nine lashes, well laid on. (The quilts were stolen from a Confederate hospital.) Tom, slave of J. Phillips, was ordered ten lashes for trespassing upon the premises of Felix Mathews; a boy named Thomas, slave of Robert Mitchell, charged with throwing stones in the street, was ordered to be whipped; Solomon, slave of Mrs. Martha Sledd, was ordered thirty-nine stipes for stealing a pot of butter, valued at forty-five dollars, from William L. Stanley, at the Second Market, on yesterday morning.

J. C. McGee was fined ten dollars for buying watermelons at the Second Market to sell again. – One hundred dollars’ worth of melons, purchased by McGee, were confiscated. (McGee is a one-armed soldier, and according to the testimony of the surgeon in charge of Winder Hospital, was empowered to purchase melons for re-sale to the soldiers there, in order to prevent them from poaching upon the melon fields in the neighborhood.)

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