FIVE GUINEAS REWARD.

WHEREAS, between twelve and one o'clock on the night of Sunday the fourteenth instant, as James Blance, Shipmaster in Peterhead, was travelling on horseback between Ellon and Aberdeen, he was accosted, a little to the northward of the Tollbar at Belhelvie, by a man having the appearance of a sailor, who rose from behind a dyke at the road side, and ordered him to stop; and he having declined to do so, and put spurs to his horse, the said man fired a pistol at him, as he rode off, by the ball from which he narrowly escaped being wounded;

A REWARD OF FIVE GUINEAS

Is hereby offered to any person who will apprehend and detain the man above mentioned, or give such information respecting him, to Hugh Fullerton, Procurator Fiscal of Aberdeenshire, as shall be the means of his being apprehended and brought to justice.

DESCRIPTION.

The said man has the appearance of a sailor, is of middle size, stout made, has large whiskers nearly meeting each other and was dressed in a brown jacket, dark blue trowsers, and either a black leather, or a glazed hat.

Aberdeen, July 15, 1816.

Published in the Aberdeen Journal, Wednesday 17th July 1816.

Prison sentences for violent assault

For several successive days in January last, a number of idle and disorderly persons, consisting partly of boys, and partly of sailors, apprentice tradesmen, and others, assembled in the neighbourhood of Old Aberdeen, trespassing on the fields, throwing stones, annoying passengers, and otherwise disturbing the public peace.  Several of them were apprehended; and on Wednesday last, Alexander McLean and John Solomon, sailors, and William Forbes, apprentice cork-cutter, were convicted before the Sheriff, on the complaint of the Procurator Fiscal, of having been actively engaged in these riotous proceedings: and also of having committed a violent assault on James Anderson, gardener in Old Aberdeen, at whom they had taken offence, on account of his endeavouring to drive the mob off his grounds.  McLean was sentenced to confinement and hard labour in Bridewell for three months, and Solomon and Forbes for two months.  It is hoped, this example will operate as a salutory check to similar practices in time coming.

Published in the Aberdeen Journal, Wednesday 13th March 1816.