THAMES POLICE COURT.—Yesterday, a poor woman, named Mary Ann Blay, who stated that she resided at Limehouse, applied to Mr. Ballantyne and Mr. Broderip, the magistrates, to request their interference under very odd circumstances. The applicant stated that, about three or four months ago, she was on her way home from Poplar, where she had been purchasing some vegetables, when she saw something black lying on the ground. She first supposed it was a piece of coal, but, on stooping to pick it up, discovered it was a hat. She walked onward, with the hat in her right hand, until she reached the Commercial Road, when she was met by a policeman, who asked her where she had got the hat. She informed him that she had picked it up at the corner of the New Road, and the policeman looked at it, and saw the name of Lord John Russell in the inside. He demanded the hat of her, and, on her refusing to give it up to him, he seized the hat, and took her into custody. She was locked up in the station houses and, on the following morning, was brought before the sitting magistrate at that office. The justice, after hearing the policeman’s statement, directed her to be discharged, and gave orders that the hat should be detained for a certain time, in the station house; and, if no owner was discovered, that it should be given up to her. She had, since, made repeated inquiries of the police, but could obtain no information from them, nor any redress for the false imprisonment she had suffered. Mr. Ballantyne asked the applicant if she was sure the hat belonged to Lord J. Russell. The woman said there had been a whitebait Cabinet dinner at Mr. Lovegrove’s, West India Dock Tavern, Blackwall, on the night she found the hat, and Lord John Russell was one of the party. Mr. Ballantyne: Well, I don’t understand how his Lordship could lose his hat at the corner of the New Road. The woman said it was supposed that Lord J. Russell had put his head out of the carriage window, and looked back to see if his friends were following him, when his hat fell off his head, and, as he was a Lord, he would not stop until it was picked up again (laughter). Mr. Ballantyne: What do you want me to do in the matter? The applicant said she wanted to know to whom the hat belonged. Mr. Ballantyne: Why, I should say it belonged to Lord John Russell.