Susannah Douglass

135

C H on 10th March 2024

Old Bailey Online SUSANNAH DOUGLAS. Theft; grand larceny (to 1827). 11th September 1799. Text type Trial account Defendants SUSANNAH DOUGLAS Offences Theft > Grand larceny Session Date 11th September 1799 Reference Number t17990911-15 Verdicts Guilty Punishments Transportation 398. SUSANNAH DOUGLAS was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 22d of July , a half-guinea , the property of Joseph Ash . JOSEPH ASH sworn. - I am a journeyman carpenter , and a single man : On the 23d of July last, as I was walking along Cheapside , there was the prisoner, and five or six more women, standing at the corner of the Old Change; it was after one o'clock in the morning, I was sober, and perfectly recollected, I had been out all the afternoon; about six o'clock in the evening I came from Blackwall, I was coming home from Bethnal-green when I met her, it was near twelve o'clock when I came from there, I was alone; she came from the rest, and met me on the middle of the pavement, and asked me where I was going; I said, home; she asked me to go with her; I said I would not; while I stood talking to her, she put her hands on each side of me, and I found her hand in my left side coat-pocket, under my coat, it being open; she stood close to me, I pushed her from me, and she came towards me again; I found, after that, as she was talking to me, her hand in my left hand breeches pocket; as I felt her draw it out of my pocket, I asked her what she had in her hand, and she said nothing; I laid hold of her hand, and told her, if she did not open her hand I would take her to the watch-house; she would not open it, but fell down; I got her to the watch-house with the assistance of another person; I told the constable she had picked my pocket, and would not open her hand; I told him, if she had any property of mine in money, I could swear to a crooked half-guinea; he opened her hand and found it there, she did not make any objection to it, I cannot say what she said; she said I gave it her for a sixpence, the constable has had it ever since; I was not with her five minutes in the whole. I did not offer her any thing, I had nothing else but a seven-shilling-piece, and a shilling in silver; I had seen my money at the last place I had paid my reckoning, at Bethnal-green, and had had no conversation with any other woman. I was sober enough to know all that passed, I had been drinking some time, but I do not drink much; I was fresh, and knew every thing; I drank nothing but porter. Prisoner. Q. Did you not give it me instead of a sixpence? - A. No, I gave you no money at all. - BRIGGS sworn. - I am constable of Cheap Ward: I produce a half-guinea. Ash. It is a crooked half-guinea, and a pale one; there is a small mark, it is bent up on both sides, and there is a head, I did not notice it any further; it was an old one, and I cannot recollect whether it was a spade half-guinea or not, I had it in change. Briggs. I took it out of the prisoner's hand in the watch-house; Ash charged her with robbing him of half-a-guinea; she said, Ash had given it to her for sixpence, there was nothing freer than a gift, and she would keep it; I have kept it ever since; he told the same story the next day. Prisoner's defence. I gave the half-guinea into the watch-house, he gave it me instead of a sixpence; between Queen-street and Bow-lane, two men met me, and asked me where I was going; one asked me to stop a-bit, as he was going to his friend to wish him good night, and he would come to me again; I stopped, and he came back; I am an unfortunate woman; I mean the prosecutor; we went down on the left hand side of Bow-lane; I stopped there, and asked him if he would give me a compliment, and he gave me, as I thought, a sixpence; I asked if it was all he was going to give me, as that would not buy me a breakfast; says he, I will give you a shilling, and he said, out of mistake I gave you half-a-guinea, and I said, nothing is freer than a gift; the man says, he was robbed in Old Change, I was taken in Bow-lane. GUILTY . (Aged 30.) Transported for seven years .

338

Penny-Lyn Beale on 5th September 2021

New South Wales, Australia, Convict Indents. Age; 30