QSR1839/1/5/9

Depositions and examination: John Martin charged with stealing in a dwelling house

30 October 1838

From: 1838 To: 1831

Elizabeth Ginger, wife of Thomas Ginger of Leighton Buzzard, victualler - last Sunday evening took a piece of beef out of a dish and put it on a vegetable dish on a shelf in the pantry. An hour later missed the beef and suspected Martin who lodged in her house. She looked into his basket which was under the kitchen table and found the beef and some bread she had cut from a loaf and left in a bread basket in the pantry. She showed her husband and put them back in the basket as Martin had gone to bed. In the morning she sent for the constable. The beef and bread were still in the basket, together with some butter cut from a piece she left in the pantry. Identified the beef, bread and butter as hers. James Sherwood of Leighton Buzzard, constable - informed by Mr Ginger that beef and bread belonging to him were in the prisoner's basket. He watched until Martin came out of the house, searched his basket and found the beef, bread and butter. John Martin, stonemason - when he came home on Sunday evening he had a large piece of beef and ate his supper from it, then put the rest in the pantry. After he had a pint of ale he took the piece of beef now produced out of the pantry believing it to be his own, but now realises it was not. He cut his own bread and butter and put it in the basket for his breakfast, and doesn't know how the lump of butter got there.

item

Martin, John,
Ginger, Elizabeth,
Ginger, Thomas,
Sherwood, James

LEIGHTON BUZZARD, stealing, food