QSR1852/2/5/13/a

Depositions of John Thomas Coling, farmer of Carlton. In the case of Robert Mole accused of stealing a quantity of barley meal, beans and peas.

16 March 1852

From: 1852 To: 1852

John Thomas Coling: on the afternoon of 6 March he was in his Upper farm where he kept a quantity of corn and meal. The prisoner was working on the farm that day. He had been working for Coling for about a year and a half. About 2 and 3 o'clock his attention fell to a bag of oats which a pig was eating. He took the bag which was a small one, the type of which labourers would bring their 'food in'. He enquired of all the other labourers to show him their bags or handkerchiefs or whatever they had used to bring their 'food in'. Everyone produced a bag or cloth except the prisoner and his son (and one other who had clearly brought in food without a wrapper). Mole said he thought it in his basket but when asked where his basket was he pointed one on a nearby mail. He then said he did not know if he had brought in bag or not. Coling took down the basket and found a bag containing barley and meal. Mole said it was not his bag as he now recollected he had not brought in a bag that day. Coling believed the meal in the bag to match that in his boiling house. The boiling house was not locked in the daytime and the prisoner was in the yard cutting chaff. Constable Barker later showed him some beans and peas which he believed corresponded directly with his own. (cross examination) In the morning a man named Flanders had been with the prisoner spreading manure and afterwards they went to cut chaff together. Flanders was able to produce a bag when asked for it.

item

Mole, Robert,
Coling, John Thomas

CARLTON, stealing, beans, peas, barley