QSR1848/1/5/20

Depositions - Abraham Squires charged with receiving one fowl and one tame rabbit from Andrew Pye knowing them to have been stolen.

2 December 1847

From: 1847 To: 1848

Andrew Pye of Luton – on Tuesday 30 Nov he missed 4 hens and a tame rabbit from his yard at New Town in Luton. He believes the rabbit skin now produced by PC Millard to be the skin of his rabbit. It has white foreparts and yellow brown hind parts. The feathers, wings, heads and legs of the fowls produced appear to belong to those he lost. George Wilding of Luton, labourer – on Monday night 29 Nov he left Abraham Squires’ beer shop at New Town with John Barrett and Robert Bigg about 11pm. Soon afterwards they all went into Andrew Pye’s yard at New Town. Bigg went to the place where some fowls were roosting, took 4, broke their necks and gave them to him as he did it. Bigg also caught a rabbit and killed it. Barrett stood outside and they passed the fowls and the rabbit over the palings. They all three went and skinned them in the brown brick field and left the skins there. Bigg took two of the hens, and he and Barrett took the other two and the rabbit and hid them in Abraham Squires’ skittle alley. They made a fire in the stove and cooked and ate one of the hens. They put the bones on the fire and burnt them. About 8am Barrett went into Squires’ house and came back with him. Barrett sold Squires the rabbit and a hen. He had part of a pint of beer then for the rabbit. Barrett put the rabbit and the hen on the top shelf of a cupboard in the back kitchen of Squires’ house after he bought them. That evening Squires told him Barrett had left six pence for him as his share. Yesterday morning when they were in the cage Squires told him that despite what he said to the police last night he was to say to the magistrate that he knew nothing at all about it, and that what mattered was what was said to the magistrate. Squires said he would make him all right if he [Squires] got off. The night before last Squires put a tip on the heel of one of his shoes and some fresh nails on the other. He did not ask him to do it. Squires said they could not track him then. John Millard of Luton, police constable – on Tuesday 30 Nov he examined a shed at the back of Andrew Pye’s premises and found a quantity of fowl’s feathers and some spots of blood under it. He traced the footsteps of 2 people in the garden up to the palings. He found skins of 4 fowls and a rabbit under the hedge in Brown Brick field about 200 yards from Pye’s. From Wilding’s information he examined a stove in Squires’ skittle ground and found a number of burnt bones. He asked Squires if he had had any fowls lately. Squires said he had not had any for 3 or 4 weeks. In the back room of Squires house in the cupboard near the window on the top shelf he found an apron with some fresh blood on it and a wet, fresh fowl’s feather sticking to it. In the fireplace in the same room he found 3 or 4 more fowl’s feathers. Squires said he was at liberty to search any part of his premises. He said he knew he was because he was too late to find what he expected. Squires said “you’re like the girl you’re all behind this time”. He found 2 spots of blood in Squires’ coat pocket. John Keating of Luton, police constable – he was in the passage of the cage at Luton yesterday morning (1 Dec). Wilding and Squires were in separate cells. He heard Squires say to Wilding “never mind what you said last night”. Wilding then said “they wrote it all down”. Squires said “don’t mind that it is only what you say before the Magistrates that will have any weight. You say that I had no hand in it and it will be done with. Don’t be a bloody fool to be bounced by them. You won’t come off any better for what you tell them. You can say you had a drop too much last night and that you don’t know what you did say. Then I’ll see to Brickwood for you.”

item

Squires, Abraham,
Pye, Andrew,
Wilding, George,
Barrett, John,
Bigg, Robert,
Millard, John,
Keating, John

LUTON, Luton New Town, receiving stolen goods, fowls, rabbits, police constable, beerhouses, beerhouse keeper, skittles