QSR1860/3/5/17

Depositions of Eliza Eggleton, widow late of Dunstable and recently of Tring. Jane Watson, wife of Charles a publican of Dunstable and PC Jeremiah Cuttriss of Dunstable. In the case of Ann Rose Lacey, otherwise Rose Ann Lacey, accused of stealing a calico sheet.

25 June 1860

From: 1860 To: 1860

Eliza Eggleton: on 16 June she had been living at The Butts in Dunstable. She had a little clothes line in her back yard on which a calico sheet hung. She last saw it about 5pm and missing it about 2pm on Sunday. The prisoner was living next door but one to her and had the use of the yard as well. She asked her about the sheet before anyone else and the prisoner said she had not seen it. The following Tuesday PC Cuttriss brought the sheet to her house and she identified it. She saw the prisoner afterwards and she asked her to settle it. Jane Watson: wife of Charles the keeper of the Black Horse public house at Dunstable. On Sunday 17 June the prisoner came to the house and brought a sheet with her. Lacey said it belonged to a poor woman who had burnt her plait and wanted to sell it to get bread for her children. She knew she meant Mrs Eggleton. She gave the prisoner 8 pence for it. The following Tuesday PC Cuttriss came for the sheet. PC Jeremiah Cuttriss: on 19 June he went to the Black Horse and received the sheet from Jane Watson. He showed it to Mrs Eggleton who identified it as her property. He went to Leighton Buzzard after the prisoner but did not find her. He afterwards found the prisoner hidden in a cupboard under the stairs at the house of a man named Pattan at Dunstable. He took her into custody. At first the prisoner said she had not taken it but afterwards admitted someone gave it to her. The prisoner later said she did take it but the prosecutor would settle it. Statement of the accused: on that Saturday her husband asked her to go out with him. When she came back she went out of the back door and found a sheet on the ground. They were in the habit of taking in one another’s items and so she took it in. The drink being in her head she could not account for anything else.

item

Lacey, Ann Rose,
Lacey, Rose Ann,
Eggleton, Eliza,
Watson, Jane,
Watson, Charles,
Cuttriss, Jeremiah,
Flintham, Joseph

DUNSTABLE, Tring, stealing, publican