friends were thieves of the lowest kind. She
was the daughter of a Durham man who had held
a small public situation in Dublin, who then
came to London; but, at his wife's death,
returned to Ireland, leaving his daughter, a
sprightly and well-educated girl, servant at the
Black Horse alehouse, where she had formed
a fatal acquaintance with a dissolute woman
named Mary Tracey, and two thieves named
Alexander, whom she accused of the murder,
owning herself to a share in the robbery only.
The Newgate turnkeys knew her at once, for she
had been often to the prison to see an Irish
thief who had been convicted of stealing the
pack of a Scotch pedlar.

The lost woman at her trial was quick and
fierce in her quibbling questions, and she
denounced the witnesses who could remember this
and that, and yet could not remember the colour
of her dress nor the exact number of moidores
lost. But the proofs of her guilt were
palpable, and one of the turnkeys of Newgate
proved the discovery of the stolen money.
His evidence is curious, and we give it verbatim,
because it abounds with singular details that
serve to show the disgraceful and disorderly
state of our London prisons in Hogarth's time.

Roger Johnson, a jailer, deposed that the
prisoner saw a room where the debtors were, and
asked if she might not be in that room? I told
her it would cost her a guinea, and she did not
look like one that could pay so much. She said
if it was two or three guineas, she could send for
a friend that would raise the money. Then she
went into the tap-house among the felons, and
talked very freely with them. I called for a
link and took her up into another room, where
there was none but she and I. "Child," says
I, "there is reason to suspect that you are guilty
of this murder, and therefore I have orders to
search you" (though indeed I had no such
orders). Feeling under her arms, she started
and threw back her head. I clapped my hand
to her head, and felt something hard in her hair,
and, pulling off her cap, I found this bag of
money. I asked her how she came by it, and
she said it was some of Mrs. Duncomb's money.
"But, Mr. Johnson," says she, "I'll make you
a present of it, if you will but keep it to
yourself, and let nobody know anything of the
matter; for the other things against me are
nothing but circumstances, and I shall come off
well enough; and therefore I only desire you to
let me have threepence or sixpence a day till
the sessions is over, then I shall be at liberty
to shift for myself." I told the money over,
and, to the best of my knowledge, there was
twenty moidores, eighteen guineas, five broad
pieces—I think one was a twenty-five-shilling-
piece, and the others twenty-three-shilling-
pieces—a half broad piece, five crowns, and two
or three shillings. I sealed them up in the bag,
and here they are.

Court: How did she say she came by the
money?

Johnson: She said she took this money and
this bag from Mrs. Duncomb, and begged me to
keep it secret. "My dear," said I, "I would
not secrete the money for the world." She told
me, too, that she had hired three men to swear
the tankard was her grandmother's, but could not
depend upon them; that the name of one was
William Denny, another was Smith, and I have
forgot the third. After I had taken the money
away, she put a piece of mattress in her hair,
that it might appear of the same bulk as before.
Then I locked her up, and sent to Mr. Alstone,
and told him the story. "And," says I, "do
you stand in a dark place to be witness of what
she says, and I'll go and examine her again."

Prisoner: I tied my handkerchief over my
head to hide the money, but Buck, happening
to see my hair fall down, he told Johnson, upon
which Johnson came to me and said, "I find
the cole's planted in your hair; let me keep it
for you, and let Buck know nothing of it." So
I gave Johnson five broad pieces and twenty-
two guineas, not gratis, but only to keep for
me, for I expected it to be returned when
sessions was over. As to the money, I never
said I took it from Mrs. Duncomb; but he
asked what they had to rap against me. I told
him only a tankard; he asked me if that was
Mrs. Duncomb's, and I said yes.

Court: Johnson, were those her words:
"This is the money and bag that I took"?

Johnson: Yes; and she desired me to make
away with the bag.

Mr. Alstone, another officer of the prison,
deposed to telling Johnson to get the bag from
the prisoner, as it might have some mark upon
it. Johnson then called her, and, while Alstone
stood by watching from a dark corner, Sarah
Malcolm gave him the bag and told him to burn
it. She told him (Alstone) that part of the
money found on her was Mrs. Duncomb's.

The prisoner made her own defence with
hypocritical frankness, but tried hard to drag three
innocent people with her to the gibbet. She said:

"I freely own that my crimes deserve death;
I own that I was accessory to the robbery, but
I was innocent of the murder, and will give an
account of the whole affair.

"I lived with Mrs. Lydia Duncomb about
three months before she was murdered; the robbery
was contrived by Mary Tracey, who is now in
confinement, and myself, my own vicious
inclinations agreeing with hers. We likewise
proposed to rob Mr. Oakes, in Thames-street; she
came to me at my master's, Mr. Kerrel's
chambers, on the Sunday before the murder was
committed; he not being then at home, we
talked about robbing Mrs. Duncomb; I told
her I could not pretend to do it by myself, for
I should be found out. 'No,' says she, 'there
are the two Alexanders (Thomas and James)
will help us.' Next day I had seventeen pounds
sent me out of the country, which I left in Mr.
Kerrel's drawers. I met them all in Cheapside
the Friday following, and we agreed on the next
night, and so parted.

"Next day, being Saturday, I went between
seven and eight in the evening to see Mrs.
Duncomb's maid, Elizabeth Harrison, who was