658. JOHN ASKEW proceedingsdefend was indicted for feloniously stealing on the 4th of October instant, a pair of linen sheets, value 7 s. the goods of William Orton proceedingsvictim .

WILLIAM ORTON < no role > sworn.

The prisoner came to my house the 4th of this month; I keep the Queen's Head, the bottom of Darkhouse-lane, Billingsgate ; he said he was going down in the boat; I said, it is not worth your while to go to bed, it will be high water about half after twelve; he said two hours would do him a great deal of service; he flung down half a crown, and wanted to have a bed for a shilling; the maid told him she thought a sixpenny bed would serve him very well; and she gave him two shillings change, and put him into a two bedded room, and he begged to be called at high water, and he was called; he came down with a pillow-case that had my sheets in, and he came to the bar and had a glass; it was his own pillow case; one of the men belonging to the boats came and said, Who is for Gravesend? Which is a general rule with them; the prisoner said, I am going; he and several more went out of the house together, and he turned up the lane: the boatman said, Are not you going? he went into the Green Man and Ball: it is a rule for my maid to see if the rooms are empty, and how the things stand: she came and told me the prisoner had taken the sheets off the bed; I took a sculler, and went to the Gravesend boat; I could not find him; one of the men told me where he was; I went there, and brought him to my house; I was constable of the night, and I found my sheets in his bundle: he never would give much account of himself; he says he was going to Chatham, and that he has a wife and five children, but they are in the workhouse, and have been so these two years.

Prisoner. It was out of a point of necessity, I beg for mercy; I have been in the woollen manufactory of a rug maker for seven years: the last seven years I have been clerk to different gentlemen in the lottery business.

Court. What excuse can you make now to mitigate your offence?

Prisoner. I had been out of business some time; I have a wife that lays in now; my wife has been in the workhouse, she was big with child; I had three children at home with me; I could not maintain them, and I went on the hop duty in Kent; Commissioner Scott, who was my friend, is since dead: at Chatham I had been at work, and I came to enquire after my wife, and was informed she was in labour; and she sent me word out she should be glad if I could assist her with a few shillings more than the workhouse would allow her: it was through this necessity that I did it.

Court. You would have use understand that this was done on the spur of necessity; have you any body of character that can satisfy the Jury and me that you are a man of character hitherto? if you can do that, there will be no objection to your receiving favour.

The prisoner called no witnesses.

GUILTY .

Transported for seven years .

Tried by the London Jury before Mr. Baron EYRE < no role > .