533. ANN ROBERTS , otherwise Hall proceedingsdefend , was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 10th day of May, fourteen yards of printed cotton, value 34 s. the property of Henry Thwaites proceedingsvictim , privily in his shop .

THOMAS BALL < no role > sworn.

I am shopman to Mr. Thwaites, linen-draper , in West-street, Seven Dials ; about three in the afternoon, the prisoner came to our shop with another woman, and asked for some printed cotton, there were many others in the shop besides me; I shewed her several, and after seeing several, after some time hentating, and not seeming to like any of them, I saw her conceal this under her clothes which was one of those that was shewn her; I let her go out of the shop before I let it be known to any one; I then immediately followed her into the street, and brought her back to the middle of the shop, and informed my master; and a constable was sent for, and while he was sent for I ordered her to drop the cotton that she had concealed under her clothes, which she immediately dropped on the floor; this is the cotton.

(The cotton deposed to.)

PRISONER's DEFENCE.

I went into the shop to buy a bit for a bedstead, I bid him two shillings a yard, and he pulled me back into the shop, and I said, he was very welcome to search me, and he took up my petticoats, and found nothing about me, and found the cotton laying upon the ground close to the counter, and he said, Oh! here it lies; it was in the middle of the shop, three yards from any compter.

Ball. It is false what she says.

Prisoner. If you speak the truth, you know it did, you know you said so at the Justices, so you know you did.

Jury. Was it tied up when taken away, or loose? - It was loose.

GUILTY Of stealing, but not privately .

To be privately whipped , and confined to hard labour six months in the House of Correction .

Tried by the second Middlesex Jury, before Mr. Baron PERRYN < no role > .