116. (M.) Frances, wife of John Flood < no role > proceedingsdefend , was indicted for stealing one pound weight of tea, value 4 s. the property of Elizabeth Penn proceedingsvictim , widow , April 12 .

John Penn < no role > . I am son to the prosecutrix: we live in Holborn, and keep a grocer's shop; the prisoner came on Monday was sevennight, and bought a quarter of an ounce of bohea tea; after she was gone, we missed a pound of green tea which was weighed, and done up in a paper to be sent to a customer with other goods. I sent John Hughes < no role > our servant after her, who brought her and the tea back into the shop.

John Hughes < no role > . After the prisoner was gone out of the shop, my master missing the pound of tea, sent me after her. I overtook her about 3 or 4 hundred yards from our shop; I looked in her apron and saw the tea; I took it out. I asked her, how she came to take it? She said, she did not take it. When I got her in the shop, my master and mistress asked her, how she came to take it? She then fell down on her knees, and asked pardon.

Prisoner's Defence.

I picked the parcel up in the street, and put it in my apron: I had taken it out, and was making a hole in the paper to see what it was, when the young man came and asked me for it.

Hughes. She was not making a hole in it, it was lying in her apron.

Q. From the Prisoner to Penn: Was there not another person in the shop when I was there?

Penn. I believe there was.

Acquitted .