248. ELIZABETH WILSON proceedingsdefend was indicted for stealing a piece of silk lutestring, containing sixty-six yards, value 19 l. the property of Thomas Adams proceedingsvictim , privately and secretly in the shop of the said Thomas , March 27th .

JOHN LILLY < no role > sworn.

I am apprentice to Thomas Adams < no role > : as I was entering the shop on the 27th of March, I saw the prisoner standing at the door looking stedfastly in; I asked her her business; she made no reply, but gave a penny to a beggar woman, and they both went away: a gentlewoman in the shop asked me if I had lost any thing, and I immediately missed a piece of lutestring which I had left open on the counter; I pursued the prisoner, and found the lutestring upon her.

SUSANNAH SMITH < no role > . Upon the 27th of March I went to Mr. Adams's shop to look at some silk; the prisoner was in the shop; I was at one counter and she at the other; she looked confused and by her motion I thought she wanted to conceal something, but I did not see her take any thing; she went out in a suspicious manner; I asked the shopman if he had lost any thing; he looked on the counter, and said he missed a piece of lutestring, and went after her.

PRISONER's DEFENCE.

I never was in the shop in my life.

To SMITH. Who was in the shop besides you and the prisoner? - Another shop-man.

GUILTY of stealing to the value of four shillings and ten pence .

Tried by the First Middlesex Jury before Mr. RECORDER.

[Imprisonment. See summary.]