560. MARY BLACKSLEY proceedingsdefend , ELIZEBTH SIMMONDS proceedingsdefend , and MARTHA WOOD proceedingsdefend were indicted for feloniously stealing on the 27th of September , twenty yards of printed cotton, value 3 l. the property of Thomas Thompson proceedingsvictim privately in his shop .

THOMAS THOMPSON < no role > sworn. I am a linen draper , I live in New-street Covent Garden . On the 27th of September, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the prisoners Blacksley and Simmonds came into my shop under pretence of buying a shawl, they staid there some time bargaining with my shopman.

Q. Were you in the shop. - A. I was; Blacksley stood with her back against some calico placed at the window with some wire before them; my attention was taken up with some customers that I had in the shop; when they were gone I missed Blacksley in a moment, and immediately I missed her I missed a piece of print out of the window. I asked Simmonds where she was gone, she said she did not know, I ran into the street and found her hiding herself at a gentleman's steps in St. Martin's lane; I told her she had stole a piece of print, she denied it, I brought her back to the shop, and I said to her you had better confess.

Q. You must not tell what she said. - A. She had given the cotton to Wood< no role > the moment she left the shop, Wood was waiting in the street.

Q. Did you see Wood in the street. - A. No, not till Blacksley said where the print was, and delivered it up.

- ANTHONY sworn. Q. You are an officer; all you know is finding these things. - A. Yes, in a court in Windmill street.

Blackley's Defence. These two women are as innocent as a child unborn.

(The property identified by the prosecutor.)

BLACKSLEY - GUILTY.

Of stealing only .

Confined One Year in the House of Correction , and fined One Shilling .

SIMMONDS, WOOD, NOT GUILTY .

First Middlesex Jury, before Mr. Recorder.