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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
memi t ^ ty * ° fire * names the above list , excited a too gt iwirai
( Commiseration in the neighbour * hood ia which they had resided , Jo be soon forgotten ; it is bill I remembered and related . The writer is Dot unaware that caution
2 $ necessary in judging of fac t * from floating reports and papular impressions . He has taken some pains $ o arrive at the truth ^ and believes tlhat the following short statetoerj't contains the truth * the
tvJlole tinrth ^ and nothing but the truth ; and it appears to him to shew the very sanguinary character of the English criminal code in a more striking light than any » act which has hittoerto been submitted
to the public . Thomas Lastley , John Stevens , John Booth , and Michael Binghairi , were men employed in the Sheffield manufactures . On Sa «
turday evening , August 29 * 17 b 9 » lifter having received their week ' s wages , as usual , they spent some lime together &t a short distance from Hewn . Returning very late in the evening , they iound the
prosecutor , John Wharton , lying -extended upon one of the bridges , ^ part ly intoxicated , and either asleep , or pretending to be so . -At the distance of a few yards Jr < wm him stood a basket , 'which
it appeared belonged to kirn , and cttitamed several articles of < pro » -Vfeiton Jhe had just been pureha ^ mg . fBooth v « ry loolkfaiy took up the 4 {* &gk < rt , aftd removed with it to sorafc distance ; the other -three
• roused Wharton , and some alterication ensued on his discovering < h « ttee basket was gone . In the tti ^ iwi time Booth returne < l , bring . 4 ttg with him the Imsket and if * < &tiltms . ffe : |> r ^ € to led it to ^ Vfaa ^ t ^ h , tvhw > refused to receive
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it , and leaving the party in pot . session ot it , went home , threatening that" he would oa « ik « them smart for what they had done . * With the same highly censura - ble imprudence and impropriety with which they bad first acted , they took tj > e basket of provisions to a public house , and there re . galed themselves upon its contents . Early in the next week , Wharton with great reason made a complaint to a neighbouring ma . gistrate . He issued his warrants for the apprehension of the whole party , and they were committed to the castlt * at York . On their
trial Bingham was acquitted . Booth was found partially guilty , and sentenced to seven years' transportation . The fete of Stevens and Lastley has been already men . tioned *
Wbarton had publicly declared before the trial , that he would not appear against them ; and such was the general persuasion in the town where they were known , $ hat . if be d ' tid prosecute them to
conviction , their lives could not be placed in danger , there being evidently more of frolic tban of ( malignity in the transaction , that no person appeared upon their trial to > givt xlu ? m a character they
deserved , of being , on the whole , steady , pndustrioiis , harmless men . It was generally supposed that the prosecutor was induced to follow up his complaint to thtfir coirviction capitally by die lure of the
reward held out by the statutes 4 and 5 William and Mary , and 8 Geo . II , to persons prosecuting high-way robbers to conviction . Wilh the money he received Wbarton set up a small shop near Sheffield : here he was soon unhoused -by an indignant mob . It was n # ty
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$ 99 Case of La $ tlty and St&aeiis , executed at York .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1812, page 232, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1747/page/24/
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