Cambridge Chronicle 14 Jan 1837: Theft from George Hemington Harris
Miriam Houghton, aged 24, was indicted for stealing a table-cloth, a pearl-handed knife, three books, and other articles, the property of Mr. George Hemington Harris, late of Trumpington. — The prosecutor stated that the prisoner was servant to him up to last Michaelmas, and that previous to her leaving him he had missed several articles; he had missed wine from the cellar, the keys of which were kept by the side of the fire-place in the sitting-room. In October last, a woman named Percox brought two bottles of wine and a duplicate to him. Prosecutor gave her 5s, to get a table-cloth out of pawn, which she did; she afterwards brought a band-box - the bonnet which prisoner has on was in that box. Cross examined by Mr. BYLES: After prisoner left his service, she came backwards and forwards to see her fellow-servants. — Mrs. Percox corroborated the evidence of the prosecutor, and said that the prisoner came to her house one evening in October last, apparently in great distress; she said as soon as she could get her things ready she was going to London. Witness offered prisoner an asylum in her house till she had got her things ready. After some conversation (said witness) she showed me a duplicate of some things which had been pledged by her; she then asked me to fetch them out of pawn, and after having done so, I told her she might put them in my drawers. She had some books also — I saw her write in one of them. A little while afterwards she said she wanted some money, and asked me to go with her to pledge a table-cloth; I then asked her how she would get the table-cloth out again, as she was going to London; she replied that I might have it, if I liked to pay the money. The prisoner brought some wine to my house; I then said I should insist upon knowing whether she had got any things not lawfully her own, upon which she replied that they belonged to Mr. Harris, her late master; and I afterwards took them to Mr. Harris. — Cross examined: I told the prisoner that I would give her every chance to make her escape, but that I should certainly take the property back to Mr. Harris. The prisoner was very much distressed when she came to my house, yet she gave me 10s. 4d. to get the table-cloth out of pawn. I remarked to my husband that it was a fine table-cloth, and no poor person’s — The prisoner made a statement before the magistrates, in which she said Mrs. Harris had given her the silk stockings, and that the wine and books were her own. — Mrs. Harris identified the stockings as being her property, and said she had never given the prisoner any silk stockings. In her cross-examination Mrs. Harris admitted that she had given the prisoner cotton stockings, and that the articles in question were missed at different times. — Mr. BYLES addressed the jury on behalf of the prisoner, and contended that without the evidence of Mrs. Percox the case was not clear, and she being an accomplice was not to be believed; that she might have stole the articles herself, and put them into the prisoner’s box for the purposed of fixing the guilt upon her, and clearing herself. — THE CHAIRMAN, in his address to the jury, remarked upon that part of Mr. Byles’s address in which he wished to make it appear that the witness Percox stole the articles, and said he saw nothing in that witnesses’s evidence which could lead the jury to entertain any doubt as to the truth of her statement. — The jury returned a verdict of guilty. — The CHAIRMAN, in addressing the prisoner, said she had been guilty of the most aggravated crime, that of robbing her master, and the Court had thought it right to inflict the most exemplary punishment upon her, and therefore sentenced her to be transported for fourteen years.