PETERSFIELD.
SPECIAL PETTY SESSIONAL BUSINESS, Tuesday.—Present: The Hon. J. J. Carnegie (chairman), and J. Waddington, Esq.
This was a special sessions for appointing overseers and parish constable, when the attendance was punctual. The only business besides was only two cases of tramping women, one for begging, and afterwards stealing a pair of stockings, the other for begging at the house of a policeman.
CAROLINE PURSE was the first charged, who, it appeared from the evidence adduced, went on the 16th instant, to the house of James Coombs, at Woodcrofts, in the parish of Chalton, where she called to beg, and upon leaving stole a pair of stockings, hanging upon the garden hedge to dry.
Prisoner, in her defence, said—‟The stocking was blowed away, and they was free for anybody to pick up.”—Three weeks’ imprisonment, with hard labour.
CHARLOTTE SMITH was the second, charged by police constable Charles Abraham, with begging at his house, in the parish of Buriton.
From the statement of the prisoner, it appeared she had been a washerwoman at Reading, in Berks, and wishing to go to London, she had taken the circuitous route to Portsmouth and on to Petersfield, when, after lodging a night or two, she again started, in a wrong direction, to Buriton, where she was taken into custody.
Her well stored wallet was exposed, when a large quantity of bread, some buttered, with some meal, was exhibited, with eight-pence halfpenny taken from her pocket.—Sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment.