[Pasmal-bugs] features. 'I do trust

[Ly M. <sa...@rs...>]

Of the windows of the identical garret with somebody occupied in lopping
wood outside. Nay, a person had seen a poor woman, with the odd name of
Natis, in bed in that very room. His reason for entering it was a
curious one, which has almost a historical bearing. He went to try the
ironwork of a sign which had once hung in front of the house, and lay in
the garret. The sign had been taken down when the Jacobite army
penetrated into England in the Rebellion of 1745. Probably it had been
of a character likely to be offensive to the Jacobites, and its removal
is a little incident, shewing how greatly the country apprehended a
revolution in favour of the Stuarts. These discrepancies were, however,
far from being the most remarkable part of the evidence. Not content
with shewing that Elizabeth Canning had told falsehoods, the prosecutor
set to the laborious task of proving where the gipsy woman had been,
along with her son and daughter, charged as her accomplices, during the
time embraced by the mere active part of Elizabeth's narrative. From the
vagrant habits of the race, evidence to the most minute particulars had
thus to be collected over a large range of country; and the precision
with which the statements of a multitude of people--of different ranks
and pursuits, and quite unknown to each other, as well as to the person
they spoke of--are fitted to each other, is very striking and
interesting. The most trifling and unconsequential-looking facts tell
with wonderful precision on the result. Thus a lodging-house keeper
remembered the woman Squires being in her house on a certain day, and
she made it sure by an entry in an account-book, as to which she
remembered that she had consulted the almanac that she might put down
the right day. The day of the woman's presence in another place was
identical with the presence of an Excise surveyor, and the statements of
the witnesses were tested by the Excise entry-books. The position of the
wanderers was in another instance connected with the posting of a
letter, and the post-office clerks bore testimony