The Felonious Marine Dealer

CONVICTION OF A RECEIVER.

At the London County Sessions on Tuesday, before Mr. Warry, Q.C., Mary Ann Miller, married, who resided and carried on the business of a marine store dealer at Waterloo-town, Mile-end, surrendered to her bail to answer a charge of receiving feloniously from a boy, a large quantity of string, well knowing it to have been stolen, of the value of 1 pound 16s., the property of Messrs. Brown and Eagle, wool merchants, from their Leman-street branch, Whitechapel. The defendant pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Purcell, who appeared for the prosecution, said the facts were very simple. The prosecutors had in their employ a lad named Moore as office-boy, at a salary of 10s. a week, and in consequence of their having since the commencement of the year missed large quantities of string, suspicions were aroused against him. On the 7th of March Thomas Rodwell, chief foreman, and R. Burrell were passing the defendant's premises when they observed in the window a lot of string exposed for sale, which by a peculiar knot in it they at once recognised as the property of their employers. Rodwell went in and asked the price of it, and after some haggling the prisoner sold him some at 2 1/2d. per pound, its value being about 6d. per pound. Detective-inspector Reid and Sergeant Cumner, of the H division, were then communicated with, and when taxed with his crime the office-boy confessed to stealing the string, and in the witness-box said that he commenced his pilferings in January. The defendant, when taken into custody, had in her possession many pounds of string, which was valued at the sum mentioned and identified by the prosecutors as their property, and when confronted with the lad from whom she had bought it at a penny per pound, denied the offence and called him a silly boy for saying anything about it. The evidence conclusively proved her guilty, and the jury found her guilty.
Inspector Reid said the prisoner had never before been convicted, and her husband, who was a respectable man, had given the police every facility.
The learned Chairman said no one in their senses would buy string of a boy worth 6d. or 7d. per lb. for a penny per lb. without knowing that it must have been dishonestly come by. It was an old and true saying that "If there were no receivers there would be no thieves," and the defendant must have an exemplary punishment. He then ordered her to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for 12 calendar months. The prisoner was removed to the cells protesting her innocence.

Source: The Putney and Wandsworth Borough News, Saturday April 5, 1890, Page 7