The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-27 00:00:00

THAMES.

SINGULAR FRAUDS ON SHOPKEEPERS.—EIIen Callahan
22, Ann Dewly, 30, and Ellen Sheridan, alias Sullivan,
with other aliases, 23, who all refused to give their ad-
dresses, were brought before Mr, Partridge, charged with
committing frauds on shopkeepers.
The prisoners are all natives of Ireland, and kept up a
continual clamour. They have been going about the dis-
trict with a fourth Irishwoman occasionally, for some time,
and the modus operandi of this female gang of swindlers in
a small scale was described by Mr. George Pound, a beer-
seller, at the corner of Patterson-street and Charles• street,
Stepney. He said the prisoner Callahan came into my
shop by herself. She asked for a bottle of lemonade,
and tendered a five-shilling piece in payment. At
the same time she asked me to give her sixpences in
change, I put down 9 sixpences and 3 pence on the co4n-
ter, deddcting from the dollar the price of the lemonadd
The pri-oner asked me the price of the bottle of lemonade,
and on my answering that it was 3d., she said, " I won't
have it," and put down the change I had given her on the
counter, but instead f 4s. 9d. she only returned 3s. 9d.,
and walked out of the shop. The other prisoners Dewry
and Sheridan, and another woman joined her. I knew I
had been swindled of a shilling, and followed them until I
met a policeman, and gave them into custody. One of the
Irishwomen made her escape. Callahan here exclaimed,
" I am guilty of stealing the shilling, I picked it up oft
the counter, because he left it there."

Mr. Pound—She only gave me 3s, 9d, when I returned
hex the ss. piece.

Francis Toy, greengrocer, of 33, Clarke-street, Stepney,
said the three prisoners and another woman came into his
shop. Davey said, " Will you serve me with 31b. of pota-
toes ?" He weighed them, and she first directed him to
put the potatoes into Callahan's apron, and then said,
"Stop a minute, let them stop on the scale," and gave him
a crown piece. She asked him for all sixpences in change.
He had not got sufficient sixpences, and gave her four six-
pences and 3s. in change. He counted the whole of it into
her hand, and said, "Now, I have got to take 2id. for the
potatoes." Davey then said she wanted a half-crown piece
for some of the silver, and put down 4s. on the counter, and
he told her there was only 45., and she asserted that was
all he had given her. He ordered her to put the shilling
she had in her hand on the counter, and she did so, and at
the same time took up a sixpence. He seized hold of her
left hand, recovered the whole of his change, and said,
" You vagabond, you want to rob me." He turned all the
women out of the shop, and while doing so one of them stole
a large cuc,imber.
Sarah Murdle, sister of Mr. Thomas Murdle, baker, 32,
Clark-street, Stepney, said Callahan came into my
brother's shop and asked for a loaf. She gave a five shil-

ling piece, and I gave her 4s. fid, in silver and 22d. in
coppers. The prisoner said she could get a half quartern
loaf any where for 3d., and demanded her five shilling
piece again. I gave it to her, and she only returned to me
3s 61. in silver and the half-pence. Mr. Murdle came into
the shop and demanded the other shilling, which she had
in her hand. It was returned, and she then wanted the
loaf again. I refused to let her have it, and she left the
shop.

Henry Lewis, No. 203 K, said he took the prisoners into
custody. They had all been in custody before, and had
given much trouble to shopkeepers. The tour Irish
women, one of whom escaped from him, had been plunder-
ing and swindling tradesmen.

Mr. Partridge—I shall convict all the prisoners for trial
Take the depositions, Mr. Bawdier.

ROASTED ALIVE.—A melancholy case of empiri-
cism was last week brought before one of the cor-
rectional tribunals of the west of France. The accused is an
herb doctor, who was then charged with having a short time
previously literally baked a woman alive in order to cure an
attack of rheumatism from which she had long suffered. The
cure for this disorder. practised by the Sieur Lenoble " with
success upon his own father," was to put his patients, lying
in a bed of reeds freshly plucked from a river, in a baker's
oven till their couch should be reduced to power with the
heat. The husband of the woman whom Lenoble las t
cooked deposed to her having, when abut up an hour in the
oven, complained that her side was being burned. The
quack ascended into the charnbre ardente and applied some
leaves to the burn. He had hardly descended when the
patient complained of another burn, The same remedy
was no sooner applied to it than the woman Carr
said that ber physician "must remain with her in the stove
till the rheumatism would be baked out of her." She then
cried that she felt herself ill from head to foot, on wh:eh
Lenoble assured her that it was nothing, for that if see
wanted to be cured she must endure all the suffering it was
possible to inflict on her. After a long interval of silence,
which struck the quack as being very strange, "seeing that
the woman chatted to him during the application of the
cure," he resolved to draw her out of the oven. She was
then senseless. Vinegar and reed roots were then applied,
but without effect; and nest morning the unhappy woman
died without having in the meantime shown any sign of
consciousness. Lenoble was condemned only to pay a tine
of 50f, and to six months' imprisonment.