The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-19 00:00:00

toxieation; and was in the frequent habit of drink-
ing a whole pint of gin at a single draught. The
prisoner's thirst for drink was so insatiable,
that although she had received a sum of 30s.
on the Saturday after she had been brought to witness's
house, the whole of it had been dissipated by the follow-
ing Monday, and the witness having missed several
trifling articles of apparel during the remainder of the
week, suspected that the prisoner must have purloined
them, and kept a sharp watch upon her actions. Iler
suspicions were at length confirmed by discovering that
one of the missing articles was upon the prisoner's per-
son, and she accused her of stealing it, which the pri-
soner strenuously denied, and quitted the apartment ;
but that and another article having been shortly after-
wards discovered in the water-closet, which the accused
had entered, she called in a policeman and gave her into
custody.

At the first examination, the prisoner, who was ex-
ceedingly agitated, and appeared to be completeiy
crushed by her degrading situation, protested her inno-
cence with great earnestness ; but, having declined to
give any account of herself, or to furnish any clue by
which her friends or relations could be discovered, the
magistrate ordered her to be remanded, that the officer
who had taken her into custody might have an oppor-
tunity of making inquiries respecting her ; and
Police-constable Millgate, of the N division, now
stated that from information he had derived from some
letters and documents which had been found in the

prisoner's possession, he had proceeded on the pre-
ceding day to an army agent's at the west end of the
town, and there ascertained that the name the prisoner
had given at the police-station was wholly fictitious,
that her connexions were of great respectability, and
that she was, in reality, the wife of a colonel in cue of
the West India Regiments, who had been compelled, i❑
consequence of her dissolute conduct and habits of
drinking, to discard her, but had agreed to allow her a
separate maintenance of 30s. a week, which was regu-
larly paid to her through the hands of her husband's
army agents, on condition that all personal communica-
tion between them should cease tor the future. The
constable added, that at every place at which he had
made inquiries respecting her he had received a preci:ely
similar account of her depraved conduct, and that w hen-
ever her money was paid to her it was invariably dissi-
pated within two or three days in the manner described.
It was by no means satisfactorily proved that other
persons might not have had access to the place where
the stolen articles were found ; and
Mr. BROUGHTON, after severely commenting upon the
melancholy spectacle which the prisoner presented in
comparison with the station in society she'had formerly
filled, said that he was of opinion the charge of felony
had not been sufficiently made out to justify the pri-
soner's further detention, and he should therefore order
her to be discharged.
The prisoner, who endeavoured to hide her face from
view as much as possible, was then liberated, and hurried
out of the Court.