Star.
London, England, 1823-10-27 00:00:00

CA MBRIDG E COUNTY SESSIONS.

John Kitson, and Jane Kitson, his wife,who were com-
mitted for trial under the Vagrant Act, as rogues and
vagabonds, were put to the bar.
The circumstances of this case were very singular,
from the curious system of deceit and fraud which had
been carried on by the prisoners. They were accus-
tomed to travel about the country in a caravan, and
practice on the credulity of persons in the lower sphere
of life, by pretending to an almost miraculous power
of discovering and curing diseases of every kind. The
woman on their journies feigned to be deaf and dumb,
and carried with her several papers, purporting to be
by the authority of the-King, certifying,thAt she, Mrs.
Jane Kitson, or Mrs. Mary Molineux, &c. according to
the name she wished to assume, was the daughter of an
eminent physician, aad born deaf and dumb. She then
produced a book containing such sentences as " You
have a cake growing on your side, which if not re-
moved will cause your death ; I can remove it or
" you have got the dropsy," &c. with the same promise
of relief. This book she shewed to those whom she
wished to become her patients, and pointing to any of its
numerous stock of diseases with which she desired to
afflict them, promised, at the same time, a speedy cure
if they would buy her medicines. As she pretended to
be dumb, she carried with her paper containing an-
swers to the questions most likely to occur, and to these
printed replies she referred the querists. The part the
man acted in the plot was various. Sometimes he was
the doctor himself, though generally he merely accom-
panied his wife into the houses, and acted as interpreter,
or assisted in persuading their dupes of
.the precarious
condition in which they were, and in bearing,testimony
to the wonderful cures Mrs. Kitson had effected.

It appeared from the witnesses, that the prisoners
were apprehended in Soham, in consequence of a notice
in the newspapers thjt such a couple were on their tra-
vels.; and when the caravan was searched, a large
number of certificates, and the duplicates of the answers
to questions, &c. were found; and also upwards of 1001 r
in gold and silver. .
Mr. HUNT, for the prisoners, made several legal ob-
jections to the form of commitment, which the Court
over.ruled, and they were sentenced to six months' im-
prisonment and hard labour:
At the conclusion of the trial, the female prisoner,
who had so long passed for dumb, addressed the Court,
charging the constable who seized.ber with having be-
haved in a most brutal manner.

The costs of the prosecution were ordered to be paid
lout of the money found or; the prisoners, and it was ex-
pressly directed by.the CifAMMAN that the expenses of
the witnesses be paid into their respective hands, the
remainder of theiproperty to be returnedto the vagrants
on their discharge. _ .

A short time since, when the mornings began to get
sold, a certain noted chapel at the West-end of the
town, was comparatively deteited at the early service
by its junior 1...ma1e devotees. The indignation of
,the Rev. Pastor who is the Spiritual superintendent in
that quarter, broke out iu ccnsequeve, in the **midst of
an animated address, when he exclaimed—" What!
Citnnot your daughters come out this colc! morning?
;They must indulge in their yrarnibedsir • 0 that I vette
with tiem.". •