The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-20 00:00:00

EXTRAORDINARY CREDULITY

The following case was tried at the Chelmsford Quarter
Sessions on Tuesday last, before Mr. Disney, chairman :
Louisa Dalton, aged 30, wife of Frederick, was charged
with having obtained from Hannah Guiver, by false pre-
tences, two sovereigns, three half-sovereigns, 15 half-crowns,
40 shillings, and 5 sixpences, with intent to cheat and de-
fraud her, at Ugley. Prisoner was one of the Gipsy race,
and not the most lovely specimen of the tribe.
Mr. Rodwell appeared for the prosecution, and,in opening
the case, told the jury that the circumstances were such as
they would hardly believe, if they were not clearly proved by
the evidence. The principal witness, Hannah Guiver, was a
young woman who had been in an ill state of health, the
cause of which he could not precisely state, but he believed
that it arose from unrequited love. Prisoner, who travelled
the country, got access to her, and induced her to believe that
she was spell-bound, and proposed, on the payment of a cer-
tain sum of money, to perform certain magical ceremonies,
by means of which she would be relieved from that spell.
The learned gentleman then detailed the facts of the case as
stated in the evidence. _ . . .

%.• a
Hannah Guiver, rather a good-looking girl, was then exa-
mined.—l live with my mother at Ugley Green. She keeps a
shop there. On the 26th of March prisoner came into the
shop. She told me that she would tell me a few words that
would be a benefit to me. I was not in a good state of health.
I gave her ls. She had a book with her, and looked into it.
She said by the book I must give her another shilling, which
I did. She said I was poorly, and that I was under a spell;
if I would give her a half-sovereign, she could and would
break the spell in nine days. She gave me a piece of fools-
cap paper. It was folded up, and there were two pins stuck
in it, across, and I was to burn it at the end of nine days.
On the Ist April--(laughter)---I saw her again. She said she
had been working the things beautiful for me. I said—
.' Well." I saw her again on the 4th April. She took a bag
from her pocket and asked for a handful of salt. I was in
the shop, and she asked to speak to me privately. I took
her into the keeping-room. 1 put the salt in the bag. She
asked for as much gold as I had to put in the bag. I was not
willing to do this, but she said she did not want to take it out
of the house. I fetched down two sovereigns and three half-
sovereigns. They were my mother's. She said that was not
enough, and I could make up £7 or £8 if I liked. I then
brought her down 15 half-crowns, 40 shillings, and 5 six-
pences. I put them into the bag. She said she must have
it, till Il o'clock next day, and then the spell would be broken.
If she did not bring the bag and the money by half-past 11,
or a few minutes after, I was to have a very sharp knife, and
when I saw her again to cut her throat. (Laughter.) I did
not see her again till the 20th of April. She was then in the
station-house at Newport. She was to have taken the money
to a neighbour's, Susan Smith. The condition on which
I parted with my money was that she should return it, or
that I should cut her throat. Of course I thought I should
have that knife. I should not have cut her throat. 1 can't
tell what she meant by working things beautiful for me. I
had been ill some time, but there was not a bit of love in the
question. She said it was a spell, and that I should be
obliged to sip sorrow by spoonsful if it was not taken off. It
is immaterial to any one here whether there was any love in
the case ; but there was a young man I had a regard for. 1
was under mental anxiety. lam 24 years of age. I attend
the shop for my mother. I gave the prisoner the money with
the idea of getting better.
Mr. Dowling addressed the jury on behalf of the prisoner.
He said this was a case in which the party had no right to
complain of the consequence of their own folly. If people
chose to go and buy advice, such as it might be, they couldp
have no right to turn round in this manner on the person of
whom they had bought it.
The jury, without hesitation, found her guilty.

The bhidrmau, in passing sentence, observed that the law
must protect the weak in mind as well as the weak in body,
or it would be no law at all ; and he sentenced the prisoner to
10 year's transportation.

Ott Thursday there were no less than six vessels lying at
Greenock, with full complements of passengers for various
ports in America.

THIBETIAN THEORY OF EARTHQUAKES.—Mr. Bell, the
eminent traveller, who accompanied an embassy to Kam-pi,
the emperor of the Thibetian empire, being in conversation
with the Lama, the latter inquired of Mr. Bell the opinion
of the learned in Europe relative to the subject of
attributed
to The traveller replied they were generally nt_021",,.
to subterraneous fires, and asked in return to what each he
traordinary results were attributed by his counotrro,
f eanLarnas
Lama answered, " that 80111 e of the best
had written that the Almighty, after he had
formedthis prodigious
placed it on a. golden frog ; and when n the earth,
everetch out his foot,
frog had occasion to scratch his head, or stray shaken."
that part of the earth immediately above