She was a well-known shrew of Kentish Town, daughter of one Jacob
Bingham, a local brickmaker, who had married the daughter of a Scotch
pedlar manifestly not of any high moral character as shown by her
later acts and the general mistrust which attended them. They had
one daughter, Jinny, who in wickedness outdid her parents. She was
naturally warm-blooded and had a child when she was sixteen by a man of
no account, George Coulter, known as Gipsy George. Whatever affection
may have existed between them was cut short by his arrest--and
subsequent execution at Tyburn--for sheepstealing. In her second
quasi-matrimonial venture Jinny lived a cat-and-dog life with a man
called Darby who spent his time in getting drunk and trying to get
over it. Number Two’s end was also tragic. After a violent quarrel
with his companion he disappeared. Then there was domestic calm for a
while, possibly due to the fact that Bingham and his wife were being
tried also on a charge of witchcraft, complicated with another capital
charge of procuring the death of a young woman. They were both hanged
and thereafter Jinny found time for another episode of love-making and
took up with a man called Pitcher. He too disappeared, but his body,
burned almost to a cinder, was discovered in a neighbouring oven. Jinny
was tried for murder, but escaped on the plea that the man often took
refuge in the oven when he wished to get beyond reach of the woman’s
venomous tongue, to which fact witness was borne by certain staunch
companions of Miss Bingham.
Jinny’s third venture towards happy companionship, though it lasted
much longer, was attended with endless bitter quarrelling, and came
to an equally tragic end, had at the beginning a spice of romance.
This individual, whose name has seemingly not been recorded, being
pursued in Commonwealth times for some unknown offence, had sought her
aid in attempting to escape. This she had graciously accorded, with
the consequence that they lived together some years in the greatest
unhappiness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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