Evidence was given that the prisoner had an uncle abroad, but nothing had been heard of him for a very long time. Two years ago the prisoner spread a report that he had died immensely rich, and had left her thousands of pounds. In order to pay legal expenses, she said, she borrowed money from her aunt, an old woman of eighty. Having exhausted her aunt's money, and leaving her to the workhouse authorities, the prisoner then proceeded to draw upon the retired domestic, who parted with every penny of her savings and her jewellery. In due time she was penniless also, and had again to seek work, at seventy years of age, having no friends to help her. The prisoner then turned her attention to her landlord, and obtained £10 5s. from him; but he became suspicious, and wanted to see some documents or solicitors. She gave him the address of her solicitors in Chancery Lane. Then he insisted upon her accompanying him to see them; he compelled her to go, and, on arriving, found the address to be a bank. The landlord then communicated with the police, and she was arrested. The prisoner admitted that the whole story was false, and that she was very wicked. It was stated in evidence that the prisoner had an illegitimate child, which she said was the child of a gentleman, and that she had persuaded a young man to marry her by promising him £300 from the child's father, when the wedding took place; but the young husband had never received the money. The lady missionary told the magistrate that she had received a letter from the prisoner, whilst under remand in Holloway Prison, expressing her deep sorrow, and promising to work hard and pay the money back. Mr. Hutton bound the prisoner over under the Probation Act! I wonder what was at the back of Mr. Hutton's mind when he practically discharged her. If the Probation Act is to bring us such judgments as this, it would have been well if we had never heard of it. I can imagine no more heartless and cruel series of frauds than those perpetrated in this case. The prisoner seems to have pursued her victims with unerring instinct and skill: the old aunt was robbed and ruined; the old domestic, after a long life of hard work and economy, was robbed and ruined; then, with confidence in her own powers, she proceeded to rob her landlord. A continual succession of lies, deceptions, and frauds, extending over years! And then bound over! Herein is a problem: If ten teaspoons, one metal chain, and one gold locket are equal to fourteen years' penal servitude, what are some hundreds of pounds, obtained by two years' fraud, and entailing the ruin of two decent old women, equal to? The answer, according to the magistrate, is, Nothing! A great deal has been said, and not without some show of justice, about there being one law for the rich and another for the poor. In this case it is positively true, though in an opposite sense to the generally accepted meaning of the words.