The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.
Pelham, Camden
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England)
He afterwards hired a house in Hill-street, and, influenced by
compassion for her sufferings, and being desirous of relieving her from
the tyranny of her mother, he invited the girl to live in his family in
the capacity of a servant; which offer she cheerfully embraced, though
her mother had many times violently opposed her desire of going to
service. The girl had no sooner removed to Mr. Rooker's house than the
old woman became perfectly outrageous; and it was almost her daily
practice to create disturbances in Mr. Rooker's neighbourhood, by
venting the most bitter execrations against the girl, and branding her
with the most opprobrious epithets. Mr. Rooker subsequently removed to
Ealing, to reside on a little estate bequeathed him by a relation; and
having by this time seduced the girl, she accompanied him, and lived
with him professedly in the character of his mistress.
The old woman's visits were not less frequent at Ealing than they had
been at Mr. Rooker's house in London; nor was her behaviour less
outrageous.
On the 9th of June 1768, being admitted to the house, she beat her
daughter in a terrible manner; and during the contention many
expressions were uttered by both parties that gave great uneasiness to
Mr. Rooker. The mother called Mr. Rooker "the old perfumed tea-dog;" and
the girl retorted by saying, "Remember, mother, you are the perfumer;
you are the Chick-lane ghost."
The mother having retired, Mr. Rooker urged the girl to explain what was
meant to be insinuated by the indirect accusations introduced by both
parties in the course of the dispute; and, bursting into tears, she
confessed the particulars of the murders, begging that a secret so
materially affecting her mother might never be divulged.
Mr. Rooker imagined that the daughter could not be rendered amenable to
the law, as she performed her share in the murders by the direction of
her mother, and he wrote to the overseers of the parish of Tottenham,
acquainting them with what he had learned. The elder Metyard was in
consequence taken into custody; and the evidence against her being
conclusive, she was fully committed for trial. Some circumstances,
however, having come out which served to criminate her daughter, she
also was secured, and with her mother was sent to Newgate to abide her
trial.
When arraigned upon the indictment preferred against them at the ensuing
Old Bailey Sessions, they bitterly reproached one another with the part
each had taken in the affair; and if any evidence of their guilt had
been wanting, their own declarations at this time would have been
sufficient to secure their conviction. The jury immediately found them
guilty, and they were sentenced to undergo the severest penalty of the
law. The younger prisoner pleaded that she was pregnant, on being called
up to receive judgment; but a jury of matrons being assembled, they
declared her plea false, and she was sentenced immediately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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