1785 - Proceedings of the Old Bailey (2)

From International Robin Hood Bibliography
Record
Date 1785
Topic Thief in Robin Hood Court, Shoe Lane
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Site of Robin Hood Court, Shoe Lane, Holborn.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-06-17. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2022-05-17.

Record

[14 Sep. 1785:]
HENRY CLARE sworn.

On Sunday in the afternoon, I came home very near four o'clock, I live at No. 7, Robinhood-court, Shoe-lane, and they said there was a thief run in there, and that he was gone into the Eagle and Child; I went in for the paper, I went backwards, and the prisoner was sitting having part of a pint of beer, and according to the description this was the man, I said nothing to him, I went out of the door, I did not take notice whether any thing was besides him; I told the constable and the people that I thought he was within, and said I will stay at the door, I had the paper in my hand the mean time; I went in and said to the mistress of the house, these gentlemen are come in to see if that is the man; the prisoner came to the bar, and said what is the matter, he pushed by me, and ran as fast as he could, and I called to them that were backwards, and they came out directly after, and they followed him home to his own lodgings, where he run in, and I followed him up stairs, I never lost sight of him till he ran into the house, I heard somebody running before me up stairs, and I called to the constable to come up stairs, and he was taken there; the constable burst the door open, he had locked himself in, they knocked several times at the door, but he did not answer; when the constable began to burst open the door, he said what is the matter, I'll open the door, and he opened the door, and the constable said, you have a thief in the house, says he, I have no thief in the room; I looked at him, and said this is the person that was at Mrs. Brown's, take down the pistols from the mantle-piece, there were pistols over the mantle-piece.

NOAH DELFORCE sworn.

I live in Blackhorse-alley, Fleet-market, I was standing at master's door, on Sunday in the afternoon, and two men came running up the court, there was a gentleman in a blue coat and red cape, running after them, that was Mr. Chitty; he said he saw the two men come out of the tallow chandlers, they ran up the court, and they had a bundle under each of their arms, and a stick in their hands, they ran up Fleet-street, we ran after them, there we lost one of them, we ran up King's-head-court, there we met one of them coming by the King's Printing Office, with a bundle under his arm, I am quite sure that is one of them; a man in half mourning cried that is the gentleman, then he ran back through Robinhood-court, and I saw him go into the Eagle and Child in Shoe-lane.[1]

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IRHB has silently regularized the use of spaces before punctuation marks in the quotation and corrected the HTML text at Proceedings of the Old Bailey from the PDF of the original printed edition.

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