Volume II
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ANNE HARRIS Although only Twenty when she was executed at Tyburn, on 13th of July, 1708, she was a notorious Shoplifter, and her two Husbands had already suffered the Death Penalty Gothorn, was born of honest but poor parents, in the parish of St Giles without Cripplegate; but being debauched by one James Wadsworth, she soon abandoned all manner of goodness. This Wadsworth was otherwise called " Jemmy the Mouth " among his companions. He was hanged for felony and burglary at Tyburn, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, on Friday, the 24th of September, 1702. She next lived with one William Pulman, otherwise called Norwich Will, from the place of his birth, who also made his exit at Hyde Park Corner, on Friday, the 9th of March, 1704-1705, aged twenty-six years, for robbing one Mr Joseph Edwards on the highway of a pair of leather bags, a shirt, two neckcloths, two pocket-books, twenty-five guineas, a half broad-piece of gold, and four pounds in silver. Now Nan, being twice left a hempen widow in less than three years, had learned in that time to be as vicious as the very worst of her sex, and was so absolutely enslaved to all manner of wickedness through custom and opportunity that good admonitions could work no good effects upon her. Her inclination was entirely averse to honesty. Bidding adieu to everything that looked like virtue, she drove a great trade among goldsmiths, to whose shops she often went to buy gold rings, but she only cheapened till she had the oppor- tunity of stealing one or two; which she did by means of a little ale held in a spoon over the fire till it congealed thick like a syrup, for by rubbing some of this on the palm of her hand, any light thing would stick to it, without the least suspicion at all. She was as well known among the mercers, lacemen and linendrapers on Ludgate Hill, Cheap- side or Fleet Street as that notorious shoplifter, Isabel Thomas, who was condemned for the same crimes. But at last she was apprehended for her pranks, and being so often burned in the face that there was no more room left for the hangman to stigmatise her, the Court thought fit to condemn her for privately stealing a piece of printed calico out of the shop of one Mr John Andrews; and she was hanged, in the twentieth year of her age, at Tyburn, on Friday, 13th of July, 1708. |