Historical Mysteries | Page 6

added that Elizabeth 'took her foot, and put the hay away, and
showed the gentlemen two holes, and said they were in the room when
she was in it before.'
On February 7, Elizabeth swore to her narrative, formally made out by
her solicitor, before the author of Tom Jones, and Mr. Fielding, by
threats of prosecution if she kept on shuffling, induced Virtue Hall to
corroborate, after she had vexed his kind heart by endless
prevarications. But as Virtue Hall was later 'got at' by the other side and
recanted, we leave her evidence on one side.
On February 21-26 Mary Squires was tried at the Old Bailey and
condemned to death, Virtue Hall corroborating Elizabeth. Mrs. Wells
was branded on the hand. Three Dorset witnesses to the gipsy's alibi
were not credited, and Fortune and Judith Natus did not appear in court,
though subpoenaed. In 1754 they accounted for this by their fear of the
mob. The three sceptics, Nash, Hague, and Aldridge, held their peace.
The Lord Mayor, Sir Crispin Gascoyne, who was on the bench at the
trial of Squires and Wells, was dissatisfied. He secured many affidavits
which seem unimpeachable, for the gipsy's alibi, and so did the other
side for her presence at Enfield. He also got at Virtue Hall, or rather a
sceptical Dr. Hill got at her and handed her over to Gascoyne. She, as
we saw, recanted. George Squires, the gipsy's son, with an attorney,
worked up the evidence for the gipsy's alibi; she received a free pardon,
and on April 29, 1754, there began the trial of Elizabeth Canning for
'wilful and corrupt perjury.'
Mr. Davy, opening for the Crown, charitably suggested that Elizabeth
had absconded 'to preserve her character,' and had told a romantic story
to raise money! 'And, having by this time subdued all remains of virtue,
she preferred the offer of money, though she must wade through
innocent blood'--that of the gipsy--'to attain it.'
These hypotheses are absurd; her character certainly needed no saving.
Mr. Davy then remarked on the gross improbabilities of the story of

Elizabeth. They are glaring, but, as Fielding said, so are the
improbabilities of the facts. Somebody had stripped and starved and
imprisoned the girl; that is absolutely certain. She was brought 'within
an inch of her life.' She did not suffer all these things to excite
compassion; that is out of the question. Had she plunged into 'gaiety' on
New Year's night, the consequences would be other than instant
starvation. They might have been 'guilty splendour.' She had been most
abominably misused, and it was to the last degree improbable that any
mortal should so misuse an honest quiet lass. But the grossly
improbable had certainly occurred. It was next to impossible that, in
1856, a respectable-looking man should offer to take a little boy for a
drive, and that, six weeks later, the naked body of the boy, who had
been starved to death, should be found in a ditch near Acton. But the
facts occurred.[2] To Squires and Wells a rosy girl might prove more
valuable than a little boy to anybody.
[Footnote 2: Paget, p. 332.]
That Elizabeth could live for a month on a loaf did not surprise Mrs.
Canning. 'When things were very hard with her,' said Mrs. Canning,
'the child had lived on half a roll a day.' This is that other touch which,
with the story of the farthing, helps to make me a partisan of Elizabeth.
Mr. Davy said that on January 31, before Chitty, Elizabeth 'did not
pretend to certainty' about Mrs. Wells. She never did at any time; she
neither knew, nor affected to know, anything about Mrs. Wells. She
had only seen a tall, swarthy woman, a dark girl, and a fair girl, whom
she recognised in the gipsy, her daughter, and Virtue Hall. Mr. Davy
preferred Nash's evidence to that of all the neighbours, and even to
Chitty's notes, when Nash and Chitty varied. Mr. Davy said that Nash
'withdrew his assistance' after the visit to the house. It was proved, we
saw, by his letter of February 10, that he did not withdraw his
assistance, which, like that of Mr. Tracy Tupman, took the form of
hoping that other people would subscribe money.
Certain varieties of statement as to the time when Elizabeth finished the
water proved fatal, and the penthouse of Chitty's notes was played for
all that it was worth. It was alleged, as matter of fact, that Adamson

brought the broken pitcher into the house--this by Mr. Willes, later
Solicitor-General. Now, for three months before February 1, Adamson
had not seen Elizabeth Canning, nor had he heard her description of the
room. He was riding, and could not carry a gallon pitcher in his coat
pocket. He