Historical Mysteries | Page 8

Squires about the pony. She gave her name,
and said that it was on the clog by which the beast was tethered.
Loomworth Dane swore to Mary Squires, whom he had observed so
closely as to note a great hole in the heel of her stocking. The date was
Old Christmas Day, 1752. Dane was landlord of the Bell, at Enfield,
and a maker of horse-collars. Sarah Star, whose house was next to Mrs.
Wells's, saw Mary Squires in her own house on January 18 or 19; Mary
wanted to buy pork, and hung about for three-quarters of an hour,
offering to tell fortunes. Mrs. Star got rid of her by a present of some
pig's flesh. She fixed the date by a document which she had given to
Miles, a solicitor; it was not in court. James Pratt swore to talk with
Mary Squires before Christmas as to her lost pony; she had then a man
with her. He was asked to look round the court to see if the man was
present, whereon George Squires ducked his head, and was rebuked by
the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Davy, who said 'It does not look well.' It
was hardly the demeanour of conscious innocence. But Pratt would not
swear to him. Mary Squires told Pratt that she would consult 'a
cunning-man about the lost pony,' and Mr. Nares foolishly asked why a
cunning woman should consult a cunning man? 'One black fellow will
often tell you that he can and does something magical, whilst all the
time he is perfectly aware that he cannot, and yet firmly believes that
some other man can really do it.' So write Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
in their excellent book on The Native Tribes of Central Australia (p.
130); and so it was with the gipsy, who, though a 'wise woman,'
believed in a 'wise man.'
This witness (Pratt) said, with great emphasis: 'Upon my oath, that is
the woman.... I am positive in my conscience, and I am sure that it was
no other woman; this is the woman I saw at that blessed time.'
Moreover, she gave him her name as the name on the clog of the lost
pony. The affair of the pony was just what would impress a man like
Pratt, and, on the gipsies' own version, they had no pony with them in
their march from Dorset.

All this occurred before Pratt left his house, which was on December
22, 'three days before New Christmas.' He then left Enfield for
Cheshunt, and his evidence carries conviction.
In some other cases witnesses were very stupid--could not tell in what
month Christmas fell. One witness, an old woman, made an error,
confusing January 16 with January 23. A document on which she relied
gave the later date.
If witnesses on either side were a year out in their reckoning, the
discrepancies would be accountable; but Pratt, for example, could not
forget when he left Enfield for Cheshunt, and Farmer Smith and Mrs.
Howard could be under no such confusion of memory. It may be
prejudice, but I rather prefer the Enfield evidence in some ways, as did
Mr. Paget. In others, the Dorset evidence seems better.
Elizabeth had sworn to having asked a man to point out the way to
London after she escaped into the lane beside Mrs. Wells's house. A
man, Thomas Bennet, swore that on January 29, 1753, he met 'a
miserable, poor wretch, about half-past four,' 'near the ten-mile stone,'
in a lane. She asked her way to London; 'she said she was affrighted by
the tanner's dog.' The tanner's house was about two hundred yards
nearer London, and the prosecution made much of this, as if a dog, with
plenty of leisure and a feud against tramps, could not move two
hundred yards, or much more, if he were taking a walk abroad, to
combat the object of his dislike. Bennet knew that the dog was the
tanner's; probably he saw the dog when he met the wayfarer, and it
does not follow that the wayfarer herself called it 'the tanner's dog.'
Bennet fixed the date with precision. Four days later, hearing of the
trouble at Mrs. Wells's, Bennet said, 'I will be hanged if I did not meet
the young woman near this place and told her the way to London.' Mr.
Davy could only combat Bennet by laying stress on the wayfarer's
talking of 'the tanner's dog.' But the dog, at the moment of the meeting,
was probably well in view. Bennet knew him, and Bennet was not
asked, 'Did the woman call the dog "the tanner's dog," or do you say
this of your own knowledge?' Moreover, the tannery was well in view,
and the hound may have conspicuously started from that base