DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70267#0487
MARY SQUIRES, A GIPSY ; AND ELIZ. CANNING. 439 .
without friends, have the art and means to conceal herself
a whole month, undiscovered by any one, to lie-in, or to-
be salivated, as has been said ?—Strange ! and incredible
is it, that neither midwife, nurse, or surgeon, under whose
care she was, should have blabbed nothing in all this time !
It is well known that ladies of the greatest fortune, that
have money to buy silence, yet cannot purchase secresy
on these occasions, but their miscarriages of this kind will
get abroad ; and yet not a single syllable, for the space of
sixteen months, has come out to prove Canning’s being
in any other place whatsoever than the house of Mother
Wells.”—He next observed, That it was contrary to nature
for people to become desperately wicked and inhuman all.
at once ; that it was always by degrees, and step by step,
that people arrived to the height of wickedness ; but that
the defendant’s character was proved to be blameless and
irreproachable in every respect till the very hour of this
affair :—Modesty, sobriety, industry, and good-nature,
were her characteristics ; and therefore it was quite incre-
dible, that all of a sudden she should become wicked
enough to invent such a story, and to be guilty of the
vilest perjury and most pre-meditated murder, by wilfully
and deliberately swearing away the life of an innocent
person.—It has been reported (said he) that the whole was
a contrivance between her and her mother, to get money
by the contributions of the humane and charitable ; but it
was not a thing to be believed, that any person would on
purpose reduce themselves to the deplorable and miserable
condition, which it was known, beyond all doubt, that
Canning was in, even to within a hair’s breadth of death,
upon the uncertain hopes of getting a little money :—It
was even a contradiction to reason and common sense, that
any one would, for the sake of getting money, reduce-
themselves to so desperate a condition, as. to leave little
hopes of living to receive it, &c. &c.
hits After
without friends, have the art and means to conceal herself
a whole month, undiscovered by any one, to lie-in, or to-
be salivated, as has been said ?—Strange ! and incredible
is it, that neither midwife, nurse, or surgeon, under whose
care she was, should have blabbed nothing in all this time !
It is well known that ladies of the greatest fortune, that
have money to buy silence, yet cannot purchase secresy
on these occasions, but their miscarriages of this kind will
get abroad ; and yet not a single syllable, for the space of
sixteen months, has come out to prove Canning’s being
in any other place whatsoever than the house of Mother
Wells.”—He next observed, That it was contrary to nature
for people to become desperately wicked and inhuman all.
at once ; that it was always by degrees, and step by step,
that people arrived to the height of wickedness ; but that
the defendant’s character was proved to be blameless and
irreproachable in every respect till the very hour of this
affair :—Modesty, sobriety, industry, and good-nature,
were her characteristics ; and therefore it was quite incre-
dible, that all of a sudden she should become wicked
enough to invent such a story, and to be guilty of the
vilest perjury and most pre-meditated murder, by wilfully
and deliberately swearing away the life of an innocent
person.—It has been reported (said he) that the whole was
a contrivance between her and her mother, to get money
by the contributions of the humane and charitable ; but it
was not a thing to be believed, that any person would on
purpose reduce themselves to the deplorable and miserable
condition, which it was known, beyond all doubt, that
Canning was in, even to within a hair’s breadth of death,
upon the uncertain hopes of getting a little money :—It
was even a contradiction to reason and common sense, that
any one would, for the sake of getting money, reduce-
themselves to so desperate a condition, as. to leave little
hopes of living to receive it, &c. &c.
hits After