U)8 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1817. 



tion, or that her father himself, 

 from the state of her person, had 

 not made some inquiries. It was 

 not till it was impossible longer 

 to conceal the business, that her 

 father was tVmnd in company with 

 his two daughters before the Rev. 

 Mr. Hooper, a most respectable 

 magistrate in the neighbouihood, 

 preferring the charge against Mr. 

 Harris. (>n tliat occasion INliss 

 Susan nail Woochvard made the 

 deposition which she afterwards 

 gave on the tiial ; and her sister 

 Saiah corroborated h'?r testimony 

 by thefollowing statement: — "On 

 Tuesday the 1 8th of October last, 

 1 was ajone in the house ; 1 heard 

 the voice of n'ly Sister Susannah 

 calling out ' Sally !' as if in very 

 great distress, from tbe garden. 

 1 immediately ran into the garden, 

 and there saw my sister on the 

 ground, and a young man, named 

 James Harris, a saddler, of Har- 

 rold, holding lier down \i])on the 

 ground, with n knife in Ids hand 

 close to her throat. I immediately 

 cried out 'Murder!" and then Harris 

 jum])ed up, and putting the knife 

 close to my tluoat, said, if I cried 

 out, he would run the knife into 

 my throat. I said, if he would 

 remove the knife, 1 would be si- 

 lent. Harris then left the garden, 

 after saying, * that if I tidd my 

 father, he, or some one else, would 

 kill me or my sister." Upon these 

 infoimations, Mr. Hooper gi'anted 

 his warrant for apprehending Har- 

 ris. He was taken into custody; 

 but, after protesting most solemn- 

 ly his innocence of the crime im- 

 puted to him, was committed for 

 trial. On that trial, however, as 

 he had already stated, he was ac- 

 quitted in the most honourable 

 manner. In this view of the case 



it must be taken, tliat the charge 

 of violation was altogether false. 

 So it had been pronounced by a 

 moit respectable jury ; and no 

 man woiUd have the hardihood to 

 say after this, that the charge by 

 Susanncdi was not foul and mali- 

 cious. Thus, if the charge of vio- 

 lation was false, he apprehended 

 no doubt could exist, that Sarah, 

 who had sworn that she was pre- 

 sent when it was committed, j. lin- 

 ed with her sister in the fabrica- 

 tion of a gross falsehood, and tlius 

 became a ])arty to the conspiracy 

 against the present prosecutor. 

 The two sisters being clearly im- 

 plicated in the transaction, the 

 next question for him to consider 

 was, how the father became affect- 

 ed. In establishing the guilt of 

 the father, he was persuatled, he 

 should have as little difficulty as 

 with the daughters. He would 

 atk, in the first place, whether it 

 was within the scope of possibility, 

 that a father, a man of sense and 

 discriminatio*, could live in the 

 same house with his daughter du- 

 ring eight months of her preg- 

 nancy, without discovering her si- 

 tuation > But, independent of 

 this, when his daughter told him 

 the story, wliich she afteiwards 

 swore to before a magistrate, 

 could he believe it? But this was 

 not all, for he would be found be- 

 fore the magistrate, as if t(^ con- 

 firm his guilt more strongly, set- 

 ting his daughter right as to the 

 particular state of the night on 

 which the violation was alleged 

 to have taken place. When Rlr. 

 Hooper asked "what sort of a night 

 it was?" Susannah said, " It was 

 a daik night;" upon which the 

 father stepped up, and phicing his 

 hind on his daughter's shoulder, 



said. 



