Page:Memoirs James Hardy Vaux.djvu/183

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160

(unknown to my father) with the usual fee, to Mr. Alley.

Every thing being thus arranged, and a true bill returned by the grand jury upon the evidence of the officers to the same effect as before, I was on the 23d of September put to the bar, together with Bromley; and, as I have so frequently read the printed report of our trial, that it will never be erased from my memory, I shall give the reader the substance of the proceedings, which I can do nearly verbatim: and, I believe upon the whole, a more extraordinary trial has been seldom found upon record.

TRIAL, &c.

Alexander Bromley and James Vaux, were indicted for feloniously stealing on the 17th of August, a handkerchief, value two shillings, the goods of William Dowel), privily from his person.

To this indictment the prisoners pleaded "Not guilty."

Mr. Alley, counsel for Bromley, desired that the witnesses might be examined apart, with which request the court complied.

William Alderman sworn.—"I am a city constable, and turnkey of the Poultry Compter. On Sunday the 17th of August, I was passing through Cheapside, when observing a crowd of persons collected together, I went up to inquire the cause; I