Some Selected Reports from the Marlborough Journal
Saturday April 13, 1771
Marlborough, April 13.
At the Quarter Sessions of the Peace for this county holden this week at Devizes, John Hillier, for stealing a silver pepper box from Mr.Edgerly of Burbage, and Walter Gastrell, for stealing a pair of spurs and a pair of sugar cutters from Mr.Reeves, of Malmesbury, were found guilty, and sentenced to be publicaly whipped; the former in this town, and the latter in Devizes.
On Wednesday a cause was tried wherein Mr.Singer, sen. of Chippenham was plaintiff, and Mr.Merewether, apothecary, of the same place was defendant, on an indictment for a violent assault on the person of the plaintiff in his own house.
The defendant was fined One Hundred Pounds, to be paid in Court, or stand committed, to find sureties for his good behaviour for three years; himself in Two Hundred Pounds, and two others in One Hundred Pounds each.
The just severity, and pathetic observations, with which this atrocious offence was exposed by Mr.Widmore, council for the plaintiff, excited the honest indignation of a very numerous court against the offender, and, it is hoped, the sentence pronounced by this respectable Bench upon the perpetration of a crime attended with such perculiar circumstances will deter others from trusting to malevolent respresentations, and giving way to the fury of precipitate and lawless passion.
Mrs.Charteris, so well known at the quarter sessions in this county, was committed to Bridewell, for her insolent behaviour towards a worthy magistrate on the bench, in the execution of his office as a Justice of the Peace.
Thursday was se'nnight, between two and three in the morning, a fire broke out at Mr.Day's, at the Moor Farm, in the parish of Badgington, in the county of Gloucester, supposed to be occasioned by the maid servant, throwing some live coals in the wood ashes in the cellar, by which accident that part of the house was burnt down to the ground, and it was with the utmost difficulty the other part was preserved.
We hear from Wroughton, in this county, that on Tuesday last the Widow Burchall, of that place, fell into the fire in a fit (as is supposed) and was unhappily burnt to death; Wednesday the Coroner's inquest sat on the body, and brought in the verdict Accidental Death.
On Wednesday John Sheffard, at East Garston, in this county, labourer, being at plough in the field, took an opportunity to send the boy away that was with him, and then retired into an adjacent wood, and hanged himself with a with, and on Thursday the Coroners inquest sat on the occasion and brought in the verdict Lunacy.
* Two or Three sober industrious Men are wanted to distribute this journal.