The prisoners were then removed in custody, strongly guarded.
On the day following the above examination, Mr. Corder applied to Mr. Minshull for the purpose of obtaining an order to liberate Sarah Bishop and Rhoda Head, alias Williams, who had been in custody for some days, charged with being accessories after the fact in the murder of the Italian boy. Mr. Corder observed, that as yet there was no evidence whatever against either of the women, and as they might be wanted by their husbands to procure them the means of defence, should their trial come on at the ensuing Old Bailey sessions, he considered that it would be but an act of humanity to release them from custody, particularly as there was no evidence to warrant their detention.
Mr. Burnaby, the clerk, said, that Mr. Thomas, upon whose charge the prisoners were detained, was desirous that they should not be liberated until after the trial; and as facts might arise between this and the sessions tending to fix the women with a guilty knowledge of the murder, it would, perhaps, be the better way to detain them for the present.
Mr. Minshull agreed in the propriety of detaining the female prisoners, at least until Friday next, when their husbands would undergo another examination. Besides, where were they to go if they were now liberated? The police were in possession of the house in which they had resided, and would, no doubt, retain it as long as there was any chance of procuring additional evidence.
The female prisoners, who had been brought from prison for the purpose of undergoing an examination, were then ordered to be placed at the bar; and on their appearance there,
Mr. Minshull told them, that he was in hopes he might have discharged them; but from what had been suggested, he felt it his duty to retain them until Friday, when they would be again brought forward.
The prisoners were then conveyed from the bar.
Two of Bishop's children were taken from the workhouse, where they had been placed on the apprehension of their mother, and lodged in the station house at Covent Garden, with a view to their giving evidence in the case, one of them, a little boy, having told another boy, before the murder was discovered, that he had some nice little white mice at home, and that his father had broken up their cage to light the fire. From the tender age of the children, however, it was determined not to make witnesses of them; and they were accordingly sent back to the workhouse at Bethnal Green.
When Higgins, the police constable, was engaged in digging up the garden-ground on Saturday, Bishop's eldest son, a boy about twelve years old, was present; and when the officer looked suspiciously towards the raised pathway, beneath which, it will be remembered, the clothes were discovered, the little fellow told him to be cautious how he dug there, as the cesspool was under that part of the ground; and if he (Higgins) attempted to remove the earth, he would be sure to fall into it. This fact which was stated by the constable would lead to the belief that the child was aware of the clothes having been buried where they were subsequently found.