Pray bring this Ticket with you
SATIRICAL INVITATION-CARD TO EXECUTION OF JONATHAN WILD.
Murphy and Kelly accordingly entered, in the character of purchasers, and turned over several kinds of lace, pretending to be very difficult to please. This piece was too broad, that too narrow, and t'other not fine enough. At last the old woman went upstairs to fetch a finer piece, when Kelly took a tin box of lace and gave it to Murphy, who hid it under her cloak. Then the old woman came down with another box and showed them several more pieces, but the confederates made as if they could not agree about the price, and so left the shop and joined Wild, where they had parted from him. They told him they had "spoke"; whereupon they all returned to his house and opened the box, in which they found eleven pieces of lace. "Would they have ready money?" asked Wild, "or would they wait until the advertisement for the stolen lace came out?"
Funds were very low at the time with Murphy and Kelly, and they asked for ready money, Wild then giving them about four guineas.
"I can't afford to give any more," he said, "for she's a hard-mouthed old bitch, and I shall never get above ten guineas out of her."
Kelly took the lion's share of the money—three guineas—and Murphy had the remainder.
Wild was acquitted on the first charge, of being concerned in the actual theft, but for feloniously receiving the ten guineas the trial was continued.
Catherine Stetham the elder said that on January 22nd she had a box of lace, valued at £50, stolen out of her shop. She went, that same night, to the prisoner's house to enquire after it; but, not finding him at home, she advertised the stolen goods, offering a reward of fifteen guineas, and no questions to be asked. There was no reply to her advertisement, and she went again to the prisoner's house, and saw him there. He asked her to give a description of the persons she suspected, which she did, as nearly as she could, and he promised to make enquiries, and suggested she should call again in three days.
She did so, when he said he had heard something of her lace, and expected to hear more in a little time. Even as they were talking a man came in and said that, by what he had learned, he believed a man named Kelly, who had already stood his trial for passing gilded shillings, had been concerned in stealing the lace.