A Boy Whipped for Destroying Women’s Apparel with Aquafortis.
Until severe examples were made of the actors in this kind of frolic and fun, females often found their clothes drop to tatters, and such as restricted themselves to mere muslin and chemise were frequently dreadfully burnt in a way invisible and almost unaccountable. A set of urchins, neither men nor boys, by way of a high game, procured aquafortis, vitriol, and other corrosive fluids, and filling therewith a syringe or bottle, would sally forth to give the girls a squirt. Of this mischievous description we find Edward Beazley, who was convicted of this unpardonable offence at the Old Bailey, the 11th of March, 1811. He was indicted for wilfully and maliciously injuring and destroying the apparel of Anne Parker, by feloniously throwing upon the same a certain poisonous substance called aquafortis, whereby the same was so injured as to be rendered useless. He was also charged on two other indictments for the like offence, on two other women.
It appears that the prisoner, a boy of thirteen, took it into his head to sally into Fleet St. on the night of Sat. Feb. 16, and there threw the same upon the clothes of several of the Cyprians who parade up and down there. He was caught, carried before the magistrate at the Guildhall, and fully committed on three charges.
Three ladies appeared and proved the facts, and the boy was found guilty.
His master, Mr. Blades of Ludgate Hill, gave him a good character; he never knew anything wrong of him before, but admitted he had access to the chemicals. The court having a discretionary power, instead of transporting him for seven years, only ordered him to be well whipped in the jail and returned to his friends.
Ill-Treatment of Female Pupils.
We frequently hear of the low-bred and licentious of our sex ill-treating young helpless females; but to find a minister of the gospel convicted of so base and unmanly an assault is a scandal to his office, and an aggravated disgrace to human nature.
This abhorred man, a clergyman and schoolmaster at Newton near Manchester, was brought up to receive the judgment of the King’s Bench at Westminster, in consequence of having been convicted at the last Lancashire Assizes on two indictments for assaulting and whipping Mary Ann Gillicrand and Mary Barlow, his scholars.
The defendant delivered in the affidavits of several females who had been his scholars in their youth, declaring upon oath that they never saw him take the slightest liberty with his pupils in an improper way, or whip them severely, and that they thought him a fit person to be intrusted with the instruction of youth.