To the best of his knowledge, said this turnkey, having told the money over, there were twenty moidores, eighteen guineas, five broad pieces, a half-broad piece, five crowns, and two or three shillings. He thought there was also a twenty-five-shilling piece and some others, twenty-three-shilling pieces. He had sealed them up in the bag, and there they were (producing the bag in court).
The court asked how she said she had come by the money.
Johnson's answer was that she had said she took the money and the bag from Mrs Duncomb, and that she had begged him to keep it secret. "My dear," said this virtuous gaoler, "I would not secrete the money for the world.
"She told me, too," runs Johnson's recorded testimony, "that she had hired three men to swear the tankard was her grandmother's, but could not depend on them: that the name of one was William Denny, another was Smith, and I have forgot the third. After I had taken the money away she put a piece of mattress in her hair, that it might appear of the same bulk as before. Then I locked her up and sent to Mr Alstone, and told him the story. 'And,' says I, 'do you stand in a dark place to be witness of what she says, and I'll go and examine her again."'
Sarah interrupted: "I tied my handkerchief over my hair to hide the money, but Buck,[19] happening to see my hair fall down, he told Johnson; upon which Johnson came to see me and said, 'I find the cole's planted in your hair. Let me keep it for you and let Buck know nothing about it.' So I gave Johnson five broad pieces and twenty-two guineas, not gratis, but only to keep for me, for I expected it to be returned when sessions was over. As to the money, I never said I took it from Mrs Duncomb; but he asked me what they had to rap against me. I told him only a tankard. He asked me if it was Mrs Duncomb's, and I said yes."
The Court: "Johnson, were those her words: 'This is the money and bag that I took'?"
Johnson: "Yes, and she desired me to make away with the bag."
Johnson's evidence was confirmed in part by Alstone, another officer of the prison. He said he told Johnson to get the bag from the prisoner, as it might have something about it whereby it could be identified. Johnson called the girl, while Alstone watched from a dark corner. He saw Sarah give Johnson the bag, and heard her ask him to burn it. Alstone also deposed that Sarah told him (Alstone) part of the money found on her was Mrs Duncomb's.
There is no need here to enlarge upon the oddly slack and casual conditions of the prison life of the time as revealed in this evidence. It will be no news to anyone who has studied contemporary criminal history. There is a point, however, that may be considered here, and that is the familiarity it suggests on the part of Sarah with prison conditions and with the cant terms employed by criminals and the people handling them.
Sarah, though still in her earliest twenties,[20] was known already—if not in the Temple—to have a bad reputation. It is said that her closest friends were thieves of the worst sort. She was the daughter of an Englishman, at one time a public official in a small way in Dublin. Her father had come to London with his wife and daughter, but on the death of the mother had gone back to Ireland. He had left his daughter behind him, servant in an ale-house called the Black Horse.