From the Dover Telegraph and Cinque Ports General Advertiser, Saturday, 23 October, 1847. Price 5d.

DOVER PETTY SESSIONS

Mary Ann Rittey, servant, 42, charged with stealing, at St. John's Thanet, 1 black merino dress, 1 white handkerchief, &c., the property of Mary Woodward.

Prosecutrix stated that she was servant at the “British Tar,” Margate, kept her wearing appeal in a little back-room adjoining the bar; missed articles above-named on the 16th July.

Mary Ann Monday, landlady of the “British Tar” deposed: Recollects prosecutrix losing her property. On the day she missed it, prosecutrix came into my house for a half-a-pint of beer. Two men were in the room when prisoner first entered it, but they left before her. Prisoner left about 5 o'clock in the evening, but I did not notice her carry a bundle with her. About 8 o'clock the property was missed; and between 5 and 8 no one else had been in the room from which they were missed.

Ann Wood, marine store-dealer, deposed to having bought the articles from prisoner for 2s. 4d., which she represented as belonging “to a poor girl who had lost her mother, and wished to buy other articles with the produce of the sale of those in question.

Verdict: Guilty.

The Recorder in passing sentence, observed that prisoner had been on a previous occasion brought before that Court, on a charge of robbing a poor girl whom she had induced to leave her situation in Canterbury, but whom she had failed in advising to enter upon an abandoned course of life. On that occasion the grand Jury, it was true, ignored the bill. She had also been tried for felony at Canterbury, but was again acquitted. He, however, was fully persuaded that the prisoner was an improper person to be allowed to remain in this country; and the sentence against her, therefore was, that she be transported for 7 years.