From the Dover Telegraph and Cinque Ports General Advertiser, Saturday 23 August, 1851.

BOROUGH PETTY SESSIONS

Maria Smith, widow, deposed  - I am housekeeper to Mr. William Knott, 78, Limekiln Street. On Thursday evening, before retiring to rest, I locked the doors below, and all in the house was safe. Mr. Knott had previously retired to bed ......... unknown text .....  was removed. On looking round. I also perceived that some articles of wearing apparel belonging to me were missing. I at once ran up stairs to see if my watch was safe, and found it gone; the watch was in Mr. Knott's bedroom. I afterward gave information of the robbery to the police. Yesterday I went to the police station, and there saw and identified the articles now produced, viz. two petticoats, 1 bed gown, 1 chemise, and 1 pair of drawers, valued at 10s.; and a silver watch, of the value of £2. The whole are my property.

Sergeant Burridge - By direction of my Superintendent, and from information he had received relative to a robbery at 78, Limekiln-street, I yesterday proceeded to Deal, accompanied by police-constable Jenkinson. In Lower-street, Deal, at a public-house called the "Sugar Loaf," kept by Valentine Silk, I apprehended prisoner on suspicion of being the thief. On going up stairs I saw the watch now produced taken by the landlady from the top of a drawer, and given to her husband, who handed it to me. The landlady said prisoner placed it in her charge to prevent two soldiers stealing it. Prisoner was then in another room with a girl and two men. I afterwards took the purse produced from prisoner, which however is not the property of prosecutor, but belongs to Mr. Knott.

Police-constable Jenkinson - I accompanied the last witness to Deal, and while at the "Sugar Loaf" received one of the pettycoats and the drawers now produced from a girl named Miller; the bed gown I received from prisoner.

Eliz. Burridge, wife of Sergeant Burridge - I search prisoner yesterday, and found upon her person the chemise and a pettycoat - part of the property sworn to my Smith as belonging to her.

Sarah Silk, wife of Valentine Silk, of the "Sugar Loaf" - Prisoner came to her house at noon on Friday last, and had a pint of beer. The bundle produced she brought with her, enclosed in the shawl now in court.

Harriett Miller - I am a single woman, and lodge at the "Sugar Loaf." The things given by me to the constable Jenkinson were placed in my box by the prisoner. I gave them up before they were asked for.

In reply to the charge prisoner made no defence, and was committed for trial.

As nothing transpires in the evidence above that affords a clue to the means of which prisoner gained admission to 78, Limekiln-street, it would seem essential to furnish a particular or two that has since been communicated. The girl, as stated before the Bench by Superintendent Coram, is of respectable parentage, her father filling a responsible situation in the London Commercial Gas Company.

Guilty of some misconduct at home, she absconded from her parents' roof on being remonstrated with, and travels to Dover with a soldier, who on her arrival proves to be a married man. In the course of her disreputable proceedings here, she falls in with Knott, is by him taken to his residence, and the sequel is placed before us by the respectable witness in the case. There can be no doubt that prisoner would have been apprehended before she left Dover had the proper information have been communicated; but Knott, conscious of not being guiltless in the matter, appears to have withheld so much of the particulars as related to himself.