Page 48 - Reading Mercury

ordering them to drive on, he several times threatened to shoot them, and for that
purpose rode up to one postillion, and then to the other, for the space of sixty or
seventy yards; notwithstanding which they continued the horses to a gallop, and cut at
the highwayman with their whips. At last, on the appearance of company at hand, the
highwayman made off towards Wimbledon without his booty.

Friday last a cow belonging to Mr. Martin, of Langley Park, Bucks, brought forth
five calves, which are all likely to do well.

The following prisoners are capitally convicted at Kingston assizes: Blandford,
Hoar, Hughes, Delany, Elson, Humphries, Stevens, & Goodchild.

On Tuesday morning, about nine o’clock, came on at the above assizes the trial of
the coiners of halfpence, which lasted six hours, when the master and his foreman
were found guilty: even of his journeymen and two apprentices were acquitted.

Fri 21st April
WOKINGHAM, April 21
Last week an inquisition was taken at Dorney, near Windsor, on the body of a male
bastard child, murdered by its mother. In the course of her examination it appeared
that she had mangled her child by cutting off its hider parts, and taking out the
entrails, which she concealed in a hog tub; she afterwards cleft the child’s hear
asunder, and took out the brains, which she likely hid in the same place; the remaining
part of the body she conveyed it into a gulley hole, and is supposed to have been
devoured by the hogs in the yard, as it couldn’t be found. The Jury brought in their
verdict of wilful murder, and as soon as her condition will admit of it, she will be
committed to Aylesbury gaol, in order to take her trial.

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Fri 28 April
WOKINGHAM, April 28.
Tuesday Lord Pigot and some other gentlemen (who came with his Lordship to
Portsmouth on Sunday) embarked on board the Granville East-Indiaman, Capt.
Abercrombie, lying at Spithead. Lord Pigot is gone as Governor of Bombay, and the
other gentlemen are to enter upon places under his lordship; the ship is preparing to
sail.”

A gentleman who came through this town on Tuesday from Exeter, says that
provisions of all kinds are very cheap in that city; beef three-pence per pound; veal
two pence halfpenny; lamb and mutton at three pence per pound; and such a great
plenty of fish, that a person may have a good dinner for two pence, including butter;
bread likewise at a reasonable price.
About nine o’clock on Saturday evening one James Whayler, a dealer in run good,
was attacked by three footpads near Poplar, who robbed him of upwards of six pounds
in money, a silver watch, & several pieces of nankeen. The poor man making some
resistance, the villains beat him in a cruel manner, and afterwards bound his arms and
head to his thighs, and threw himinto a ditch, in which posture he lay till between four
and five o’clock on Sunday morning, when he was released by two men going that
way.
Tuesday evening, as Mr. Henry Cotterell, of Burghfield in this county, was
returning from Bracknell fair, he was stopped in Coppid-beech lane by two footpads,

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