ank. On January 1, George
dined, he said, at Abbotsbury, with one Clarke, a sweetheart of his
sister. They had two boiled fowls. But Clarke said they had only 'a
part of a fowl between them.' There was such a discrepancy of evidence
here as to time on the part of one of the gipsy's witnesses that Mr.
Davy told him he was drunk. Yet he persisted that he kissed Lucy
Squires, at an hour when Lucy, to suit the case, could not have been
present.

There was documentary evidence--a letter of Lucy to Clarke, from
Basingstoke. It was dated January 18, 1753, but the figure after 175
was torn off the postmark; that was the only injury to the letter. Had
there not been a battalion of as hard swearers to the presence of the
gipsies at Enfield in December-January 1752-1753 as there was to their
absence from Enfield and to their presence in Dorset, the gipsy party
would have proved their case. As matters stand, we must remember that
the Dorset evidence had been organised by a solicitor, that the route
was one which the Squires party habitually used; that by the
confession of Mr. Davy, the prosecuting counsel, the Squires family
'stood in' with the smuggling interest, compact and unscrupulous. They
were 'gipsies dealing in smuggled goods,' said Mr. Davy. Again, while
George Squires had been taught his lesson like a parrot, the
prosecution dared not call his sister, pretty Lucy, as a witness.
They said that George was 'stupid,' but that Lucy was much more dull.
The more stupid was George, the less unlikely was he to kidnap
Elizabeth Canning as prize of war after robbing her. But she did not
swear to him.

As to the presence of the gipsies at Mrs. Wells's, at Enfield, as
early as January 19, Mrs. Howard swore. Her husband lived on his own
property, and her house, with a well, which she allowed the villagers
to use, was opposite Mrs. Wells's. Mrs. Howard had seen the gipsy girl
at the well, and been curtsied to by her, at a distance of three or
four yards. She had heard earlier from her servants of the arrival of
the gipsies, and had 'looked wishfully,' or earnestly, at them. She
was not so positive as to Mary Squires, whom she had seen at a greater
distance.

William Headland swore to seeing Mary Squires on January 9; he fixed
the date by a market-day. Also, on the 12th, he saw her in Mrs.
Wells's house. He picked up a blood-stained piece of thin lead under
the window from which Elizabeth escaped, and took it to his mother,
who corr