oborated. Samuel Story, who knew Mary Squires from of old, saw
her on December 22 in White Webs Lane, so called from the old house
noted as a meeting-place of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. Story was
a retired clockmaker. Mr. Smith, a tenant of the Duke of Portland, saw
Mary Squires in his cowhouse on December 15, 1752. She wanted leave
to camp there, as she had done in other years. The gipsies then lost a
pony. Several witnesses swore to this, and one swore to conversations
with Mary Squires about the pony. She gave her name, and said that it
was on the clog by which the beast was tethered.

Loomworth Dane swore to Mary Squires, whom he had observed so closely
as to note a great hole in the heel of her stocking. The date was Old
Christmas Day, 1752. Dane was landlord of the Bell, at Enfield, and a
maker of horse-collars. Sarah Star, whose house was next to Mrs.
Wells's, saw Mary Squires in her own house on January 18 or 19; Mary
wanted to buy pork, and hung about for three-quarters of an hour,
offering to tell fortunes. Mrs. Star got rid of her by a present of
some pig's flesh. She fixed the date by a document which she had given
to Miles, a solicitor; it was not in court. James Pratt swore to talk
with Mary Squires before Christmas as to her lost pony; she had then a
man with her. He was asked to look round the court to see if the man
was present, whereon George Squires ducked his head, and was rebuked
by the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Davy, who said 'It does not look
well.' It was hardly the demeanour of conscious innocence. But Pratt
would not swear to him. Mary Squires told Pratt that she would consult
'a cunning-man about the lost pony,' and Mr. Nares foolishly asked why
a cunning woman should consult a cunning man? 'One black fellow will
often tell you that he can and does something magical, whilst all the
time he is perfectly aware that he cannot, and yet firmly believes
that some other man can really do it.' So write Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen in their excellent book on _The Native Tribes of Central
Australia_ (p. 130); and so it was with the gipsy, who, though a 'wise
woman,' believed in a 'wise man.'

This witness (Pratt) said, with great emphasis: 'Upon my oath, that is
the woman.... I am positive in my conscience, and I am sure that it
was no other woman; this is the woman I saw at that blessed time.'
Moreover, she gave him her name as the name on the clog of the lost
pony. The affair of the pony was just