f becoming confirmed thieves,
from which they were rescued by this providential discovery of their
situation; and we know not how many children may have been led to evil
practices in like manner.

I will give another instance which occurred at the office at Queen
Square.--A female, apparently no more than nineteen years of age,
named Jane Smith, and a child just turned of five years old, named
Mary Ann Ranniford, were put to the bar, before Edward Markland,
Esq., the magistrate, charged with circulating counterfeit coin in
Westminster and the county of Surrey, to a vast extent.

It appeared that the elder prisoner had long been known to be a common
utterer of base coin, in which she dealt very largely with those
individuals who are agents in London to the manufacturers of the
spurious commodity in Birmingham. She had been once or twice before
charged with the offence, and therefore she became so notorious that
she was necessitated to leave off putting the bad money away herself;
but so determined was she to keep up the traffic, that she was in the
habit of employing children of tender years to pass the counterfeit
money. On one occasion two Bow Street officers observed her at her old
trade, in company with the child Ranniford. The officers kept a strict
eye upon her movements, and saw her several times pass something to
the little girl; and she, by the direction of her instructor, went
into different shops (such as hosiers, where she purchased balls of
worsted, pastry-cooks, tobacconists, and fruiterers), where she passed
the bad money, and received in return goods and change. On the other
side of the bridge, the patroles saw the prisoner Smith deliver
something to the child, and point out the shop of Mr. Isaacs, a
fruiterer, in Bridge Street, Westminster. The child went in, and asked
for a juicy lemon, and gave a counterfeit shilling in payment. Mrs.
Isaacs had no suspicion from the tender age of the utterer, and its
respectable appearance, that the money was bad, and was about to give
change, when one of the officers entered, and took the deluded child
into custody, whilst his companion secured the elder prisoner (Smith),
and on searching her pockets he found twelve bad shillings, some
parcels of snuff, several balls of cotton and worsted, and other
trifling articles, which the child had purchased in the course of the
day. The officers who had secured them, learned from the child that
her parents lived in Cross Stre