new, lived by hard working while he was abroad. Then on a sudden she
was taken up and committed to Newgate, for assaulting William Whittle,
in the highway, and taking from him a watch value L4, and sixpence in
money, on the 6th of August, 1726.

When sessions came on, the prosecutor appeared and swore the fact
positively upon her, whereupon the jury found her guilty, though at the
bar she declared with abundance of asseverations that she never was
guilty of anything of that sort in her life, and insisted on it that the
man was mistaken in her face. While under sentence of death, she behaved
herself with great devotion, and seemed to express no concern at leaving
the world, excepting her only apprehensions that her child would neither
be taken care of nor educated so well after her decease, at the charge
of the parish, as hitherto it had been. Yet with respect to the crime
for which she was to die, she still continued to profess her innocency
thereof, averring that she had never been concerned in injuring anybody
by theft, and charging the oath of the prosecutor wholly upon his
mistake, and not upon wilful design to do her prejudice. At chapel, as
well as in the place of her confinement, she declared she absolutely
forgave him who had brought her to that ignominious end, as freely as
she hoped forgiveness from her Creator; and with these professions she
left the world at Tyburn, on the same day with the before-mentioned
malefactor, being then about thirty-four years of age, persisting even
at the place of execution in the denial of the fact.

The Life of JANE HOLMES, _alias_ BARRET, _alias_ FRAZER, a Shoplifter

In the summer of the year 1726, shoplifting became so common a practice,
and so detrimental to the shopkeepers, that they made an application to
the Government for assistance in apprehending the offenders; and in
order thereto, offered a reward and a pardon for any who would discover
their associates in such practices. It was not long before by their
vigilance and warmth in carrying on the prosecution, they seized and
committed several of the most notorious shoplifters about town, and at
the next several ensuing sessions convicted six or seven of them, which
seems to have pretty well broke the neck of this branch of thieving ever
since.

The malefactor of whom we are now speaking pretended to have been the
daughter of a gentleman of some rank in a northern county. Certain it is
that the woman had had a