upy as much space in the _State
Trials_ as three or four modern novels. In giving our readers an
outline of the events so recorded, only the more prominent and marked
features of them can of course find room.

Elizabeth Canning, a young woman between eighteen and nineteen years
of age, had borne an unexceptionable character, and was a domestic
servant in the house of a gentleman living in Aldermanbury, named
Edward Lyon. On the 1st of January 1753, she obtained liberty to pay a
visit to her uncle, who lived at Saltpetre Bank. As she did not return
at the specified time, Mr Lyon's family made inquiry of her mother
about her, and learned that she had not made her appearance among her
other relations after the visit to her uncle. Days and weeks passed,
in which every inquiry was unavailingly made after her, and her mother
suffered intense anxiety. Public notice had been taken of the mystery;
it was commented on in the newspapers, and much talked of. At length,
at the end of January, Elizabeth entered her mother's house in a
wretched condition--emaciated and exhausted, and with scarcely a
sufficiency of clothes on her person for mere decorum. She was, of
course, asked eagerly to give an account of her misfortunes. Her
narrative by degrees resolved itself into this shape: She set out on
her visit at eleven o'clock in the day, and stayed with her uncle till
nine o'clock in the evening. Her uncle and aunt accompanied her as far
as Aldgate. Then setting off alone, as she crossed Moorfields, and
passed the back of Bethlehem Hospital, two stout men seized her. 'They
said nothing to me,' she said, 'at first, but took half a guinea, in a
little box, out of my pocket, and three shillings that were loose.
They took my gown, apron, and hat, and folded them up, and put them
into a greatcoat pocket. I screamed out; then the man who took my gown
put a handkerchief or some such thing in my mouth.' They then tied her
hands behind her, swore savagely at her, and dragged her along with
them. She now, according to her own account, swooned, and on
recovering from her fit, she felt herself still in their hands; they
were swearing, and calling on her to move on. Partly insensible, she
was conveyed for a considerable distance, but could not say whether
she was dragged or carried. When she found herself at rest,
it was daylight in the morning. She remembered being in a
disreputable-looking house, in the presence of a woman, who said if
she would