SILHOUETTES OF STRANGE WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 19

SILHOUETTES OF STRANGE WOMEN.

ELIZABETH CANNING. (By V. METHLEY.) X. From January 0, 175P,, and f.i- fifteen mouths onwards, the affairs of an ignorant servant-girl, scarcely eighteen y<?ars old, occupied the whole attention of the great British public, induced the two greatest living writers of England and France to make her their theme and divided the community into two camps—the Canningites and the Egyptians. Tim business began when an advertisement appeared in the "Dally Advertiser," offering a reward of 2gn.s for any information as to the whereabouts of Elizabeth Canning, who had disappeared from her friends on the previous Monday, between nine and ten o'clock at night. In the neJjht.ourhnod of Iloundsditch or Blshopsgate. The girl was described as fresh-coloured, pitted with smallpox, not handsome, five fee* in height, with light eyebrows. She was attired ir a "masquerade purple stuff gown", -whatever that may be!—with a black peltlculf and a white ship nat 'joiind with green. Her mother, who Inserted "bis advertisement, was the wife of a sawyer at Aidermanbury, and had an excellent reputation. The girl's master was one John Lyons, and she herself had the best of characters. Gaols and hospitals were searched, every possible inquiry was made, but all to no purpose. It seemed n s though Elizabeth Canning must certainly be dead—when, suddenly, on January 20 she reappeared at Her mother's house, late at night, in the most frightful condition, ragged, dirty and starving. A doctor was summoned, and she soon recovered sufficiently to tell her amazing story. The girl said that, on January 1 she went to visit her uncle and aunt in Rosemary Lane On hpr *t-.»t- k i Bethlehem sot upo,, b y two men _ wbo robbed her of half a guinea in gold and three shillings In silver tore off her hat, sown and apron, and so knocked her about that she 1 '!,. ! k '"" n iD ° ne " f the p P"eptlc tits to . which she was subject. i When she came to herself, she was being

i dragged along a road, and in half an hour she and her captors reached a house where there was an old gipsy hag and several other men and women, who tried to bribe and threaten her into adopting a bad life. As Elizabeth refused, they shut her Into an empty room, like a hayloft, and told her that her throat would j be cut If she made any noise. And In days, seeing no one, afraid to i and with nothing to eat or drink ercept I a large black jug full of water and some 1 Pieces of bread, amounting to about a ; ; quartern loaf in all, together with a small ; piece of "minced pye" which she had been I i carrying home in her pocket for her little I ! brother. ' ! _ On the twenty-seventh day, so Elizabeth _ : Canning related, she escaped through a j window in the loft, dropping about eight I or ten feet on to soft clay, and taking i , about six hours to reach her mother's , house. From the description which the , girl gave of the "gypsy's" house, it was . : Identified as that of "Mother Wells, ,, .-it j Enfield Wash, a place of ill-fame. ' This 5 i woman and other members of her house- ! I hold were immediately arrested, but ; i although Elizabeth identified two of these ; J individuals she declared that she had ■ j never before seen Mother Wells herself. i I However, a girl named Virtue Hall, who ! was n servunt to Wells, corroborated I Canning's evidence and declared that a ! certain Mary Squires, who lodged in the I house, was the gipsy In question, and this J woman was accordingly put on her trial. ! Under cross-examination Canning was very j consistent, and gave the most minute details of her assault and imprisonment, j supported In many particulars by Virtue Hall. Wells and Squires were sentenced to death and Wells was actually hanged— I when the Judge, Sir Crisp Gascolgno, reopened the matter with a sensational announcement. He was dissatisfied -with the evidence'against Squires. There were several points which seemed peculiar and . doubtful. How, for instance, had Canning , i managed to sustain life and strength for . j nearly a month on such utterly Insufficient , food? Why had she not escaped" from the . I In short, Sir Crisp Gascoigne was conj vlnced that Elizabeth Canning was lying, ; j and he insisted that she should be brought . to trial for perjury. Public interest grew 9 and waxed more and more intense, as the ; j time for this trial drew near. The two r I "Squireites," or "Egyptians," assaulted i I each other with words and pamphlets. , J Voltaire and Fielding flung themselves into ) ; the fray, taking up the line that Canning I was certainly an imposter. Nothing else j was discussed in the coffee houses, in fine i ■ ladies" boudoirs. In shops and In markets, r J in St. James", and in Iloundsditch. I 1 And when the trial actually - began on J April 29, 1754, the Old Bailey waa packed p to overflowins, and crowds waited to tien.r ;. reports and rumours. The ease dragged 3 on until May 7th. with many strange and I dramatic moments. The two principal f tigures wore oddly contrasted! Elizabeth l, Canning, small, fair, with a rather blank I expression in her protruding pale blue s eyes, repeating the details of her Strang a story doggedly, standing there in her clean c linen gown and black bonnet. The gipsy, j Squires, a swarthy, haggish creature of y over SO years, bent and bowed and so pick a that they were obliged to carry her into y Court. ,c But it was not long before it became apparent that Elizabeth's case was breaki- ing down. The first blow was when Virw tue Hall failed her and confessed that she Is hnd given false evidence at the previous h- trial. After that, bit by bit, the whole ' story of the abduction and imprisonment

whs picked to pieces fl-O(i diflcrcdi* ted. The jury found that Elizabeth Canning was: •' Guilty of perjury, but not wilful or corrupt," and Squires was declared to be innocent. An extraordinary turmoil of cheers and hisses greeted this verdict, when it became known to the great crowd outside the Old at an end. The Court disagreed over her sentence. Nearly half of the Bench were for leniency, and it was only by a sentence of seven years' transportation. Elizabeth fell ill at the conclusion of the trial. She was not able to sail in the appointed convict-ship, and it was several months later when the heroine of this extraordinary drama was finally carried oversea to America. After this, it Is rather difficult to rolend of her seven years' sentence, she re» turned to England and inherited a legacy of £500. But the more reliable story seems to be that Elizabeth became a schooltownship. Here she, later, married a rich played the part, for the rest of heir life, of a most impeccable member of Society. It is a strange etory, and a story of which the full truth will probably never be known. Fielding, Voltaire, and the other " Egyptians " of the day took up the line that Elizabeth Canning was merely a vulgar little imposter —that she had ■wished to cover her tracks for a month or so and, consequently, made up the whole story, based only on the foundation of the fact that "Mother Wells' " establishment was undoubtedly a place of evil repute. But somehow this does not ee'em entirely to cover the case. There are undoubted discrepancies in the girl's story, and it li hard to believe that she could have supported life on such a meagre supply of food for nearly a month, or that she would not have taken the apparently easy way of escape earlier. But, on the other hand, medical knowledge was not very advanced in the days of Elizabeth Canning, and the doctors who were called to give evidence seem scarcely to have heeded the fact that the girl was a confirmed epileptic. In her story, she said that she had fallen into a flt when the men first attacked her; that she had many other fits during her twentyseven days' imprisonment. Her own mother gave evidence that "during these fits she was no more than a new-born babe." It is quite possible that this may account for much that seems strange in Elizabeth's narrative. Doctors nowadays know that an epileptic can remain for many days In a state of semi or complete unconsciousness, without needing food and utterly incapable of action. It is very likely that this Vas the girl's condition during the greater part of her imprisonment—quite possible, too, that gipsies, seeing this, were afraid to do anything, and just left her to herself to recover as best she could, leaving food beside her. This is taking it for granted that the main part of Elizabeth's narrative was true. On the other hand, it may have been invented. Epileptic patients often have this power of telling long stories with complete and seemingly entirely truthful details, believing in It all thoroughly themselves. But in any case it seems probable that her phyeical state was the mystery at the bottom of the strange case of Elizabeth Canning—a case which puzzled even poroilia, and made them regard this little eightn^n-year-old servant girl as something nearly approaching to the Sphinx herself .