Your average Victorian, or, at least, respectable Victorian, could be forgiven for believing that Whitechapel was the crime centre of the metropolis, if not of the whole of Britain.
Assaults and murders were commonplace, and robbery was almost a way of life for a fair number of the district’s population.
The Kentish Express, in its edition of Saturday the 2nd of June 1860, reported on a case that was heard at the Thames Police Court that provides us with an insight into the lifestyles led by some of those who strayed from the straight and narrow:-
THE ROBBERY IN WHITECHAPEL
John Dent, a cabdriver, aged 34; Ann Dent, his wife, 29; and Mary Shaw, their niece, aged 19, were charged again on Monday, at the Thames Police Court, with stealing £305 in gold and bank notes, and a gold watch, the property of Mrs. Louisa Fisher, a dealer in marine stores, No. 62 Leman-street, Whitechapel.
In addition to the evidence given on a former occasion, Mr. Radley said that since the last examination he had seen the male prisoner, and said to him, “your wife has robbed her mistress – do you know anything about it?”, to which he replied, “No, I do not.”
He said to the prisoner, “Why, you have been to Rochester and visited your wife.”
The prisoner said, “I have not been to Rochester, nor have I seen my wife.”
On Tuesday be saw the male prisoner in custody at the Southwark police-court, and told him his wife was under arrest, and had revealed everything to him.
The prisoner then said, “I know she will transport me if she can.”
ANN DENT’S STATEMENT
On Monday he saw the woman Ann Dent in the cell behind the Thames police-court, and she made the following statement:-
“I took the cashbox. containing £305 in notes and gold and a gold watch, from my mistress, and went direct to my husband, John Dent, at a coffee-house near the Bricklayers’ Arms.
I found him seated there, and said to him, “Cabby you ate wanted.”
He got a shoffle (Hansom cab), and I went down to Gravesend with him in the cab. Another man drove us.
When we passed through the toll-gates, he told me to squat myself down at the bottom of the cab, to avoid being seen by the turnpike men.
SHE GAVE HIM SOME OF THE SPOILS
When we reached Gravesend I gave my husband £5 out of the stolen money. He said that was not enough, and I gave him another sovereign, and a sovereign for drink. I also paid £3 for the cab, and took the remainder of the money, gold and bank-notes, to Rochester. I walked from Gravesend to Rochester.
On the Tuesday following, my husband, Dent, came to me at Cross’s house at Rochester, and took the notes to London to get them changed, and took the watch with him as well.
HE BROUGHT HER MONEY
On the Sunday following he came to Rochester and brought me £36 of the money he had received for the notes.
I asked him if that was all he had received for the notes I gave him. He said “Yes; I had much trouble to get the notes cashed and had to throw in the gold watch and chain.”
I should not have committed the robbery if my husband, had not told me to do so, and he promised to take me to Australia.”
MARY SHAW DISCHARGED
After several witnesses had been examined to prove the robbery – Mr. Yardley said that the coffee-shop keeper who saw the woman Ann Dent in his house, and heard her call for her husband, the man who drove the man and his wife to Gravesend, and some other witnesses, ought to be forth-coming.
There was no evidence on which he could commit the young prisoner, Mary Shaw, and she must be discharged.
MARY SHAW’S TESTIMONY
Shaw was then ordered into the witness-box and sworn.
She gave her evidence in a bold and reckless manner, and was repeatedly admonished by the magistrate, and also warned that if she said that which was false, he would cause her to be indicted for wilful and corrupt perjury.
She said that she was a single woman, and had known the male prisoner some time.
She never lived or cohabited with him.
JOHN DENT’S CLOTHES
The man’s clothes in the box belonging to John Dent.
They had been in her possession for one week.
John Dent had told her to put them in the box.
The other clothes had been in her possession three years.
John Dent did not live in the house.
FURNISHED FOR THREE WEEKS
Her apartments had been furnished for three weeks. She bought the furniture with her own money, which she had saved.
Her cousin took the house for her. She had lived in a garret, for which she paid 1s. 6d. per week rent, until three weeks ago.
She bought some of the furniture in the New-cut, and other things in the Waterloo-road.
QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Mr. Yardley:- “Do you mean to say that you have not been living with your uncle, John Dent?”
Witness:- “I have had a child by him.”
REMAND AND GREAT UNTRUTHS
The magistrate said that he should remand the two prisoners until Friday. Mr. Selfe, his colleague, had commenced the investigation and had better complete it.
He had no doubt the girl Show had told great untruths on oath