I am remembering in detail the reasons I decided I had to get a new computer. It’s amazingly iffy. It can’t load some internet pages, for reasons I cannot parse, but since my new computer will be fixed soon, not worth chasing down…it works as a workhorse in an emergency, which is its job.
I am finding some links I want to put on the new computer: the Ancestry World Archives Project Keying Tool, the links to my file and slide comparison softwares: wonderful things, especially with a terabyte drive.

And the Old Bailey records: I’ve been finding potential ancestors, one Elizabeth Tipton transported to Australia for petty theft, one John Cherry sentenced to death for burglary, sentence overturned at the very last moment, but he was apparently a bad egg or had incredibly bad luck: he was up on similar charges again, and I can’t find out how the case turned out, but I have my suspicions he was hanged. Or transported.
And the things people steal: handkerchiefs, shirts—a really lengthy interview with one Mary Cherry who was apparently a dealer in flatwork, sheets, napkins, etc, since a thief had delivered her a bolt of stolen cloth, then tried to reclaim it, since the law was on his tail.
And another in which 3 shirts were stolen, and a woman acquaintance of the thief was told to take them out to a dunghill (you know, before flush toilets) and dump them. But she lost her nerve and went to the ‘necessary’ and accidentally dropped one in. Accidentally, you drop a shirt into a privy. The cases just boggle the mind. We don’t know if she ever made it to the dunghill before this odd woman was caught and the shirts retrieved.
One gets the notion that the servants’ access to the wealthy houses was rife with intrigue: one lad of the Cherry family was up on theft of several bottles of liquor, including 2 bottles of beer, and his story was that they had been informed that while a party was going on in the upper floors, a maid had said there was going to be a party downstairs, and the butler was in on it: well, the lad felt he should contribute to the party, and one of his boon companions said sure, here’s money for it. So the lad ran out and accosted the female tavern-worker who was delivering liquor for the Upstairs party—and asked her to run get more for the downstairs. Which she did.
And he paid her and took the booze, heading for the party. But she took one look at the object he had handed her, which turned out to be a “William Medal”, apparently a potmetal souvenir of the day, and not a large coin, and she screamed “Stop, Thief!” which drew the law—
She testified in the trial that he’d broken the liquor, but he testified he hadn’t known it was a fake coin, and that he’d panicked and dropped a bottle of beer (we are left to beleive that some of the restof the liquor vanished in the course of the thief-takers’ investigation (Yep, matey, this be gin!) and he was very sorry, but all his friends had run off. And here he was.
The court exonerated him as a young man who’d not been in trouble before.
Ah, the ins and outs of oldtime crime and punishment. The ones left in the hole were likely the tavernkeeper and crew: I’m betting the law drank the gin. And Upstairs had its party, but our young lad spent the night in gaol contemplating being hung as a thief.

And I really want to save that link.

But the balky keyboard is at least capable of delivering letters and clicks, so all is well. I’m making progress, even if this screen does hop about and drop lines of type below the screen, then hop up once you type—very annoying. At least it doesn’t do it much in the word processor—just occasionally.