Excerpts from July 27, 1810 London Chronicle

KIDNAPPING

A very atrocious case of kidnapping children has lately been discovered in Scotland. A wretch named John Leadbitter, formerly a butcher in North Leith, has been brought before the Sheriff of Edinburgh, for this offence. It appeared that he had been for a considerable time in the practice of seducing boys from their parents, and selling them to the masters or owners of vessels at different sea ports, chiefly those of the North of England. The particular case which disclosed this practice and brought the offender under the notice of the Sheriff is the following:--”He had prevailed on three boys employed in a cotton manufactory at Leslie, in Fifeshire, to run away from their master. About the middle of March last, he sent them off by the Trafalgar coach, which leaves Edinburgh at five o’clock every morning for London, for Shields or Sunderland, to persons who were resident there, to be sent to sea, or disposed of to the best advantage; and for each boy, when accepted, he received a premium of two guineas, and was paid all the expenses of procuring them and sending them to England. The two eldest boys, of the names of Charles Walker and John Lindsaay, the former about 11, and the latter only 13 years old, were turned off the coach at Morpeth, and sent to sea; and the youngest boy, William Barr, only eleven years old, was carried forward to Shields, where he was put on board a vessel in the roads for several weeks, but hearing by accident that he was to be sent away on some distant voyage, he privately made his escape, without a hat on his head, or a shoe on his foot, and begged all the way home to Leslie, a distance of fully 140 miles, in eight days, where he was received with inexpressible joy by his mother, a poor widow woman.”

In the course of the investigation it turned out, that by this nefarious and inhuman traffic, Leadbitter, by his own confession, was pocketing at the rate of about 1200l., per annum; that he thought it no crime to send the boys out of their native country, at the age of 13, without the consent of their parents, though he himself acknowledged he had a wife and three children. To prevent detection, he took care not to mention the boys’ names, but their numbers only, in the weigh-bill of the Trafalgar coach, and was most solicitous to prevent their escape in Edinburgh and on their way to Shields; but notwithstanding, some of the boys made their escape, which generally ended in a quarrel between the guard of the coach and Leadbitter.

The Sheriff granted a warrant to commit him to jail for the space of 14 days, and thereafter, until he had sufficient caution to restore the two boys, Walker and Lindsay, to their relations, within the space of two months, under the penalty of 60l. Sterling; and besides found him liable for expenses.

POLICE.

GUILDHALL,

Yesterday, a person named Wright, styling himself a gentleman, charged two women of the town with robbing him of his property.

It appeared that at twelve o’clock on the preceding day, he was going through Long-lane, Smithfield, in a state of intoxication, and met with a nymph of Chick-lane, who had a bouquet of flowers in her hand, and kindly offered to regale his olfactory nerves with a smell. Mr. Wright, not to be outdone in kindness, proposed, in his turn, to revive the lady’s spirits with a glass of cordial, and the lady condescended to accept the offer; but Mr. Wright, adopting the maxim of Lord Chesterfield–”that a company to be truly happy, should never consist of fewer than the Graces, nor more than the Muses,” invited another Vestal, of ragged and dangerous appearance, to be of the party; and the trio forthwith proceeded upon a tour through all the gin shops in the vicinage, and continued for three hours sipping gin, peppermint, aniseed, ale, and other nectarous liquids, until Mr. Wright, yielding to the influence of the drowsy god, sunk in a soft slumber upon a  seat in the tap-room of the Bear and Ragged Staff, where one of the ladies very dexterously extracted the contents of his pockets, while the other covered the operations by screening them from the eye of the hostess. But there was, unluckily, a fly Argus of a lamplighter in the room at dinner, who observed the lady at work, and determined, with professional zeal, to dissipate the darkness of the transaction, by communicating what he saw to a janitor of Giltspur-street Compter, in an adjoining chamber; the ladies were taken into custody, and two one-pound notes, the property of Mr. Wright, found in the hand of the spoiler. They were both committed to prison and Mr. Wright, much against his will, bound over to prosecute.

Yesterday afternoon RIVETT, the Bow-street officer, arrived in town from the Isle of Wight, with an Ensign belonging to a West India regiment, charged upon the evidence of a drum-boy with a most diabolical offense with another drum-boy, at the Vere-street club house. The prisoner underwent an examination before Mr. NARES, and acknowledged being at the house, and part of the circumstances stated against him. He was committed for further examination. The boys are in safe custody at the Tower.