Swixo.—A person who was seen dropping incendiary letters, has been
arrested at Stoke, Suffolk. The prisoner is about sixty, rather under the middle size, thin face, dark eyebrows, prominent nose, and very grey- headed ; and was well known in Suffolk and the adjacent counties as a wholesale purchaser of straw plait. His name is Joseph Saville, of Gam. blingay, in Huntingdonshire, near the borders of Bedfordshire. On Wednesday, the 15th instant, he put up for the night at a public-house in. the village of Winchambrook, which he left on the ensuing morning. When passing through the village of Stradishall, he was seen by a poor woman, named Elizabeth Ray, to drop two papers from his gig, which she picked up, and of which the following are copies :— "Oh ye Farmers and Parishioners, pay the poor men wages, or I will put you in bodily fear. " SWING." "Church of England Parsons, who strain at gnats and swallow camels, who (wo), who, who. unto you—you shall one day have your reward. " SWING.'
Saville's luggage, when examined, was found to contain a well.ar- ranged journey-ledger, with numerous orders, valuable bills of exchange, sovereigns and silver to a large amount, altogether about 700/. There was also a New Testament, with numerous written hymns, including one relating to the approaching Millennium, and a book deemed by the -Ma- gistrates to be of an inflammatory nature [a Promethean, or a fire-ball ?J, whichcontains many coloured plates, by the ;.ame printer as the 'Pro- phetic Ain-swum for the ensuing year : this is to be produced upon the trial. Mr. Saville made no defence, nor did he tender bail. He has been fully committed to Bury gaol tb take his trial at the next Assizes. [We fear this won't do yet. Swing is, we suspect, still at large, althougk Mr. Saville and his inflammatory book are both in custody.] SWING IN PETTICOATS.—Abbot's Langley, Herts, has been in a state of great terror and excitement these two weeks, in consequence of alleged visits from foreigners and fire-balls. The house of a farmer, named Miles, at Dedminid, was set fire to repeatedly, by the zeal of re. volution, armed with the weapons of despotism. The foreigner was a man dressed in a white greatcoat, and with speckled trowsers ; and when he was on the premises on Tuesday week, he was heard to say,-" Where are the balls? "—for, though a foreigner, he could speak English 'very well. Scarcely had ;he child been put to bed, when a fire broke 'out in the room. This first fire was hardly got under, when another broke odt and no sooner was the second extinguished, than out burst a third I 'A boy was now placed up stairs to watch, without a light, that he might tee the balls the better. The maid meanwhile began to-bustle about a cloiet where her master's clothes were deposited, and in five minutes the closet. was on fire. The closet-fire was put out, and in a moment the curtains of the bed in the adjoining room were discovered burning. The balls rained a very storm on poor Mr. Miles's habitation. Mrs. Miles became so alarmed, that she removed to St. Alban's to escape the shower. On Sunday, the foreigner was seen again driving off in his gig ! and hardly had the sound of his wheels died away, when the wood-house was found to be on fire. This fire was also quenched by the assistance of the neighbours—and presto the bedchamber of Miss Miles, which was close to the wood-house, took fire in its turn. Among the persons who assem- bled to assist in putting out the fire of the wood-house one gentleman, Mr. Sutton of Walford, at length thought that it would be is well to look for the balls, in case any fragments of them :remained.-- -Maid firi, and found them in "the shape of some shovel-ful of half-burired embers, apparently from the kitchen, mixed with some ends.ef matches, precisely the same as those in use in the same apartment. The sensing-wench, Mistress Dorcas . Phillpotts, has since been taken.up, on the charge of setting fire to the house, and fully committed.
Previous page
