Magical fraud

This day Mary Connor, an old offender, was charged with defrauding Mary Anderson of wearing apparel, by pretended magical illusions.

The prosecutrix stated, that the prisoner applied to her for lodgings four months ago, and having learned that a young man was paying his addresses to her, she contrived to seduce his affections from her, and was herself actually married to him. She next contrived, by her incantations, to make the unsuspecting girl (Anderson) open her box, containing  clothes, with about 30l., which next morning were gone.

The enchantress pretended that an apparition had conveyed them to Devonshire, and that if she attempted to reveal it, she would be turned into a fish. Terrified by this idea, the girl actually concealed her loss for eleven weeks, till her eyes were opened by discovering that the prisoner had been secretly married to her own lover, already mentioned.

The prisoner acknowledged the fraud, and was committed for trial. Her husband was held to bail.