Page:The Trial, at Large, of William Booth and his Associates.pdf/14

 to the window, witness asked him if he would let him in, prisoner replied "I will just now"—witness then broke the glass of the window, and prisoner drew back to about the centre of the room, and then took a quantity of papers in his hand from off something that stood in the room, with machinery fixed upon it, witness afterwards found it was a bench with a pair of rollers fixed on it, he took the papers off the bench, they seemed to be the size of bank notes, and put them into the fire; witness called out to him, "Booth, you are dropping them—Booth, you are dropping them"—witness saw prisoner do this three times; the fire place has a flue leading out of the chamber, there was fire then in the fire place; witness then went up the ladder and forced bis way through the window lid, or shutter; this window was directly over that in the chamber, through which he saw Booth; he forced open the shutter by means of an iron instrument; Chirm soon followed him; witness jumped out of the garret through the trap door into the chamber or middle room, thinking there to meet with Booth, but as he was jumping down he saw Booth going through the lower trap door into the parlour; witness did not follow Booth, but stopped in the chamber, and ran to the fire place, and putting his hand up the chimney, pulled down a good deal of burnt paper; Linwood. Brownell, and Chirm, came to him in the chamber; he then broke a hole into the breast of the chimney in that same room, and pulled out many burnt papers, he then enlarged the hole, and found further up the chimney a note that was but little burnt, and several other burnt papers; he gave that note to his master (Brownell) to look at. Mr. Linwood was present; Brownell returned it to witness and directed him to mark it, which he did; the note now shewn to him [the note part of which was burnt] is the same, he put the letters Ch. upon it.—Witness, Dale, and George Redfearn, were left in possession of the house; after Mr. Linwood left on the 16th, no person entered the parlour, indeed they could not. Linwood having taken the key with him; on the 17th they searched the parlour, in the chimney they found several pieces of paper burnt, one not so completely burnt as the rest; it was burnt brown all over, but not destroyed, he gave it to Brownell. Witness kept possession of the house eight days, indeed nine days, including the day he went, Monday the 16th. On the