| BOW-STREET. Elizabeth Fairbanks, aged 18, a wastepaper
sorter at a stationer’s, was charged with writing obscene
words on the wall of a house.
Mr. Howard, one of the church Wardens, stated that
for some days past his attention had been called to a
certain house in Chandos-street as being one of immoral
character. On Sunday night he was passing that way, and
saw the prisoner with a younger girl writing on the wall
of the house in question. The prisoner had a can of some
black fluid in her hand, and was dictating to the younger
girl certain indecent words, which the other was writing
with a brush on the shutter. After that the prisoner
took the brush and also wrote the same word. (Witness
repeated the expressions, which implied that the house
was one of bad character.) He gave her into custody.
The prisoner's employer said she had hitherto borne a
good character, and he had never known her to be guilty
of any indecency.
Mr. Flowers said, if that was so, he was only the more
surprised that she should be guilty of such conduct now.
He could not comprehend how any young woman, with
the slightest pretence to decency, could bring herself to
repeat such words, even in writing. Yet, she had not only
done that, but had stood there calling people's attention
to those words. Perhaps the worst part of her conduct
was, that she had told the younger girl to do the same.
The prisoner said the other began it.
Mr. Flowers ordered her to pay a fine of 10s., or be
imprisoned for seven days.
The Morning Post, 37 January 1865