SOME fairly racy and revealing reports are to be found in scanning the Worcester Journal editions for this month 250 years ago. Here are just two items from 1752:
"A woman at Upton Snodsbury, who had been a widow for more than a year, had of late been suspected of being with child. When neighbours taxed her therewith, she always protested she had only got the dropsy. But last week, the neighbours, hearing she was ill and had taken to her bed, made her a visit and, from certain circumstances, perceived a child had been born.
''When insisting on knowing what was become of it, the neighbours brought a confession from the woman who directed them into a garret where they found the poor infant dead on the floor. From all appearance it had been born alive. The mother, no doubt, will be sent to gaol as soon as she is fit to be removed.
''The father of the child, it seems, is a common traveller and was an entire stranger to the widow."
"As several pickpockets, shoplifters and gamblers met with extraordinary success at our last City Fair, it may be imagined that they will visit us again at our Fair next Saturday, but from this Intimation 'tis hoped people will be sufficiently aware of them."
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