[Footnote 1: _Puzzles and Paradoxes_, pp. 317-336, Blackwoods, 1874.]

On the other hand, by 1754 the town was divided into two factions,
believers and disbelievers in Elizabeth; and Chitty was then a
disbeliever. Chitty took but a few notes on January 31, 1753. 'I did
not make it so distinct as I could wish, not thinking it could be the
subject of so much inquiry,' he admitted in 1754. Moreover, the notes
which he then produced were _not_ the notes which he made at the time,
'but what I took since from that paper I took then' (January 31, 1753)
'of hers and other persons that were brought before me.' This is not
intelligible, and is not satisfactory. If Elizabeth handed in a paper,
Chitty should have produced it in 1754. If he took notes of the
evidence, why did he not produce the original notes?

These notes, made when, and from what source, is vague, bear that
Elizabeth's tale was this: At a dead wall by Bedlam, in Moorfields,
about ten P.M., on January 1, 1753, two men stripped her of gown,
apron, and hat, robbed her of thirteen shillings and sixpence, 'struck
her, stunned her, and pushed her along Bishopsgate Street.' She lost
consciousness--one of her 'fits'--and recovered herself (near Enfield
Wash). Here she was taken to a house, later said to be 'Mother
Wells's,' where 'several persons' were. Chitty, unluckily, does not
say what sort of persons, and on that point all turns. She was asked
'to do as they did,' 'a woman forced her upstairs into a room, and cut
the lace of her stays,' told her there were bread and water in the
room, and that her throat would be cut if she came out. The door was
locked on her. (There was no lock; the door was merely bolted.) She
lived on fragments of a quartern loaf and water '_in a pitcher_,' with
the mince-pie bought for her naughty little brother. She escaped about
four in the afternoon of January 29. In the room were 'an old stool or