Class: steerage
PPA Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 17, 2 July 1842
POLICE OFFICE, NELSON.
On Saturday last, a girl, thirteen years of age, named Jane Hopgood, was brought before the Police Magistrate, charged with stealing a pair of children's boots from the shop of Mr. Mills. There was also a separate charge against the father and mother for receiving the stolen property, knowing it to have been stolen. The shoes had been sold by one of the girl's sisters, at the direction of the mother, They were produced in court, and Mr. Mills swore to the private mark, which was still upon them. The girl confessed to having stolen the shoes.
The mother, during the examination of her children on the charge against her, conducted herself somewhat obstreperously, and accused her daughters of making up a story among themselves. She was committed to take her trial.
The father was discharged, and the girl had a month's confinement, a fortnight of the time to be solitary.
The whole family appeared to be anything but a respectable set. Not one of them could write their name, and the mother was most anxious to make the magistrate believe that her daughter (the prisoner) did not understand the nature of an oath.
PPA Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 17, 2 July 1842
Miss Jane Hopgood is thirteen years of age. She h;i* displayed, from what appeared in the Police Court, some precocity of talent in the school of vice. What better place to send her for imprisonment than, to a gaol where are full-
grown male culprits, with only a colonial partition between them ? Yet what are the njlfgist rates to do ? There is no proper department for women, no matron. The unhappy child has a mother, who encourages her in vice, if her committal be a just one, and a home where she is not likoly to be lauylit more good than can well be helped. !Fortunately, or unfortunately ? we hardly know which? the mother is committed with the child to prison. But how if such had ftot been the case ?
PPA Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 107, 23 March 1844
Jane Hopgood was charged by Richard Mills, with receiving goods, knowing them to have been stolen. Acquitted. Jane Hopgood had person sources.
3 She immigrated to ENG to Nelson, NZ on the Bolton arriving NZ 15/3/1842, on 29 October 1841.
1 She was a Servant in 1842.
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