Henry Farley ran a toy shop on Fleet Street. In fact it was more than toy shop; Farley sold toys but also operated as a Post Office and considerable money went through his business. Regardless s of this by his own admission Farley wasn’t as careful with his accounting as he should have been and so it took him a while to realise that one of his employees had been dipping into his till.

Farley had employed an errand some months previously. John Martin, ‘a lad of about eighteen’, had impressed the toy shop owner and he soon earned his promotion to the front of house. Martin now had access to the money in the till , ‘being money received for letters  and postage stamps’.

This temptation clearly proved too much for the teenager and by early October Farley began to realise that money was going missing at an alarming rate. About £330 was missing, a huge sum in 1849, and, perhaps reluctantly, the shopkeeper’s attention fell on Martin. Calling him into his office he asked his assistant to turn out his pockets.

‘He turned the contents out of one of them, but being desired to empty the other, he flung  some money into the fire, which turned out to be two half-sovereigns and half-a-crown’.

Appearing before the Guildhall Police Court an embarrassed Farley said he didn’t really wish to press charges. He thought the fault was largely his own for not running his business more carefully. Moreover he didn’t want ‘to ruin the boy’. The whole sorry episode had ‘taught him a severe lesson’.

The magistrate, Alderman Musgrove, asked him if anyone else had access to the till and was told yes, they did but didn’t elaborate. The alderman chastised the toy shop proprietor for the laxness of his systems but declared that he couldn’t let this one go. John Martin would have to stand trial at the Old Bailey for embezzling his master’s property as that was in the best interests of the wider public.

I’m not sure whose interests it actually served to have Martin tried before a jury, as he was on 25 October 1847. There it was revealed that John earned 6s 6d a week and was well cared for, even receiving presents from his master. He clearly hadn’t repaid his trust  and maybe didn’t deserve the good character he received in court. He was convicted and sent to prison for six months. We have no idea whether Farley took him back afterwards, but if not the justice system had probably created another habitual offender.

[from Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper, Sunday, October 10, 1847]