7.--Sergt. John Parker, 3rd Dragoons, stationed at Norwich on recruiting
service, was apprehended on suspicion of having committed a murder at
Brighton in 1796. The extraordinary statement upon which the accused was
apprehended was concocted by a man named William Cobb, of St.
Martin-at-Oak, who informed the Mayor that Parker, when a private in the
Somerset Fencible Cavalry, met him (Cobb), then a private in Col.
Villier's Fencible Light Dragoons, while halting at Dorking, and told him
that he had murdered a woman at Brighton and had thrown her body into a
well. An affidavit sent from Collumpton, in Devonshire, to the effect
that Parker was there ill at the time of the alleged murder, was
sufficient to procure him his discharge from custody.
9.--Died, in his 85th year, Henry Keymer, of East Dereham, "many years a
respectable auctioneer and land surveyor, and late sole proprietor of
Herring's valuable antidote for the cure of the bite of a mad dog."
11.--A bull, the property of Edward Kett, butcher, of Norwich, was baited
near "Bishop Gates." The baiting "offered very great sport; the bull was
a game one, and the dogs equally so."
24.--Died, in the Close, Norwich, aged 90, the Rev. George Sandby, D.D.,
39 years Chancellor of the Diocese. He was Vice-Chancellor of Merton
College, Oxford, in 1760.
28.*--"His Majesty has been pleased to appoint Wm. Firth, Esq., Steward
of Norwich, to be attorney-general in the province of Upper Canada." On
his resignation of the Stewardship on May 3rd, Mr. Firth received the
thanks of the Corporation, and Mr. Robert Alderson was appointed in his
place. At about this date, Mr. Thomas Amyot was appointed secretary and
registrar of Lower Canada.