At the quarter-sessions held at Taunton, in Somersetshire, this woman was brought before the Court; but under what specific charge, or upon what penal statute she was indicted, we can neither trace by the mention of the circumstance, nor could we frame an indictment to meet the gross offence, because the law never contemplated a marriage among women.  She was, however, tried, whether or not her case might have been cognizable, and Mary Price, the fourteenth wife, appeared in evidence (in such a case as this we must be pardoned for ambiguity) against her female husband.  She swore that she was lawfully married to the prisoner, and that they bedded, and lived together as man and wife, for more than a quarter of a year; during all which time, so well did the impostor assume the character of man, that she still actually believed she had married a fellow-creature of the right and proper sex.  At length, the prosecutrix added, she became mistrustful, and, comparing certain circumstances with the married Goodies, her neighbours, she was convinced that Mary had acted the part of Charles towards her by the vilest and most deceitful practices. 

     The learned quorum of justices, 
     "in full-blown dignity of wigs, 
     mounted on blocks, thus cogitated"--

"That the he, she, prisoner at the bar, is an uncommon notorious cheat; and we, the Court, do sentence her or him, whichever he or she may be, to be imprisoned six months, and, during that time, to be whipped in the towns of Taunton, Glastonbury, Wells, and Shipton-Mallet, and to find security for good behaviour as long as they, the learned justices aforesaid, shall or may, in their wisdom and judgment, require;" and Mary, the monopolizer of her own sex, was imprisoned and whipped accordingly, in the severity of the winter of the year 1746.