IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (8th - 14th FEBRUARY 1921)
This week's stories include the smoky steam-powered lorry at Eccleston Lane Ends, the boys that tramped for work, the St Helens' clubs accused of being drinking and gambling dens and a bus tragedy at Marshalls Cross.
Although many hauliers were now using motors wagons to transport their goods from A to B, some continued to use steam. These had improved a lot since their early days when a separate steam locomotive hauled the vehicle along the highway. However they were still big heavy beasts that polluted the atmosphere and damaged the roads. On the 8th Alfred McNiven, a driver for the Liverpool Transport Company, was fined £2 in St Helens Police Court for allowing his Sentinel wagon to become a nuisance at Eccleston Lane Ends.
The Shrewsbury-based Sentinel, along with Foden, dominated the steam market for lorries. Like steam railway engines they needed a lot of water and so would make stops at various places to use standpipes. One was located near the junction of Burrows Lane and St Helens Road but while the driver was filling up with H20, his engine was pumping out lots of smoke. That was deemed a public nuisance and hence the fine.
These days licensing is undertaken by St Helens Council but a century ago it was down to a group of magistrates. They not only licensed all the pubs and places of entertainment in the borough but also controlled many other aspects, such as whether they could enlarge their premises. This year's annual licensing sessions were held on the 10th and the St Helens Chief Constable was highly critical of the behaviour of the clubs in the town. These had increased from nineteen in 1919 to twenty-nine in 1920, with their total membership having more than doubled.
Although conceding that some clubs were well run, Arthur Ellerington claimed that others were simply drinking and gambling dens with few rules to follow. "At the present time", said the chief, "it was sufficient for a number of persons to form themselves into a club, draw up a laudable and ideal set of rules, give certain particulars to the magistrates' clerk and pay a fee of 5s, and they could then sell intoxicating liquor to themselves without any restriction other than the Liquor Control Order."
At the present time the justices were attempting to reduce the number of licensed premises in St Helens but there was little that they could do to stop new clubs from springing up in their place. The Chief Constable added: "The undesirable kind of club had to be cleared away at all costs, and the law should be amended so as to give the justices power to make the strictest investigation into the bona fides of these clubs."
A few days later Joseph Walsh, caretaker of the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Fisher Street in Sutton, was charged in the Police Court with supplying drink during prohibited hours to James and Joseph Byrne of Robins Lane. Constable Davies and Inspector Bowden had climbed over a wall at 1am to nab the man who was fined £4. The police also tried to get the club struck off but they received a strict warning instead.
There was a long history of men (and women) walking considerable distances to find work. On the 11th the Echo published this story about three lads who had walked 40 miles to Liverpool and were on their way to St Helens when picked up by the police:
"Three boys who had walked from Stockport to Liverpool to look for work were brought before the city stipendiary, to-day, for stealing a bundle of newspapers from outside a shop in Kensington. Their names were George Pollitt (16), Louis Vellino (14), and Gustave Vellino (13). The lads stated that they reached Liverpool yesterday morning, and were told at the docks that they might get work at St. Helens glassworks.
"They were on the way to St. Helens when they stole the papers, and they committed the offence because they wanted money for breakfast. The Stipendiary. – l will have to send you back to Stockport as returned baggage (laughter). On the boys promising not to repeat their offence they were discharged with a caution. The Probation Officer undertook to see that they were returned to Stockport by rail."
The lads would have been told to tramp to Pilkingtons as the glass giant employed around 150 lads, many of them orphans, who had come to St Helens from all over the country. Most lived in a nice hostel in Ravenhead, which contained a gym, baths and recreational rooms.
The inquest on Mary Davies from New Street in Sutton took place on the 12th. The 74-year-old had stepped out in front of a motor bus around six o’clock at night as the vehicle arrived at Marshalls Cross Bridge (pictured above with the Bull & Dog in the background). That was the old bridge, which, these days, is mainly used to cross platforms at Lea Green station. There was no such thing as motor buses in Mary's day. And the racket that steam and electric trams made would have alerted her to their presence – not that the tram network ever went to Marshalls Cross or down New Street.
Horse-drawn traffic did not pose quite the same danger to pedestrians as motor vehicles and so the kerb drill of "look right, look left and right again" would not have been instilled in Mary. The coroner said it had been a clear case of accident and it illustrated what he had often said about the danger of people crossing the road without looking to see whether anything was coming. "It was done in the most careless manner and it was surprising that there were not more fatal accidents," he added.
The inquest was also held on Charles Roberts from Farnworth who was a brakesman employed at Sutton Manor Colliery. The 38-year-old was uncoupling coal wagons on a new siding and slipped over some waste heaps and fell under a wagon. Charles suffered a fractured thigh and internal injuries and told engine driver Daniel Lamb "I am killed". He was taken to St Helens Hospital but died soon afterwards.
I am devoting the rest of this week's article to an extraordinary story in the Echo on the 14th that bore the headline "Wife Beating! Husbands and Corporal Punishment" and discussed whether husbands should discipline their wives:
"“In these days of equality and women's rights, corporal punishment for erring wives would be a difficult matter to advocate,” said a Liverpool magistrate when his attention was called by an “Echo” reporter to a statement by Mr. I. A. Symmons, the Clerkenwell J. P., to the effect that the existing law does not give the husband sufficient authority over the wife. “There is no doubt,” added the former, who has had a wide experience of the Liverpool courts, “that women frequently seize upon the slightest excuse for a separation; but, nevertheless, I would not care to join with the London magistrate in suggesting that husbands should take the law more into their hands. It might do good in some cases if they did, but the husband who followed such a course would, naturally, run the risk of falling foul of the law.”
"It was during the hearing of an application for one of “these miserable separation orders,” on Saturday, that Mr. Symmons declared a man was no longer master in his own house. “The law is wobbly and weakened,” he declared. “Under the good old law a man could thrash his wife so long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb.” A prominent London lawyer, with long knowledge of cases of this kind, says he is inclined to agree with Mr. Symmons.
"“There are hundreds of applications for separation orders which would never be made if the husband had a little more authority over his wife,” he states, from much experience. “There are cases in which, in the old days, the woman, knowing the difficulty of obtaining a separation, would have decided to remain in her home, and often in the case of a young couple she would gradually learn to understand her husband better, and they would settle down to a fairly happy life.
"“The husband perhaps comes home from work and finds his wife out. He protests when she returns, and she tells him to “go to the devil.” He smacks her, and she retorts, “That's enough for me; I will go and ask for a separation order.” “No one wants to re-establish the absolute authority of the husband over the wife, but the tendency of the law as it stands is to place in her hands a power which she often uses to break up the home, instead of trying to settle down and make the best of it.”
"“I agree, in a sense, with the statement by the Clerkenwell magistrate, that if a man knocks his wife about it is the wife's fault. Any woman of spirit would see to it that the man who hit her received at least twenty blows for his one” said Miss Florence Underwood, secretary of the Women's Freedom League. She added that the members of the league were not pacifists on such matters as these, and that in their opinion domestic unhappiness was not due to a weak-kneed law that defended the wife, but to the terms of inequality on which husbands and wives were still placed.
"Only antiquated members of both sexes still failed to realise that men and women must be on equal terms in all their relations with one another, including matrimony. She considered that these ridiculous remarks on the part of a male magistrate showed how absolutely necessary it was to institute women magistrates on every bench in the country. The public had too long been obliged to suffer from the bad jokes perpetrated by facetious members of the bench."
Next week's stories will include the tram driver blinded by a miner at Haydock, an heroic rescue attempt in a double tragedy at Bold Colliery and the St Helens MP tells the Commons about his days as a tramp.
Although many hauliers were now using motors wagons to transport their goods from A to B, some continued to use steam. These had improved a lot since their early days when a separate steam locomotive hauled the vehicle along the highway. However they were still big heavy beasts that polluted the atmosphere and damaged the roads. On the 8th Alfred McNiven, a driver for the Liverpool Transport Company, was fined £2 in St Helens Police Court for allowing his Sentinel wagon to become a nuisance at Eccleston Lane Ends.
The Shrewsbury-based Sentinel, along with Foden, dominated the steam market for lorries. Like steam railway engines they needed a lot of water and so would make stops at various places to use standpipes. One was located near the junction of Burrows Lane and St Helens Road but while the driver was filling up with H20, his engine was pumping out lots of smoke. That was deemed a public nuisance and hence the fine.
These days licensing is undertaken by St Helens Council but a century ago it was down to a group of magistrates. They not only licensed all the pubs and places of entertainment in the borough but also controlled many other aspects, such as whether they could enlarge their premises. This year's annual licensing sessions were held on the 10th and the St Helens Chief Constable was highly critical of the behaviour of the clubs in the town. These had increased from nineteen in 1919 to twenty-nine in 1920, with their total membership having more than doubled.
Although conceding that some clubs were well run, Arthur Ellerington claimed that others were simply drinking and gambling dens with few rules to follow. "At the present time", said the chief, "it was sufficient for a number of persons to form themselves into a club, draw up a laudable and ideal set of rules, give certain particulars to the magistrates' clerk and pay a fee of 5s, and they could then sell intoxicating liquor to themselves without any restriction other than the Liquor Control Order."
At the present time the justices were attempting to reduce the number of licensed premises in St Helens but there was little that they could do to stop new clubs from springing up in their place. The Chief Constable added: "The undesirable kind of club had to be cleared away at all costs, and the law should be amended so as to give the justices power to make the strictest investigation into the bona fides of these clubs."
A few days later Joseph Walsh, caretaker of the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Fisher Street in Sutton, was charged in the Police Court with supplying drink during prohibited hours to James and Joseph Byrne of Robins Lane. Constable Davies and Inspector Bowden had climbed over a wall at 1am to nab the man who was fined £4. The police also tried to get the club struck off but they received a strict warning instead.
There was a long history of men (and women) walking considerable distances to find work. On the 11th the Echo published this story about three lads who had walked 40 miles to Liverpool and were on their way to St Helens when picked up by the police:
"Three boys who had walked from Stockport to Liverpool to look for work were brought before the city stipendiary, to-day, for stealing a bundle of newspapers from outside a shop in Kensington. Their names were George Pollitt (16), Louis Vellino (14), and Gustave Vellino (13). The lads stated that they reached Liverpool yesterday morning, and were told at the docks that they might get work at St. Helens glassworks.
"They were on the way to St. Helens when they stole the papers, and they committed the offence because they wanted money for breakfast. The Stipendiary. – l will have to send you back to Stockport as returned baggage (laughter). On the boys promising not to repeat their offence they were discharged with a caution. The Probation Officer undertook to see that they were returned to Stockport by rail."
The lads would have been told to tramp to Pilkingtons as the glass giant employed around 150 lads, many of them orphans, who had come to St Helens from all over the country. Most lived in a nice hostel in Ravenhead, which contained a gym, baths and recreational rooms.
Horse-drawn traffic did not pose quite the same danger to pedestrians as motor vehicles and so the kerb drill of "look right, look left and right again" would not have been instilled in Mary. The coroner said it had been a clear case of accident and it illustrated what he had often said about the danger of people crossing the road without looking to see whether anything was coming. "It was done in the most careless manner and it was surprising that there were not more fatal accidents," he added.
The inquest was also held on Charles Roberts from Farnworth who was a brakesman employed at Sutton Manor Colliery. The 38-year-old was uncoupling coal wagons on a new siding and slipped over some waste heaps and fell under a wagon. Charles suffered a fractured thigh and internal injuries and told engine driver Daniel Lamb "I am killed". He was taken to St Helens Hospital but died soon afterwards.
I am devoting the rest of this week's article to an extraordinary story in the Echo on the 14th that bore the headline "Wife Beating! Husbands and Corporal Punishment" and discussed whether husbands should discipline their wives:
"“In these days of equality and women's rights, corporal punishment for erring wives would be a difficult matter to advocate,” said a Liverpool magistrate when his attention was called by an “Echo” reporter to a statement by Mr. I. A. Symmons, the Clerkenwell J. P., to the effect that the existing law does not give the husband sufficient authority over the wife. “There is no doubt,” added the former, who has had a wide experience of the Liverpool courts, “that women frequently seize upon the slightest excuse for a separation; but, nevertheless, I would not care to join with the London magistrate in suggesting that husbands should take the law more into their hands. It might do good in some cases if they did, but the husband who followed such a course would, naturally, run the risk of falling foul of the law.”
"It was during the hearing of an application for one of “these miserable separation orders,” on Saturday, that Mr. Symmons declared a man was no longer master in his own house. “The law is wobbly and weakened,” he declared. “Under the good old law a man could thrash his wife so long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb.” A prominent London lawyer, with long knowledge of cases of this kind, says he is inclined to agree with Mr. Symmons.
"“There are hundreds of applications for separation orders which would never be made if the husband had a little more authority over his wife,” he states, from much experience. “There are cases in which, in the old days, the woman, knowing the difficulty of obtaining a separation, would have decided to remain in her home, and often in the case of a young couple she would gradually learn to understand her husband better, and they would settle down to a fairly happy life.
"“The husband perhaps comes home from work and finds his wife out. He protests when she returns, and she tells him to “go to the devil.” He smacks her, and she retorts, “That's enough for me; I will go and ask for a separation order.” “No one wants to re-establish the absolute authority of the husband over the wife, but the tendency of the law as it stands is to place in her hands a power which she often uses to break up the home, instead of trying to settle down and make the best of it.”
"“I agree, in a sense, with the statement by the Clerkenwell magistrate, that if a man knocks his wife about it is the wife's fault. Any woman of spirit would see to it that the man who hit her received at least twenty blows for his one” said Miss Florence Underwood, secretary of the Women's Freedom League. She added that the members of the league were not pacifists on such matters as these, and that in their opinion domestic unhappiness was not due to a weak-kneed law that defended the wife, but to the terms of inequality on which husbands and wives were still placed.
"Only antiquated members of both sexes still failed to realise that men and women must be on equal terms in all their relations with one another, including matrimony. She considered that these ridiculous remarks on the part of a male magistrate showed how absolutely necessary it was to institute women magistrates on every bench in the country. The public had too long been obliged to suffer from the bad jokes perpetrated by facetious members of the bench."
Next week's stories will include the tram driver blinded by a miner at Haydock, an heroic rescue attempt in a double tragedy at Bold Colliery and the St Helens MP tells the Commons about his days as a tramp.
This week's stories include the smoky steam-powered lorry at Eccleston Lane Ends, the boys that tramped for work, the St Helens' clubs accused of being drinking and gambling dens and a bus tragedy at Marshalls Cross.
Although many hauliers were now using motors wagons to transport their goods from A to B, some continued to use steam.
These had improved a lot since their early days when a separate steam locomotive hauled the vehicle along the highway.
However they were still big heavy beasts that polluted the atmosphere and damaged the roads.
On the 8th Alfred McNiven, a driver for the Liverpool Transport Company, was fined £2 in St Helens Police Court for allowing his Sentinel wagon to become a nuisance at Eccleston Lane Ends.
The Shrewsbury-based Sentinel, along with Foden, dominated the steam market for lorries.
Like steam railway engines they needed a lot of water and so would make stops at various places to use standpipes.
One was located near the junction of Burrows Lane and St Helens Road but while the driver was filling up with H20, his engine was pumping out lots of smoke. That was deemed a public nuisance and hence the fine.
These days licensing is undertaken by St Helens Council but a century ago it was down to a group of magistrates.
They not only licensed all the pubs and places of entertainment in the borough but also controlled many other aspects, such as whether they could enlarge their premises.
This year's annual licensing sessions were held on the 10th and the St Helens Chief Constable was highly critical of the behaviour of the clubs in the town.
These had increased from nineteen in 1919 to twenty-nine in 1920, with their total membership having more than doubled.
Although conceding that some clubs were well run, Arthur Ellerington claimed that others were simply drinking and gambling dens with few rules to follow.
"At the present time", said the chief, "it was sufficient for a number of persons to form themselves into a club, draw up a laudable and ideal set of rules, give certain particulars to the magistrates' clerk and pay a fee of 5s, and they could then sell intoxicating liquor to themselves without any restriction other than the Liquor Control Order."
At the present time the justices were attempting to reduce the number of licensed premises in St Helens but there was little that they could do to stop new clubs from springing up in their place. The Chief Constable added:
"The undesirable kind of club had to be cleared away at all costs, and the law should be amended so as to give the justices power to make the strictest investigation into the bona fides of these clubs."
A few days later Joseph Walsh, caretaker of the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Fisher Street in Sutton, was charged in the Police Court with supplying drink during prohibited hours to James and Joseph Byrne of Robins Lane.
Constable Davies and Inspector Bowden had climbed over a wall at 1am to nab the man who was fined £4.
The police also tried to get the club struck off but they received a strict warning instead.
There was a long history of men (and women) walking considerable distances to find work.
On the 11th the Echo published this story about three lads who had walked 40 miles to Liverpool and were on their way to St Helens when picked up by the police:
"Three boys who had walked from Stockport to Liverpool to look for work were brought before the city stipendiary, to-day, for stealing a bundle of newspapers from outside a shop in Kensington.
"Their names were George Pollitt (16), Louis Vellino (14), and Gustave Vellino (13).
"The lads stated that they reached Liverpool yesterday morning, and were told at the docks that they might get work at St. Helens glassworks.
"They were on the way to St. Helens when they stole the papers, and they committed the offence because they wanted money for breakfast.
"The Stipendiary. – l will have to send you back to Stockport as returned baggage (laughter).
"On the boys promising not to repeat their offence they were discharged with a caution.
"The Probation Officer undertook to see that they were returned to Stockport by rail."
The lads would have been told to tramp to Pilkingtons as the glass giant employed around 150 lads, many of them orphans, who had come to St Helens from all over the country.
Most lived in a nice hostel in Ravenhead, which contained a gym, baths and recreational rooms.
The inquest on Mary Davies from New Street in Sutton took place on the 12th.
The 74-year-old had stepped out in front of a motor bus around six o’clock at night as the vehicle arrived at Marshalls Cross Bridge (pictured above with the Bull & Dog in the background).
That was the old bridge, which, these days, is mainly used to cross platforms at Lea Green station.
There was no such thing as motor buses in Mary's day. And the racket that steam and electric trams made would have alerted her to their presence – not that the tram network ever went to Marshalls Cross or down New Street.
Horse-drawn traffic did not pose quite the same danger to pedestrians as motor vehicles and so the kerb drill of "look right, look left and right again" would not have been instilled in Mary.
The coroner said it had been a clear case of accident and it illustrated what he had often said about the danger of people crossing the road without looking to see whether anything was coming.
"It was done in the most careless manner and it was surprising that there were not more fatal accidents," he added.
The inquest was also held on Charles Roberts from Farnworth who was a brakesman employed at Sutton Manor Colliery.
The 38-year-old was uncoupling coal wagons on a new siding and slipped over some waste heaps and fell under a wagon.
Charles suffered a fractured thigh and internal injuries and told engine driver Daniel Lamb "I am killed". He was taken to St Helens Hospital but died soon afterwards.
I am devoting the rest of this week's article to an extraordinary story in the Echo on the 14th that bore the headline "Wife Beating! Husbands and Corporal Punishment" and discussed whether husbands should discipline their wives:
"“In these days of equality and women's rights, corporal punishment for erring wives would be a difficult matter to advocate,” said a Liverpool magistrate when his attention was called by an “Echo” reporter to a statement by Mr. I. A. Symmons, the Clerkenwell J. P., to the effect that the existing law does not give the husband sufficient authority over the wife.
"“There is no doubt,” added the former, who has had a wide experience of the Liverpool courts, “that women frequently seize upon the slightest excuse for a separation; but, nevertheless, I would not care to join with the London magistrate in suggesting that husbands should take the law more into their hands.
"“It might do good in some cases if they did, but the husband who followed such a course would, naturally, run the risk of falling foul of the law.”
"It was during the hearing of an application for one of “these miserable separation orders,” on Saturday, that Mr. Symmons declared a man was no longer master in his own house.
"“The law is wobbly and weakened,” he declared. “Under the good old law a man could thrash his wife so long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb.”
"A prominent London lawyer, with long knowledge of cases of this kind, says he is inclined to agree with Mr. Symmons.
"“There are hundreds of applications for separation orders which would never be made if the husband had a little more authority over his wife,” he states, from much experience.
"“There are cases in which, in the old days, the woman, knowing the difficulty of obtaining a separation, would have decided to remain in her home, and often in the case of a young couple she would gradually learn to understand her husband better, and they would settle down to a fairly happy life.
"“The husband perhaps comes home from work and finds his wife out. He protests when she returns, and she tells him to “go to the devil.” He smacks her, and she retorts, “That's enough for me; I will go and ask for a separation order.”
"“No one wants to re-establish the absolute authority of the husband over the wife, but the tendency of the law as it stands is to place in her hands a power which she often uses to break up the home, instead of trying to settle down and make the best of it.”
"“I agree, in a sense, with the statement by the Clerkenwell magistrate, that if a man knocks his wife about it is the wife's fault. Any woman of spirit would see to it that the man who hit her received at least twenty blows for his one” said Miss Florence Underwood, secretary of the Women's Freedom League.
"She added that the members of the league were not pacifists on such matters as these, and that in their opinion domestic unhappiness was not due to a weak-kneed law that defended the wife, but to the terms of inequality on which husbands and wives were still placed.
"Only antiquated members of both sexes still failed to realise that men and women must be on equal terms in all their relations with one another, including matrimony.
"She considered that these ridiculous remarks on the part of a male magistrate showed how absolutely necessary it was to institute women magistrates on every bench in the country.
"The public had too long been obliged to suffer from the bad jokes perpetrated by facetious members of the bench."
Next week's stories will include the tram driver blinded by a miner at Haydock, an heroic rescue attempt in a double tragedy at Bold Colliery and the St Helens MP tells the Commons about his days as a tramp.
Although many hauliers were now using motors wagons to transport their goods from A to B, some continued to use steam.
These had improved a lot since their early days when a separate steam locomotive hauled the vehicle along the highway.
However they were still big heavy beasts that polluted the atmosphere and damaged the roads.
On the 8th Alfred McNiven, a driver for the Liverpool Transport Company, was fined £2 in St Helens Police Court for allowing his Sentinel wagon to become a nuisance at Eccleston Lane Ends.
The Shrewsbury-based Sentinel, along with Foden, dominated the steam market for lorries.
Like steam railway engines they needed a lot of water and so would make stops at various places to use standpipes.
One was located near the junction of Burrows Lane and St Helens Road but while the driver was filling up with H20, his engine was pumping out lots of smoke. That was deemed a public nuisance and hence the fine.
These days licensing is undertaken by St Helens Council but a century ago it was down to a group of magistrates.
They not only licensed all the pubs and places of entertainment in the borough but also controlled many other aspects, such as whether they could enlarge their premises.
This year's annual licensing sessions were held on the 10th and the St Helens Chief Constable was highly critical of the behaviour of the clubs in the town.
These had increased from nineteen in 1919 to twenty-nine in 1920, with their total membership having more than doubled.
Although conceding that some clubs were well run, Arthur Ellerington claimed that others were simply drinking and gambling dens with few rules to follow.
"At the present time", said the chief, "it was sufficient for a number of persons to form themselves into a club, draw up a laudable and ideal set of rules, give certain particulars to the magistrates' clerk and pay a fee of 5s, and they could then sell intoxicating liquor to themselves without any restriction other than the Liquor Control Order."
At the present time the justices were attempting to reduce the number of licensed premises in St Helens but there was little that they could do to stop new clubs from springing up in their place. The Chief Constable added:
"The undesirable kind of club had to be cleared away at all costs, and the law should be amended so as to give the justices power to make the strictest investigation into the bona fides of these clubs."
A few days later Joseph Walsh, caretaker of the Discharged Sailors and Soldiers Club in Fisher Street in Sutton, was charged in the Police Court with supplying drink during prohibited hours to James and Joseph Byrne of Robins Lane.
Constable Davies and Inspector Bowden had climbed over a wall at 1am to nab the man who was fined £4.
The police also tried to get the club struck off but they received a strict warning instead.
There was a long history of men (and women) walking considerable distances to find work.
On the 11th the Echo published this story about three lads who had walked 40 miles to Liverpool and were on their way to St Helens when picked up by the police:
"Three boys who had walked from Stockport to Liverpool to look for work were brought before the city stipendiary, to-day, for stealing a bundle of newspapers from outside a shop in Kensington.
"Their names were George Pollitt (16), Louis Vellino (14), and Gustave Vellino (13).
"The lads stated that they reached Liverpool yesterday morning, and were told at the docks that they might get work at St. Helens glassworks.
"They were on the way to St. Helens when they stole the papers, and they committed the offence because they wanted money for breakfast.
"The Stipendiary. – l will have to send you back to Stockport as returned baggage (laughter).
"On the boys promising not to repeat their offence they were discharged with a caution.
"The Probation Officer undertook to see that they were returned to Stockport by rail."
The lads would have been told to tramp to Pilkingtons as the glass giant employed around 150 lads, many of them orphans, who had come to St Helens from all over the country.
Most lived in a nice hostel in Ravenhead, which contained a gym, baths and recreational rooms.
The inquest on Mary Davies from New Street in Sutton took place on the 12th.
That was the old bridge, which, these days, is mainly used to cross platforms at Lea Green station.
There was no such thing as motor buses in Mary's day. And the racket that steam and electric trams made would have alerted her to their presence – not that the tram network ever went to Marshalls Cross or down New Street.
Horse-drawn traffic did not pose quite the same danger to pedestrians as motor vehicles and so the kerb drill of "look right, look left and right again" would not have been instilled in Mary.
The coroner said it had been a clear case of accident and it illustrated what he had often said about the danger of people crossing the road without looking to see whether anything was coming.
"It was done in the most careless manner and it was surprising that there were not more fatal accidents," he added.
The inquest was also held on Charles Roberts from Farnworth who was a brakesman employed at Sutton Manor Colliery.
The 38-year-old was uncoupling coal wagons on a new siding and slipped over some waste heaps and fell under a wagon.
Charles suffered a fractured thigh and internal injuries and told engine driver Daniel Lamb "I am killed". He was taken to St Helens Hospital but died soon afterwards.
I am devoting the rest of this week's article to an extraordinary story in the Echo on the 14th that bore the headline "Wife Beating! Husbands and Corporal Punishment" and discussed whether husbands should discipline their wives:
"“In these days of equality and women's rights, corporal punishment for erring wives would be a difficult matter to advocate,” said a Liverpool magistrate when his attention was called by an “Echo” reporter to a statement by Mr. I. A. Symmons, the Clerkenwell J. P., to the effect that the existing law does not give the husband sufficient authority over the wife.
"“There is no doubt,” added the former, who has had a wide experience of the Liverpool courts, “that women frequently seize upon the slightest excuse for a separation; but, nevertheless, I would not care to join with the London magistrate in suggesting that husbands should take the law more into their hands.
"“It might do good in some cases if they did, but the husband who followed such a course would, naturally, run the risk of falling foul of the law.”
"It was during the hearing of an application for one of “these miserable separation orders,” on Saturday, that Mr. Symmons declared a man was no longer master in his own house.
"“The law is wobbly and weakened,” he declared. “Under the good old law a man could thrash his wife so long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb.”
"A prominent London lawyer, with long knowledge of cases of this kind, says he is inclined to agree with Mr. Symmons.
"“There are hundreds of applications for separation orders which would never be made if the husband had a little more authority over his wife,” he states, from much experience.
"“There are cases in which, in the old days, the woman, knowing the difficulty of obtaining a separation, would have decided to remain in her home, and often in the case of a young couple she would gradually learn to understand her husband better, and they would settle down to a fairly happy life.
"“The husband perhaps comes home from work and finds his wife out. He protests when she returns, and she tells him to “go to the devil.” He smacks her, and she retorts, “That's enough for me; I will go and ask for a separation order.”
"“No one wants to re-establish the absolute authority of the husband over the wife, but the tendency of the law as it stands is to place in her hands a power which she often uses to break up the home, instead of trying to settle down and make the best of it.”
"“I agree, in a sense, with the statement by the Clerkenwell magistrate, that if a man knocks his wife about it is the wife's fault. Any woman of spirit would see to it that the man who hit her received at least twenty blows for his one” said Miss Florence Underwood, secretary of the Women's Freedom League.
"She added that the members of the league were not pacifists on such matters as these, and that in their opinion domestic unhappiness was not due to a weak-kneed law that defended the wife, but to the terms of inequality on which husbands and wives were still placed.
"Only antiquated members of both sexes still failed to realise that men and women must be on equal terms in all their relations with one another, including matrimony.
"She considered that these ridiculous remarks on the part of a male magistrate showed how absolutely necessary it was to institute women magistrates on every bench in the country.
"The public had too long been obliged to suffer from the bad jokes perpetrated by facetious members of the bench."
Next week's stories will include the tram driver blinded by a miner at Haydock, an heroic rescue attempt in a double tragedy at Bold Colliery and the St Helens MP tells the Commons about his days as a tramp.