IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 9 - 15 SEPTEMBER 1924
This week's many stories include the "diddling" of a Liverpool Road ice-cream man, the Woodbine pinching that took place in Shaw Street, an update on the typhus outbreak in St Helens, the husband who was dubbed a selfish, worthless and drunken fellow, the messenger boy from Thatto Heath who was set ablaze at Prescot Wire Works and the black-faced undercover bobby outside Havannah Colliery in Parr who was confronted by a hostile crowd.
We begin on the 9th when Albert Lees appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing a total of 19 packets of cigarettes, valued at 16 shillings. The little "open all hours" corner shops were not busy all the time and so their owner would often be sat in a back room awaiting customers. As their front doors were left open to invite people to enter, it meant that no bell would sound when someone walked in.
Kids would sometimes quietly crawl on their hands and knees into such a shop and steal a few items before crawling out again often without the shopkeeper knowing. But Albert Lees from Pitt Street had employed a different technique. He made use of the time before the shopkeeper realised they had a customer and could get to their counter. During those few seconds he helped himself to some cigarettes but realising he might be spotted leaving the shop, he had stayed behind to purchase one packet and give the impression of being a legitimate customer.
Lees had done this at Pike's sweet shop and tobacconists in Shaw Street in St Helens. The young man had initially stuffed his pockets with 13 packets of fags before Elizabeth Pike could re-enter her shop and then calmly asked her for some Woodbines, which he paid for and left. Shortly afterwards Mrs Pike realised that the packs had gone missing from the counter but could not be certain that her last customer had been the thief.
But, as they say, the criminal will always return to the scene of his crime and Albert Lees clearly thought his dodge was so simple he could repeat it. When he later went back to the same shop and asked for another packet of cigarettes, Mrs Pike locked the door and told Lees he would have to be searched. As a result he handed over six packets that he had just stolen but was allowed to leave the shop after giving his name and address.
Those details turned out to be false but the police tracked him down and arrested Lees on some wasteland in Bolton Street. He gave the excuse that he had been out of work for four years and had been driven to do what he had done. Lees was remanded for a week for further enquiries to be made. When he returned to court the Bench heard that Lees came from a respectable family and was living on 18 shillings a week dole money and was fined £2 or 14 days in prison.
In 1875 there had been 1,500 deaths in England from typhus – a disease with similar symptoms to typhoid – but such outbreaks were now pretty rare. However, on August 22nd of 1924 the St Helens Reporter had written: "Two cases of typhus, a type of fever which is of very rare occurrence in modern times, medical science having almost wiped it out, have occurred in St. Helens." One of the victims was described as a 14-year-old girl living in a central part of the town and who had since died from the disease.
At the council's Health Committee meeting on the 10th, Dr Frank Hauxwell, the town's Medical Officer of Health, provided an update. He said seven cases of typhus had now been identified in Bold Street and Liverpool Street and there had been three deaths. The cause of the outbreak that had been dated back to July 13th was unknown.
However, Dr Hauxwell thought it might have been introduced from Ireland, as there had been a number of typhus cases there and the Irish community in Greenbank often received visitors from Ireland. The Medical Officer also said: "I would make a strong appeal to the public, especially of this area, to assist in bringing the outbreak to a close by taking stringent measures to keep themselves, their clothing and their homes, clean and free from vermin."
When Elizabeth Northey from Newton Road appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with loitering for the purposes of betting, she had said: "I am not going to go with the first black man who gets hold of me. He threatened me with the bottle and made my arm black and blue". The black man had been a blackface policeman called PC Drysdale who had been acting undercover and pretending to be a miner leaving Havannah Colliery in Parr.
Mrs Northey was said to regularly frequent a passage there to receive betting slips from the miners leaving work. It was usual for such people to go quietly when collared by the police, as they knew the bookmaker that employed them would repay the fine that they inevitably would receive in court. However, there are always exceptions to every rule and Mrs Northey did not go quietly and instead attempted to run away.
When PC Drysdale caught up with her she struggled and violently resisted her arrest and a hostile crowd soon assembled. Mrs Northey threw a pile of what were presumably betting papers to another woman in the crowd in what seemed an attempt to dispose of the evidence. It was not until PC Trail arrived on the scene that between him and PC Drysdale they were able to convey Mrs Northey to Sutton Police Station. But there were still two betting slips found in the woman's possession and she was fined the usual £10 or 28 days in prison.
"How The Ice-Cream Man Was Diddled", was the Reporter's headline to an article describing an attempt to pass a counterfeit coin. Perhaps "nearly diddled" would have been more accurate as the vendor in Liverpool Road (pictured above) – probably selling his ice-cream from a hand cart – had spotted the dodgy coin just in time. This is how the Reporter on the 12th described the resulting court case:
"“I only did it for a lark,” pleaded a youth named Michael Jennings of 24, Sandfield-crescent at the Borough Police Court on Friday, in answer to a charge of obtaining ice-cream by false pretences. Mr. Abbott [Magistrate]: “You seem rather well advanced in larks. You are only eighteen years of age and yet you have ten convictions against you already.”"
The police informed the Bench that Jennings had given a nine-year-old boy called Thomas Potter a counterfeit coin and told him to buy some ice cream. After handing the boy a cornet, the ice-cream man working for Vincent's noticed the coin was bad – a silvered farthing, in fact – and refused to hand Thomas any change. The lad reported back to Michael Jennings who went to the ice-cream man to demand his change but was again refused.
In his defence Jennings said it was all a joke and that he had told the ice-cream seller so. But the Mayor, who was Chairman of the Bench, said he did not know where Jennings' larks would end. His past had not been too good and it was a very serious thing to get a young lad like Potter involved in his crimes. He said he would be fined £1 and should consider himself lucky in escaping so lightly. "You must not try these tricks on again," Jennings was warned.
When Robert Adamson appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with neglecting his children the prosecution did not hold back in their criticisms. Inspector Lycett of the NSPCC accused the man from Hardy Street in St Helens of being a "selfish, worthless, drunken fellow". And the prosecuting solicitor said: "This defendant appears to be one of those men who bring children into the world and consider they have done their duty and leave the State to do the rest."
The wife of the accused explained to the court how her husband would often disappear for a week at a time before returning home drunk. His absence left her and her three children penniless and dependent upon help from her mother and the so-called "parish relief". Kathleen had three children aged 1, 3 and 5 and told how they only had the clothes they stood up in and she needed to wash and dry their clothing before they could go out of the house. She had pawned almost everything and the oldest child had been off school for a fortnight through having no boots to wear.
Robert Adamson was a coal miner who drifted from pit to pit and when asked if he had anything to say, told the court that he had a reason of his own to explain his behaviour but then refused to give it. During the past six weeks Adamson had drawn an average wage of £2 5s 4d but kept almost all for himself. The Bench told him that he had deserted his wife and family in the "most cruel fashion" and decided to send him for prison for 28 days with hard labour.
And finally, on the 12th the inquest on Arthur Radcliffe took place at St Helens Town Hall. The 15-year-old messenger boy from Thatto Heath worked at Prescot Wire Works and had been walking past another youth who was cleaning steel tubes. The process involved burning off a compound and an accident occurred that led to Arthur's clothing being set ablaze and he died in hospital two weeks later. Although a verdict of misadventure was returned with no blame attached to anyone, by our standards it was another example of poor health and safety practices in industrial premises.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Thatto Heath shop that was used for gambling, the extraordinary Lowe House procession, the troublesome Eccleston Street mother-in-law and the motor car without a horn in Bridge Street.
We begin on the 9th when Albert Lees appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing a total of 19 packets of cigarettes, valued at 16 shillings. The little "open all hours" corner shops were not busy all the time and so their owner would often be sat in a back room awaiting customers. As their front doors were left open to invite people to enter, it meant that no bell would sound when someone walked in.
Kids would sometimes quietly crawl on their hands and knees into such a shop and steal a few items before crawling out again often without the shopkeeper knowing. But Albert Lees from Pitt Street had employed a different technique. He made use of the time before the shopkeeper realised they had a customer and could get to their counter. During those few seconds he helped himself to some cigarettes but realising he might be spotted leaving the shop, he had stayed behind to purchase one packet and give the impression of being a legitimate customer.
Lees had done this at Pike's sweet shop and tobacconists in Shaw Street in St Helens. The young man had initially stuffed his pockets with 13 packets of fags before Elizabeth Pike could re-enter her shop and then calmly asked her for some Woodbines, which he paid for and left. Shortly afterwards Mrs Pike realised that the packs had gone missing from the counter but could not be certain that her last customer had been the thief.
But, as they say, the criminal will always return to the scene of his crime and Albert Lees clearly thought his dodge was so simple he could repeat it. When he later went back to the same shop and asked for another packet of cigarettes, Mrs Pike locked the door and told Lees he would have to be searched. As a result he handed over six packets that he had just stolen but was allowed to leave the shop after giving his name and address.
Those details turned out to be false but the police tracked him down and arrested Lees on some wasteland in Bolton Street. He gave the excuse that he had been out of work for four years and had been driven to do what he had done. Lees was remanded for a week for further enquiries to be made. When he returned to court the Bench heard that Lees came from a respectable family and was living on 18 shillings a week dole money and was fined £2 or 14 days in prison.
In 1875 there had been 1,500 deaths in England from typhus – a disease with similar symptoms to typhoid – but such outbreaks were now pretty rare. However, on August 22nd of 1924 the St Helens Reporter had written: "Two cases of typhus, a type of fever which is of very rare occurrence in modern times, medical science having almost wiped it out, have occurred in St. Helens." One of the victims was described as a 14-year-old girl living in a central part of the town and who had since died from the disease.
At the council's Health Committee meeting on the 10th, Dr Frank Hauxwell, the town's Medical Officer of Health, provided an update. He said seven cases of typhus had now been identified in Bold Street and Liverpool Street and there had been three deaths. The cause of the outbreak that had been dated back to July 13th was unknown.
However, Dr Hauxwell thought it might have been introduced from Ireland, as there had been a number of typhus cases there and the Irish community in Greenbank often received visitors from Ireland. The Medical Officer also said: "I would make a strong appeal to the public, especially of this area, to assist in bringing the outbreak to a close by taking stringent measures to keep themselves, their clothing and their homes, clean and free from vermin."
When Elizabeth Northey from Newton Road appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with loitering for the purposes of betting, she had said: "I am not going to go with the first black man who gets hold of me. He threatened me with the bottle and made my arm black and blue". The black man had been a blackface policeman called PC Drysdale who had been acting undercover and pretending to be a miner leaving Havannah Colliery in Parr.
Mrs Northey was said to regularly frequent a passage there to receive betting slips from the miners leaving work. It was usual for such people to go quietly when collared by the police, as they knew the bookmaker that employed them would repay the fine that they inevitably would receive in court. However, there are always exceptions to every rule and Mrs Northey did not go quietly and instead attempted to run away.
When PC Drysdale caught up with her she struggled and violently resisted her arrest and a hostile crowd soon assembled. Mrs Northey threw a pile of what were presumably betting papers to another woman in the crowd in what seemed an attempt to dispose of the evidence. It was not until PC Trail arrived on the scene that between him and PC Drysdale they were able to convey Mrs Northey to Sutton Police Station. But there were still two betting slips found in the woman's possession and she was fined the usual £10 or 28 days in prison.
"“I only did it for a lark,” pleaded a youth named Michael Jennings of 24, Sandfield-crescent at the Borough Police Court on Friday, in answer to a charge of obtaining ice-cream by false pretences. Mr. Abbott [Magistrate]: “You seem rather well advanced in larks. You are only eighteen years of age and yet you have ten convictions against you already.”"
The police informed the Bench that Jennings had given a nine-year-old boy called Thomas Potter a counterfeit coin and told him to buy some ice cream. After handing the boy a cornet, the ice-cream man working for Vincent's noticed the coin was bad – a silvered farthing, in fact – and refused to hand Thomas any change. The lad reported back to Michael Jennings who went to the ice-cream man to demand his change but was again refused.
In his defence Jennings said it was all a joke and that he had told the ice-cream seller so. But the Mayor, who was Chairman of the Bench, said he did not know where Jennings' larks would end. His past had not been too good and it was a very serious thing to get a young lad like Potter involved in his crimes. He said he would be fined £1 and should consider himself lucky in escaping so lightly. "You must not try these tricks on again," Jennings was warned.
When Robert Adamson appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with neglecting his children the prosecution did not hold back in their criticisms. Inspector Lycett of the NSPCC accused the man from Hardy Street in St Helens of being a "selfish, worthless, drunken fellow". And the prosecuting solicitor said: "This defendant appears to be one of those men who bring children into the world and consider they have done their duty and leave the State to do the rest."
The wife of the accused explained to the court how her husband would often disappear for a week at a time before returning home drunk. His absence left her and her three children penniless and dependent upon help from her mother and the so-called "parish relief". Kathleen had three children aged 1, 3 and 5 and told how they only had the clothes they stood up in and she needed to wash and dry their clothing before they could go out of the house. She had pawned almost everything and the oldest child had been off school for a fortnight through having no boots to wear.
Robert Adamson was a coal miner who drifted from pit to pit and when asked if he had anything to say, told the court that he had a reason of his own to explain his behaviour but then refused to give it. During the past six weeks Adamson had drawn an average wage of £2 5s 4d but kept almost all for himself. The Bench told him that he had deserted his wife and family in the "most cruel fashion" and decided to send him for prison for 28 days with hard labour.
And finally, on the 12th the inquest on Arthur Radcliffe took place at St Helens Town Hall. The 15-year-old messenger boy from Thatto Heath worked at Prescot Wire Works and had been walking past another youth who was cleaning steel tubes. The process involved burning off a compound and an accident occurred that led to Arthur's clothing being set ablaze and he died in hospital two weeks later. Although a verdict of misadventure was returned with no blame attached to anyone, by our standards it was another example of poor health and safety practices in industrial premises.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Thatto Heath shop that was used for gambling, the extraordinary Lowe House procession, the troublesome Eccleston Street mother-in-law and the motor car without a horn in Bridge Street.
This week's many stories include the "diddling" of a Liverpool Road ice-cream man, the Woodbine pinching that took place in Shaw Street, an update on the typhus outbreak in St Helens, the husband who was dubbed a selfish, worthless and drunken fellow, the messenger boy from Thatto Heath set ablaze at Prescot Wire Works and the black-faced undercover bobby outside Havannah Colliery in Parr who was confronted by a hostile crowd.
We begin on the 9th when Albert Lees appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing a total of 19 packets of cigarettes, valued at 16 shillings.
The little "open all hours" corner shops were not busy all the time and so their owner would often be sat in a back room awaiting customers.
As their front doors were left open to invite people to enter, it meant that no bell would sound when someone walked in.
Kids would sometimes quietly crawl on their hands and knees into such a shop and steal a few items before crawling out again often without the shopkeeper knowing.
But Albert Lees from Pitt Street had employed a different technique. He made use of the time before the shopkeeper realised they had a customer and could get to their counter.
During those few seconds he helped himself to some cigarettes but realising he might be spotted leaving the shop, he had stayed behind to purchase one packet and give the impression of being a legitimate customer.
Lees had done this at Pike's sweet shop and tobacconists in Shaw Street in St Helens.
The young man had initially stuffed his pockets with 13 packets of fags before Elizabeth Pike could re-enter her shop and then calmly asked her for some Woodbines, which he paid for and left.
Shortly afterwards Mrs Pike realised that the packs had gone missing from the counter but could not be certain that her last customer had been the thief.
But, as they say, the criminal will always return to the scene of his crime and Albert Lees clearly thought his dodge was so simple he could repeat it.
When he later went back to the same shop and asked for another packet of cigarettes, Mrs Pike locked the door and told Lees he would have to be searched.
As a result he handed over six packets that he had just stolen but was allowed to leave the shop after giving his name and address.
Those details turned out to be false but the police tracked him down and arrested Lees on some wasteland in Bolton Street.
He gave the excuse that he had been out of work for four years and had been driven to do what he had done. Lees was remanded for a week for further enquiries to be made.
When he returned to court the Bench heard that Lees came from a respectable family and was living on 18 shillings a week dole money and was fined £2 or 14 days in prison.
In 1875 there had been 1,500 deaths in England from typhus – a disease with similar symptoms to typhoid – but such outbreaks were now pretty rare.
However, on August 22nd of 1924 the St Helens Reporter had written:
"Two cases of typhus, a type of fever which is of very rare occurrence in modern times, medical science having almost wiped it out, have occurred in St. Helens."
One of the victims was described as a 14-year-old girl living in a central part of the town and who had since died from the disease.
At the council's Health Committee meeting on the 10th, Dr Frank Hauxwell, the town's Medical Officer of Health, provided an update.
He said seven cases of typhus had now been identified in Bold Street and Liverpool Street and there had been three deaths.
The cause of the outbreak that had been dated back to July 13th was unknown.
However, Dr Hauxwell thought it might have been introduced from Ireland, as there had been a number of typhus cases there and the Irish community in Greenbank often received visitors from Ireland. The Medical Officer also said:
"I would make a strong appeal to the public, especially of this area, to assist in bringing the outbreak to a close by taking stringent measures to keep themselves, their clothing and their homes, clean and free from vermin."
When Elizabeth Northey from Newton Road appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with loitering for the purposes of betting, she had said:
"I am not going to go with the first black man who gets hold of me. He threatened me with the bottle and made my arm black and blue".
The black man had been a blackface policeman called PC Drysdale who had been acting undercover and pretending to be a miner leaving Havannah Colliery in Parr.
Mrs Northey was said to regularly frequent a passage there to receive betting slips from the miners leaving work.
It was usual for such people to go quietly when collared by the police, as they knew the bookmaker that employed them would repay the fine that they inevitably would receive in court.
However, there are always exceptions to every rule and Mrs Northey did not go quietly and instead attempted to run away.
When PC Drysdale caught up with her she struggled and violently resisted her arrest and a hostile crowd soon assembled.
Mrs Northey threw a pile of what were presumably betting papers to another woman in the crowd in what seemed an attempt to dispose of the evidence.
It was not until PC Trail arrived on the scene that between him and PC Drysdale they were able to convey Mrs Northey to Sutton Police Station.
But there were still two betting slips found in the woman's possession and she was fined the usual £10 or 28 days in prison.
"How The Ice-Cream Man Was Diddled", was the Reporter's headline to an article describing an attempt to pass a counterfeit coin.
Perhaps "nearly diddled" would have been more accurate as the vendor in Liverpool Road (pictured above) – probably selling his ice-cream from a hand cart – had spotted the dodgy coin just in time.
This is how the Reporter on the 12th described the resulting court case:
"“I only did it for a lark,” pleaded a youth named Michael Jennings of 24, Sandfield-crescent at the Borough Police Court on Friday, in answer to a charge of obtaining ice-cream by false pretences.
"Mr. Abbott [Magistrate]: “You seem rather well advanced in larks. You are only eighteen years of age and yet you have ten convictions against you already.”"
The police informed the Bench that Jennings had given a nine-year-old boy called Thomas Potter a counterfeit coin and told him to buy some ice cream.
After handing the boy a cornet, the ice-cream man working for Vincent's noticed the coin was bad – a silvered farthing, in fact – and refused to hand Thomas any change.
The lad reported back to Michael Jennings who went to the ice-cream man to demand his change but was again refused.
In his defence Jennings said it was all a joke and that he had told the ice-cream seller so.
But the Mayor, who was Chairman of the Bench, said he did not know where Jennings' larks would end.
His past had not been too good and it was a very serious thing to get a young lad like Potter involved in his crimes.
He said he would be fined £1 and should consider himself lucky in escaping so lightly.
"You must not try these tricks on again," Jennings was warned.
When Robert Adamson appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with neglecting his children the prosecution did not hold back in their criticisms.
Inspector Lycett of the NSPCC accused the man from Hardy Street in St Helens of being a "selfish, worthless, drunken fellow".
And the prosecuting solicitor said: "This defendant appears to be one of those men who bring children into the world and consider they have done their duty and leave the State to do the rest."
The wife of the accused explained to the court how her husband would often disappear for a week at a time before returning home drunk.
His absence left her and her three children penniless and dependent upon help from her mother and the so-called "parish relief".
Kathleen had three children aged 1, 3 and 5 and told how they only had the clothes they stood up in and she needed to wash and dry their clothing before they could go out of the house.
She had pawned almost everything and the oldest child had been off school for a fortnight through having no boots to wear.
Robert Adamson was a coal miner who drifted from pit to pit and when asked if he had anything to say, told the court that he had a reason of his own to explain his behaviour but then refused to give it.
During the past six weeks Adamson had drawn an average wage of £2 5s 4d but kept almost all for himself.
The Bench told him that he had deserted his wife and family in the "most cruel fashion" and decided to send him for prison for 28 days with hard labour.
And finally, on the 12th the inquest on Arthur Radcliffe took place at St Helens Town Hall.
The 15-year-old messenger boy from Thatto Heath worked at Prescot Wire Works and had been walking past another youth who was cleaning steel tubes.
The process involved burning off a compound and an accident occurred that led to Arthur's clothing being set ablaze and he died in hospital two weeks later.
Although a verdict of misadventure was returned with no blame attached to anyone, by our standards it was another example of poor health and safety practices in industrial premises.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's many stories will include the Thatto Heath shop that was used for gambling, the extraordinary Lowe House procession, the troublesome Eccleston Street mother-in-law and the motor car without a horn in Bridge Street.
We begin on the 9th when Albert Lees appeared in St Helens Police Court charged with stealing a total of 19 packets of cigarettes, valued at 16 shillings.
The little "open all hours" corner shops were not busy all the time and so their owner would often be sat in a back room awaiting customers.
As their front doors were left open to invite people to enter, it meant that no bell would sound when someone walked in.
Kids would sometimes quietly crawl on their hands and knees into such a shop and steal a few items before crawling out again often without the shopkeeper knowing.
But Albert Lees from Pitt Street had employed a different technique. He made use of the time before the shopkeeper realised they had a customer and could get to their counter.
During those few seconds he helped himself to some cigarettes but realising he might be spotted leaving the shop, he had stayed behind to purchase one packet and give the impression of being a legitimate customer.
Lees had done this at Pike's sweet shop and tobacconists in Shaw Street in St Helens.
The young man had initially stuffed his pockets with 13 packets of fags before Elizabeth Pike could re-enter her shop and then calmly asked her for some Woodbines, which he paid for and left.
Shortly afterwards Mrs Pike realised that the packs had gone missing from the counter but could not be certain that her last customer had been the thief.
But, as they say, the criminal will always return to the scene of his crime and Albert Lees clearly thought his dodge was so simple he could repeat it.
When he later went back to the same shop and asked for another packet of cigarettes, Mrs Pike locked the door and told Lees he would have to be searched.
As a result he handed over six packets that he had just stolen but was allowed to leave the shop after giving his name and address.
Those details turned out to be false but the police tracked him down and arrested Lees on some wasteland in Bolton Street.
He gave the excuse that he had been out of work for four years and had been driven to do what he had done. Lees was remanded for a week for further enquiries to be made.
When he returned to court the Bench heard that Lees came from a respectable family and was living on 18 shillings a week dole money and was fined £2 or 14 days in prison.
In 1875 there had been 1,500 deaths in England from typhus – a disease with similar symptoms to typhoid – but such outbreaks were now pretty rare.
However, on August 22nd of 1924 the St Helens Reporter had written:
"Two cases of typhus, a type of fever which is of very rare occurrence in modern times, medical science having almost wiped it out, have occurred in St. Helens."
One of the victims was described as a 14-year-old girl living in a central part of the town and who had since died from the disease.
At the council's Health Committee meeting on the 10th, Dr Frank Hauxwell, the town's Medical Officer of Health, provided an update.
He said seven cases of typhus had now been identified in Bold Street and Liverpool Street and there had been three deaths.
The cause of the outbreak that had been dated back to July 13th was unknown.
However, Dr Hauxwell thought it might have been introduced from Ireland, as there had been a number of typhus cases there and the Irish community in Greenbank often received visitors from Ireland. The Medical Officer also said:
"I would make a strong appeal to the public, especially of this area, to assist in bringing the outbreak to a close by taking stringent measures to keep themselves, their clothing and their homes, clean and free from vermin."
When Elizabeth Northey from Newton Road appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with loitering for the purposes of betting, she had said:
"I am not going to go with the first black man who gets hold of me. He threatened me with the bottle and made my arm black and blue".
The black man had been a blackface policeman called PC Drysdale who had been acting undercover and pretending to be a miner leaving Havannah Colliery in Parr.
Mrs Northey was said to regularly frequent a passage there to receive betting slips from the miners leaving work.
It was usual for such people to go quietly when collared by the police, as they knew the bookmaker that employed them would repay the fine that they inevitably would receive in court.
However, there are always exceptions to every rule and Mrs Northey did not go quietly and instead attempted to run away.
When PC Drysdale caught up with her she struggled and violently resisted her arrest and a hostile crowd soon assembled.
Mrs Northey threw a pile of what were presumably betting papers to another woman in the crowd in what seemed an attempt to dispose of the evidence.
It was not until PC Trail arrived on the scene that between him and PC Drysdale they were able to convey Mrs Northey to Sutton Police Station.
But there were still two betting slips found in the woman's possession and she was fined the usual £10 or 28 days in prison.
"How The Ice-Cream Man Was Diddled", was the Reporter's headline to an article describing an attempt to pass a counterfeit coin.
This is how the Reporter on the 12th described the resulting court case:
"“I only did it for a lark,” pleaded a youth named Michael Jennings of 24, Sandfield-crescent at the Borough Police Court on Friday, in answer to a charge of obtaining ice-cream by false pretences.
"Mr. Abbott [Magistrate]: “You seem rather well advanced in larks. You are only eighteen years of age and yet you have ten convictions against you already.”"
The police informed the Bench that Jennings had given a nine-year-old boy called Thomas Potter a counterfeit coin and told him to buy some ice cream.
After handing the boy a cornet, the ice-cream man working for Vincent's noticed the coin was bad – a silvered farthing, in fact – and refused to hand Thomas any change.
The lad reported back to Michael Jennings who went to the ice-cream man to demand his change but was again refused.
In his defence Jennings said it was all a joke and that he had told the ice-cream seller so.
But the Mayor, who was Chairman of the Bench, said he did not know where Jennings' larks would end.
His past had not been too good and it was a very serious thing to get a young lad like Potter involved in his crimes.
He said he would be fined £1 and should consider himself lucky in escaping so lightly.
"You must not try these tricks on again," Jennings was warned.
When Robert Adamson appeared in St Helens Police Court this week charged with neglecting his children the prosecution did not hold back in their criticisms.
Inspector Lycett of the NSPCC accused the man from Hardy Street in St Helens of being a "selfish, worthless, drunken fellow".
And the prosecuting solicitor said: "This defendant appears to be one of those men who bring children into the world and consider they have done their duty and leave the State to do the rest."
The wife of the accused explained to the court how her husband would often disappear for a week at a time before returning home drunk.
His absence left her and her three children penniless and dependent upon help from her mother and the so-called "parish relief".
Kathleen had three children aged 1, 3 and 5 and told how they only had the clothes they stood up in and she needed to wash and dry their clothing before they could go out of the house.
She had pawned almost everything and the oldest child had been off school for a fortnight through having no boots to wear.
Robert Adamson was a coal miner who drifted from pit to pit and when asked if he had anything to say, told the court that he had a reason of his own to explain his behaviour but then refused to give it.
During the past six weeks Adamson had drawn an average wage of £2 5s 4d but kept almost all for himself.
The Bench told him that he had deserted his wife and family in the "most cruel fashion" and decided to send him for prison for 28 days with hard labour.
And finally, on the 12th the inquest on Arthur Radcliffe took place at St Helens Town Hall.
The 15-year-old messenger boy from Thatto Heath worked at Prescot Wire Works and had been walking past another youth who was cleaning steel tubes.
The process involved burning off a compound and an accident occurred that led to Arthur's clothing being set ablaze and he died in hospital two weeks later.
Although a verdict of misadventure was returned with no blame attached to anyone, by our standards it was another example of poor health and safety practices in industrial premises.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's many stories will include the Thatto Heath shop that was used for gambling, the extraordinary Lowe House procession, the troublesome Eccleston Street mother-in-law and the motor car without a horn in Bridge Street.