IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (18th - 24th APRIL 1922)
This week's stories include the new-born baby found in a Sherdley pond, an update on the building of the new Parish Church, the Parr bookie's runner who said he'd been arrested too soon, the poker bashing excuse in Liverpool Street, the future Old Mother Riley comes to St Helens and the St Helens Women's Unionist Association's claim of a revolution in politics with women now in charge.
The St Helens Reporter's Tuesday edition on the 18th provided an update on the police campaign to "stamp out the evil" of street betting. Constable Shepherd gave evidence that on the previous morning he had been on surveillance duty overlooking the Beehive Inn and Bowling Green Inn (pictured above) in Watery Lane in Sutton. At 10:45am men began to arrive "from all directions" and a boy brought them a paper to read. Later Robert Pigott from Berry's Lane was seen taking slips and money from some of the same men.
PC Shepherd decided to follow Pigott – but he bolted and the constable eventually found him in a poultry yard stashing the bets in a hole within a wall. Although Pigott's fine of £10 was high – it was unlikely to act as a deterrent and help to stamp out gambling. Such fines were usually paid off by the boss of the gambling outfit and seen simply as an overhead. It was a continuous cat and mouse game between the police and the bookies and – with much unemployment – there were always plenty of willing volunteers to take bets.
An inquest was held in St Helens on the 20th on the body of a female child that had been found in some water at Sherdley Delph, near to Sherdley Park. The exact circumstances would almost certainly never be known – but the case had the hallmarks of a frightened young mother, uneducated about the ways of the world, secretly giving birth to a stillborn baby. Or a child that had died shortly after birth because the mother did not know how to care for her infant.
Dr McLaren Ferrie told the inquest that he'd conducted a post-mortem but had not been able to find any evidence that the child had lived. As a result the coroner declared that there was insufficient evidence to show that the child had what was called a "separate existence". That mattered because disposing of a stillborn baby in a pond was a crime – but far less serious than if the child had died through neglect – or been killed.
Later that day the annual vestry meeting for St Helens Parish Church was held and the Rev. Canon Baines updated attendees on the situation with the new church building. The vicar said it was now five years since the old parish church had burnt down (pictured above). Services had since been held on Sundays in the Assembly Room of the Town Hall. That was very large but there was still always an overflowing congregation. Concrete foundations for the new church and War Memorial Chapel had now been laid and everything was ready for construction work to begin on a site in Church Street, adjacent to the old building. However, it was expected to take two years to complete.
In St Helens Police Court on the 21st, John Potter offered the magistrates a creative excuse for not creating a disturbance in Liverpool Street. The miner claimed that a man had entered his home and knocked out his windows and then hit him over the head. "I never went outside my own door as I was knocked out by a fellow with a poker", he told the Bench.
However, PC Coles and PC Crossley begged to differ. They explained how they had found Potter and his wife Mary and a chap called Patrick Brady shouting in the street and using bad language. "It was only with difficulty", they said, "that we persuaded defendants to go into the house." Perhaps Potter's poker bashing had led to his memory loss. But all three were found guilty of breaching the peace and bound over to keep it for 6 months in sureties of £5 each.
I doubt that many people are prosecuted these days for allowing their chimneys to be on fire – but it used to be a common offence. So much so that in 1914, Inspector William Jackson prosecuted himself for letting his own chimney get on fire. The 48-year-old lived at Sutton Police Station in Sutton Road and was given a fine of 3 shillings. Chief Constable Ellerington jokingly asked the magistrates whether Jackson should be given a month in prison if he didn't pay up.
This week Henry Wilson was summoned to court for committing the same offence. The builder from Peter Street was unable to attend the court hearing and instead pleaded guilty by letter. Henry enclosed a £1 note and asked for any amount left over after the fine had been paid to be donated to the Police Aided Clog and Stocking Fund. The fine was five shillings and so 15 bob went to the fund, which, between 1912 and 1920, had given 17,000 articles of clothing to 6,000 barefooted youngsters in St Helens.
The St Helens Reporter was published on the 21st and quoted from an article that Dorothy Spencer, the organising secretary of the St Helens Women's Unionist Association, had written for the Daily Mail. She declared that during the previous three years a revolution had taken place in politics, writing: "The balance of power has been upset, and, as an old hand at party warfare told me the other day, “The future of politics lies with the women – the men seem to have lost all interest.”"
Mrs Spencer said her experiences in the industrial centres of the North had confirmed this view, with women attending meetings in "far greater numbers and with far greater regularity than men". She did concede that the "charm of novelty" was one explanation for the huge boost in interest, with most women only having had one opportunity so far to vote at a Parliamentary election.
But numerous organisations were training the "woman citizen" and many females had been given an outlook beyond their narrow confines of home. Mrs Spencer added that women were now taking an active interest in the controversies of the day and "they now realise that what goes on in “the big world” is their concern; that however much they profess to be indifferent to politics, politics are not indifferent to them."
The paper also stated that their "Reporter Man" had been out and about again over the past week making more unannounced visits to homes throughout St Helens. The anonymous individual asked householders if they had a copy of the newspaper inside their house. If they were able to produce the latest edition of the Reporter, their reward was a prize of five shillings. Five bob was a lot of cash during hard times and eight people in Atlas Street, Barber Street, Islands Brow, Gerards Bridge, Spray Street, Toll Bar, Reginald Road and Mill Lane, Sutton were now a bit better off.
There was also an update in the Reporter on collections for the Russian Famine Relief Fund. This had only started in St Helens in February but had now raised almost £3,000 (around £150,000 in today's money) to aid the suffering people of Russia. The famine in the country is estimated to have killed 5 million and many schools, churches and works in St Helens were organising collections.
PC Shepherd was back in court on the 22nd, this time giving evidence of street betting by Leo Battersby in a case similar to the one in Sutton. The constable said he had been on surveillance duty overlooking the Havannah footpath in Newton Road. He saw Battersby receive slips and money and later the policeman left his place of observation to follow him. Realising the police was on his tail, Battersby bolted into a house and PC Shepherd found him hidden in a pantry.
Constable Shepherd told the court that the man operated near a footpath in Parr where miners came home from work and he said it was just like a racecourse on Friday afternoons. The officer added that Battersby had exclaimed: "You might have let me have a bit of a run; I have only been doing it three weeks." He was fined £10, which the Reporter again said was an attempt by the Bench to "stamp out the evil" of street betting in St Helens.
The Hippodrome Music Hall in Corporation Street had two performances each evening, which began at the odd times of 6:50 pm and 8:50 pm. There was always a fresh group of turns on stage every week and from the 24th the acts were:
Pimple ("In a screamingly funny burlesque – his amusing antics and funny sayings make audiences rock with laughter"); Maple & May (“Comedians of distinction”); The Buchanans ("Give clever knockabout acrobatic turns with wonderful somersaults galore"); Victor King ("The new light comedian"); Elsie Burnett ("New style comedienne"); Brown's Royal Bioscope ("Showing news in animation"); Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane ("In their character comedy scene “Come Over”"). Arthur Lucan became famous in the 1930s when he began performing as 'Old Mother Riley', making 17 films as that character over a 15-year-period, mostly with his wife Kitty McShane.
And finally, it was reported this week that the St Helens and district branch of the NSPCC, based on Croppers Hill, had investigated 10 cases of child neglect in the town in March involving 36 children. That was a lower total than usual.
Next week's stories will include the ratepayers' anger over proposals to improve roads in Eccleston, the new charabanc season opens in St Helens, a police sergeant claims wrongful dismissal and the opening of the new Windle Labour Club.
PC Shepherd decided to follow Pigott – but he bolted and the constable eventually found him in a poultry yard stashing the bets in a hole within a wall. Although Pigott's fine of £10 was high – it was unlikely to act as a deterrent and help to stamp out gambling. Such fines were usually paid off by the boss of the gambling outfit and seen simply as an overhead. It was a continuous cat and mouse game between the police and the bookies and – with much unemployment – there were always plenty of willing volunteers to take bets.
An inquest was held in St Helens on the 20th on the body of a female child that had been found in some water at Sherdley Delph, near to Sherdley Park. The exact circumstances would almost certainly never be known – but the case had the hallmarks of a frightened young mother, uneducated about the ways of the world, secretly giving birth to a stillborn baby. Or a child that had died shortly after birth because the mother did not know how to care for her infant.
Dr McLaren Ferrie told the inquest that he'd conducted a post-mortem but had not been able to find any evidence that the child had lived. As a result the coroner declared that there was insufficient evidence to show that the child had what was called a "separate existence". That mattered because disposing of a stillborn baby in a pond was a crime – but far less serious than if the child had died through neglect – or been killed.
In St Helens Police Court on the 21st, John Potter offered the magistrates a creative excuse for not creating a disturbance in Liverpool Street. The miner claimed that a man had entered his home and knocked out his windows and then hit him over the head. "I never went outside my own door as I was knocked out by a fellow with a poker", he told the Bench.
However, PC Coles and PC Crossley begged to differ. They explained how they had found Potter and his wife Mary and a chap called Patrick Brady shouting in the street and using bad language. "It was only with difficulty", they said, "that we persuaded defendants to go into the house." Perhaps Potter's poker bashing had led to his memory loss. But all three were found guilty of breaching the peace and bound over to keep it for 6 months in sureties of £5 each.
I doubt that many people are prosecuted these days for allowing their chimneys to be on fire – but it used to be a common offence. So much so that in 1914, Inspector William Jackson prosecuted himself for letting his own chimney get on fire. The 48-year-old lived at Sutton Police Station in Sutton Road and was given a fine of 3 shillings. Chief Constable Ellerington jokingly asked the magistrates whether Jackson should be given a month in prison if he didn't pay up.
This week Henry Wilson was summoned to court for committing the same offence. The builder from Peter Street was unable to attend the court hearing and instead pleaded guilty by letter. Henry enclosed a £1 note and asked for any amount left over after the fine had been paid to be donated to the Police Aided Clog and Stocking Fund. The fine was five shillings and so 15 bob went to the fund, which, between 1912 and 1920, had given 17,000 articles of clothing to 6,000 barefooted youngsters in St Helens.
The St Helens Reporter was published on the 21st and quoted from an article that Dorothy Spencer, the organising secretary of the St Helens Women's Unionist Association, had written for the Daily Mail. She declared that during the previous three years a revolution had taken place in politics, writing: "The balance of power has been upset, and, as an old hand at party warfare told me the other day, “The future of politics lies with the women – the men seem to have lost all interest.”"
Mrs Spencer said her experiences in the industrial centres of the North had confirmed this view, with women attending meetings in "far greater numbers and with far greater regularity than men". She did concede that the "charm of novelty" was one explanation for the huge boost in interest, with most women only having had one opportunity so far to vote at a Parliamentary election.
But numerous organisations were training the "woman citizen" and many females had been given an outlook beyond their narrow confines of home. Mrs Spencer added that women were now taking an active interest in the controversies of the day and "they now realise that what goes on in “the big world” is their concern; that however much they profess to be indifferent to politics, politics are not indifferent to them."
The paper also stated that their "Reporter Man" had been out and about again over the past week making more unannounced visits to homes throughout St Helens. The anonymous individual asked householders if they had a copy of the newspaper inside their house. If they were able to produce the latest edition of the Reporter, their reward was a prize of five shillings. Five bob was a lot of cash during hard times and eight people in Atlas Street, Barber Street, Islands Brow, Gerards Bridge, Spray Street, Toll Bar, Reginald Road and Mill Lane, Sutton were now a bit better off.
There was also an update in the Reporter on collections for the Russian Famine Relief Fund. This had only started in St Helens in February but had now raised almost £3,000 (around £150,000 in today's money) to aid the suffering people of Russia. The famine in the country is estimated to have killed 5 million and many schools, churches and works in St Helens were organising collections.
PC Shepherd was back in court on the 22nd, this time giving evidence of street betting by Leo Battersby in a case similar to the one in Sutton. The constable said he had been on surveillance duty overlooking the Havannah footpath in Newton Road. He saw Battersby receive slips and money and later the policeman left his place of observation to follow him. Realising the police was on his tail, Battersby bolted into a house and PC Shepherd found him hidden in a pantry.
Constable Shepherd told the court that the man operated near a footpath in Parr where miners came home from work and he said it was just like a racecourse on Friday afternoons. The officer added that Battersby had exclaimed: "You might have let me have a bit of a run; I have only been doing it three weeks." He was fined £10, which the Reporter again said was an attempt by the Bench to "stamp out the evil" of street betting in St Helens.
The Hippodrome Music Hall in Corporation Street had two performances each evening, which began at the odd times of 6:50 pm and 8:50 pm. There was always a fresh group of turns on stage every week and from the 24th the acts were:
Pimple ("In a screamingly funny burlesque – his amusing antics and funny sayings make audiences rock with laughter"); Maple & May (“Comedians of distinction”); The Buchanans ("Give clever knockabout acrobatic turns with wonderful somersaults galore"); Victor King ("The new light comedian"); Elsie Burnett ("New style comedienne"); Brown's Royal Bioscope ("Showing news in animation"); Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane ("In their character comedy scene “Come Over”"). Arthur Lucan became famous in the 1930s when he began performing as 'Old Mother Riley', making 17 films as that character over a 15-year-period, mostly with his wife Kitty McShane.
And finally, it was reported this week that the St Helens and district branch of the NSPCC, based on Croppers Hill, had investigated 10 cases of child neglect in the town in March involving 36 children. That was a lower total than usual.
Next week's stories will include the ratepayers' anger over proposals to improve roads in Eccleston, the new charabanc season opens in St Helens, a police sergeant claims wrongful dismissal and the opening of the new Windle Labour Club.
This week's stories include the new-born baby found in a Sherdley pond, an update on the building of the new Parish Church, the Parr bookie's runner who said he'd been arrested too soon, the poker bashing excuse in Liverpool Street, the future Old Mother Riley comes to St Helens and the St Helens Women's Unionist Association's claim of a revolution in politics with women now in charge.
The St Helens Reporter's Tuesday edition on the 18th provided an update on the police campaign to "stamp out the evil" of street betting.
Constable Shepherd gave evidence that on the previous morning he had been on surveillance duty overlooking the Beehive Inn and Bowling Green Inn (pictured above) in Watery Lane in Sutton.
At 10:45am men began to arrive "from all directions" and a boy brought them a paper to read.
Later Robert Pigott from Berry's Lane was seen taking slips and money from some of the same men.
PC Shepherd decided to follow Pigott – but he bolted and the constable eventually found him in a poultry yard stashing the bets in a hole within a wall.
Although Pigott's fine of £10 was high – it was unlikely to act as a deterrent and help to stamp out gambling.
Such fines were usually paid off by the boss of the gambling outfit and seen simply as an overhead.
It was a continuous cat and mouse game between the police and the bookies and – with much unemployment – there were always plenty of willing volunteers to take bets.
An inquest was held in St Helens on the 20th on the body of a female child that had been found in some water at Sherdley Delph, near to Sherdley Park.
The exact circumstances would almost certainly never be known – but the case had the hallmarks of a frightened young mother, uneducated about the ways of the world, secretly giving birth to a stillborn baby.
Or a child that had died shortly after birth because the mother did not know how to care for her infant.
Dr McLaren Ferrie told the inquest that he'd conducted a post-mortem but had not been able to find any evidence that the child had lived.
As a result the coroner declared that there was insufficient evidence to show that the child had what was called a "separate existence".
That mattered because disposing of a stillborn baby in a pond was a crime – but far less serious than if the child had died through neglect – or been killed.
Later that day the annual vestry meeting for St Helens Parish Church was held and the Rev. Canon Baines updated attendees on the situation with the new church building.
The vicar said it was now five years since the old parish church had burnt down (pictured above).
Services had since been held on Sundays in the Assembly Room of the Town Hall. That was very large but there was still always an overflowing congregation.
Concrete foundations for the new church and War Memorial Chapel had now been laid and everything was ready for construction work to begin on a site in Church Street, adjacent to the old building. However, it was expected to take two years to complete.
In St Helens Police Court on the 21st, John Potter offered the magistrates a creative excuse for not creating a disturbance in Liverpool Street.
The miner claimed that a man had entered his home and knocked out his windows and then hit him over the head.
"I never went outside my own door as I was knocked out by a fellow with a poker", he told the Bench. However, PC Coles and PC Crossley begged to differ.
They explained how they had found Potter and his wife Mary and a chap called Patrick Brady shouting in the street and using bad language.
"It was only with difficulty", they said, "that we persuaded defendants to go into the house."
Perhaps Potter's poker bashing had led to his memory loss. But all three were found guilty of breaching the peace and bound over to keep it for 6 months in sureties of £5 each.
I doubt that many people are prosecuted these days for allowing their chimneys to be on fire – but it used to be a common offence.
So much so that in 1914, Inspector William Jackson prosecuted himself for letting his own chimney get on fire.
The 48-year-old lived at Sutton Police Station in Sutton Road and was given a fine of 3 shillings.
Chief Constable Ellerington jokingly asked the magistrates whether Jackson should be given a month in prison if he didn't pay up.
This week Henry Wilson was summoned to court for committing the same offence.
The builder from Peter Street was unable to attend the court hearing and instead pleaded guilty by letter.
Henry enclosed a £1 note and asked for any amount left over after the fine had been paid to be donated to the Police Aided Clog and Stocking Fund.
The fine was five shillings and so 15 bob went to the fund, which, between 1912 and 1920, had given 17,000 articles of clothing to 6,000 barefooted youngsters in St Helens.
The St Helens Reporter was published on the 21st and quoted from an article that Dorothy Spencer, the organising secretary of the St Helens Women's Unionist Association, had written for the Daily Mail.
She declared that during the previous three years a revolution had taken place in politics, writing:
"The balance of power has been upset, and, as an old hand at party warfare told me the other day, “The future of politics lies with the women – the men seem to have lost all interest.”"
Mrs Spencer said her experiences in the industrial centres of the North had confirmed this view, with women attending meetings in "far greater numbers and with far greater regularity than men".
She did concede that the "charm of novelty" was one explanation for the huge boost in interest, with most women only having had one opportunity so far to vote at a Parliamentary election.
But numerous organisations were training the "woman citizen" and many females had been given an outlook beyond their narrow confines of home.
Mrs Spencer added that women were now taking an active interest in the controversies of the day and "they now realise that what goes on in “the big world” is their concern; that however much they profess to be indifferent to politics, politics are not indifferent to them."
The paper also stated that their "Reporter Man" had been out and about again over the past week making more unannounced visits to homes throughout St Helens.
The anonymous individual asked householders if they had a copy of the newspaper inside their house.
If they were able to produce the latest edition of the Reporter, their reward was a prize of five shillings.
Five bob was a lot of cash during hard times and eight people in Atlas Street, Barber Street, Islands Brow, Gerards Bridge, Spray Street, Toll Bar, Reginald Road and Mill Lane, Sutton were now a bit better off.
There was also an update in the Reporter on collections for the Russian Famine Relief Fund.
This had only started in St Helens in February but had now raised almost £3,000 (around £150,000 in today's money) to aid the suffering people of Russia.
The famine in the country is estimated to have killed 5 million and many schools, churches and works in St Helens were organising collections.
PC Shepherd was back in court on the 22nd, this time giving evidence of street betting by Leo Battersby in a case similar to the one in Sutton.
The constable said he had been on surveillance duty overlooking the Havannah footpath in Newton Road.
He saw Battersby receive slips and money and later the policeman left his place of observation to follow him.
Realising the police was on his tail, Battersby bolted into a house and PC Shepherd found him hidden in a pantry.
Constable Shepherd told the court that the man operated near a footpath in Parr where miners came home from work and he said it was just like a racecourse on Friday afternoons.
The officer added that Battersby had exclaimed: "You might have let me have a bit of a run; I have only been doing it three weeks."
He was fined £10, which the Reporter again said was an attempt by the Bench to "stamp out the evil" of street betting in St Helens.
The Hippodrome Music Hall in Corporation Street had two performances each evening, which began at the odd times of 6:50 pm and 8:50 pm.
There was always a fresh group of turns on stage every week and from the 24th the acts were:
Pimple ("In a screamingly funny burlesque – his amusing antics and funny sayings make audiences rock with laughter"); Maple & May (“Comedians of distinction”); The Buchanans ("Give clever knockabout acrobatic turns with wonderful somersaults galore"); Victor King ("The new light comedian"); Elsie Burnett ("New style comedienne"); Brown's Royal Bioscope ("Showing news in animation"); Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane ("In their character comedy scene “Come Over”").
Arthur Lucan became famous in the 1930s when he began performing as 'Old Mother Riley', making 17 films as that character over a 15-year-period, mostly with his wife Kitty McShane.
And finally, it was reported this week that the St Helens and district branch of the NSPCC, based on Croppers Hill, had investigated 10 cases of child neglect in the town in March involving 36 children. That was a lower total than usual.
Next week's stories will include the ratepayers' anger over proposals to improve roads in Eccleston, the new charabanc season opens in St Helens, a police sergeant claims wrongful dismissal and the opening of the new Windle Labour Club.
The St Helens Reporter's Tuesday edition on the 18th provided an update on the police campaign to "stamp out the evil" of street betting.
At 10:45am men began to arrive "from all directions" and a boy brought them a paper to read.
Later Robert Pigott from Berry's Lane was seen taking slips and money from some of the same men.
PC Shepherd decided to follow Pigott – but he bolted and the constable eventually found him in a poultry yard stashing the bets in a hole within a wall.
Although Pigott's fine of £10 was high – it was unlikely to act as a deterrent and help to stamp out gambling.
Such fines were usually paid off by the boss of the gambling outfit and seen simply as an overhead.
It was a continuous cat and mouse game between the police and the bookies and – with much unemployment – there were always plenty of willing volunteers to take bets.
An inquest was held in St Helens on the 20th on the body of a female child that had been found in some water at Sherdley Delph, near to Sherdley Park.
The exact circumstances would almost certainly never be known – but the case had the hallmarks of a frightened young mother, uneducated about the ways of the world, secretly giving birth to a stillborn baby.
Or a child that had died shortly after birth because the mother did not know how to care for her infant.
Dr McLaren Ferrie told the inquest that he'd conducted a post-mortem but had not been able to find any evidence that the child had lived.
As a result the coroner declared that there was insufficient evidence to show that the child had what was called a "separate existence".
That mattered because disposing of a stillborn baby in a pond was a crime – but far less serious than if the child had died through neglect – or been killed.
The vicar said it was now five years since the old parish church had burnt down (pictured above).
Services had since been held on Sundays in the Assembly Room of the Town Hall. That was very large but there was still always an overflowing congregation.
Concrete foundations for the new church and War Memorial Chapel had now been laid and everything was ready for construction work to begin on a site in Church Street, adjacent to the old building. However, it was expected to take two years to complete.
In St Helens Police Court on the 21st, John Potter offered the magistrates a creative excuse for not creating a disturbance in Liverpool Street.
The miner claimed that a man had entered his home and knocked out his windows and then hit him over the head.
"I never went outside my own door as I was knocked out by a fellow with a poker", he told the Bench. However, PC Coles and PC Crossley begged to differ.
They explained how they had found Potter and his wife Mary and a chap called Patrick Brady shouting in the street and using bad language.
"It was only with difficulty", they said, "that we persuaded defendants to go into the house."
Perhaps Potter's poker bashing had led to his memory loss. But all three were found guilty of breaching the peace and bound over to keep it for 6 months in sureties of £5 each.
I doubt that many people are prosecuted these days for allowing their chimneys to be on fire – but it used to be a common offence.
So much so that in 1914, Inspector William Jackson prosecuted himself for letting his own chimney get on fire.
The 48-year-old lived at Sutton Police Station in Sutton Road and was given a fine of 3 shillings.
Chief Constable Ellerington jokingly asked the magistrates whether Jackson should be given a month in prison if he didn't pay up.
This week Henry Wilson was summoned to court for committing the same offence.
The builder from Peter Street was unable to attend the court hearing and instead pleaded guilty by letter.
Henry enclosed a £1 note and asked for any amount left over after the fine had been paid to be donated to the Police Aided Clog and Stocking Fund.
The fine was five shillings and so 15 bob went to the fund, which, between 1912 and 1920, had given 17,000 articles of clothing to 6,000 barefooted youngsters in St Helens.
The St Helens Reporter was published on the 21st and quoted from an article that Dorothy Spencer, the organising secretary of the St Helens Women's Unionist Association, had written for the Daily Mail.
She declared that during the previous three years a revolution had taken place in politics, writing:
"The balance of power has been upset, and, as an old hand at party warfare told me the other day, “The future of politics lies with the women – the men seem to have lost all interest.”"
Mrs Spencer said her experiences in the industrial centres of the North had confirmed this view, with women attending meetings in "far greater numbers and with far greater regularity than men".
She did concede that the "charm of novelty" was one explanation for the huge boost in interest, with most women only having had one opportunity so far to vote at a Parliamentary election.
But numerous organisations were training the "woman citizen" and many females had been given an outlook beyond their narrow confines of home.
Mrs Spencer added that women were now taking an active interest in the controversies of the day and "they now realise that what goes on in “the big world” is their concern; that however much they profess to be indifferent to politics, politics are not indifferent to them."
The paper also stated that their "Reporter Man" had been out and about again over the past week making more unannounced visits to homes throughout St Helens.
The anonymous individual asked householders if they had a copy of the newspaper inside their house.
If they were able to produce the latest edition of the Reporter, their reward was a prize of five shillings.
Five bob was a lot of cash during hard times and eight people in Atlas Street, Barber Street, Islands Brow, Gerards Bridge, Spray Street, Toll Bar, Reginald Road and Mill Lane, Sutton were now a bit better off.
There was also an update in the Reporter on collections for the Russian Famine Relief Fund.
This had only started in St Helens in February but had now raised almost £3,000 (around £150,000 in today's money) to aid the suffering people of Russia.
The famine in the country is estimated to have killed 5 million and many schools, churches and works in St Helens were organising collections.
PC Shepherd was back in court on the 22nd, this time giving evidence of street betting by Leo Battersby in a case similar to the one in Sutton.
The constable said he had been on surveillance duty overlooking the Havannah footpath in Newton Road.
He saw Battersby receive slips and money and later the policeman left his place of observation to follow him.
Realising the police was on his tail, Battersby bolted into a house and PC Shepherd found him hidden in a pantry.
Constable Shepherd told the court that the man operated near a footpath in Parr where miners came home from work and he said it was just like a racecourse on Friday afternoons.
The officer added that Battersby had exclaimed: "You might have let me have a bit of a run; I have only been doing it three weeks."
He was fined £10, which the Reporter again said was an attempt by the Bench to "stamp out the evil" of street betting in St Helens.
The Hippodrome Music Hall in Corporation Street had two performances each evening, which began at the odd times of 6:50 pm and 8:50 pm.
There was always a fresh group of turns on stage every week and from the 24th the acts were:
Pimple ("In a screamingly funny burlesque – his amusing antics and funny sayings make audiences rock with laughter"); Maple & May (“Comedians of distinction”); The Buchanans ("Give clever knockabout acrobatic turns with wonderful somersaults galore"); Victor King ("The new light comedian"); Elsie Burnett ("New style comedienne"); Brown's Royal Bioscope ("Showing news in animation"); Arthur Lucan and Kitty McShane ("In their character comedy scene “Come Over”").
Arthur Lucan became famous in the 1930s when he began performing as 'Old Mother Riley', making 17 films as that character over a 15-year-period, mostly with his wife Kitty McShane.
And finally, it was reported this week that the St Helens and district branch of the NSPCC, based on Croppers Hill, had investigated 10 cases of child neglect in the town in March involving 36 children. That was a lower total than usual.
Next week's stories will include the ratepayers' anger over proposals to improve roads in Eccleston, the new charabanc season opens in St Helens, a police sergeant claims wrongful dismissal and the opening of the new Windle Labour Club.