IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (24th - 30th AUGUST 1920)
This week's stories include the Oldfield Street man who objected to his wife smoking in bed, the boy who hid stolen cash in an outhouse roof, the two-roomed house occupied by 18 adults, the Universal Bazaar's Christmas Club and concern in St Helens about the school leaving age being raised to fifteen.
We begin on the 24th when the "old and infirm men" who attended a shelter in Thatto Heath Park (pictured above) went on their annual trip. The group assembled in the park at 1:30pm and each man was presented with a pipe, a packet of tobacco and matches. Two charabanc coaches then took the party on a journey through the countryside and for many it was their first trip in a motor vehicle.
After inspecting the "splendid" rose bushes in Calderstones Park, the Reporter wrote that the men's "glorious journey" ended at the Bridge Inn at Gateacre, where a "splendid" tea was eaten. After their nosh up, what was described as a silver coin was presented to each guest and a "blindfold bowling handicap" took place.
On the 25th Thomas Priestly from Oldfield Street was summoned to the Police Court by his wife Florence on a charge of wife desertion. This type of hearing was a precursor to the granting of a maintenance or affiliation order, as they were known. However the magistrates would first try their hands at marriage guidance counselling to see if they could reunite the couple. That was all well and good but playing a private matter out in a public court was far from helpful.
Thomas Priestly told the Bench that he had walked out on Florence for two reasons. She smoked cigarettes and drank beer with her mother. His wife vehemently denied going into a pub without her husband – although Thomas was not reported as having mentioned pubs. Many women drank at home and in February 1919, Chief Constable Ellerington had revealed that on a recent evening his force had kept watch on 23 licensed houses in St Helens over a period of two and a half hours.
They had counted a total of 1,728 women frequenting these places with 789 having visited their off-sales departments, where they bought drink to take home. The police chief remarked that some of the females were even observed enjoying a "nip" before leaving the pub. Shocking! Although it was his wife's smoking that seemed to irk Thomas Priestly the most. He told the Bench:
"She smokes four packets of cigarettes a day, and I cannot smoke that number when working. She will wake up three or four times during the night in bed and light cigarettes and there are cigarette ends and match stalks all over the floor. It gives me no heart for work." The Chairman of the Bench replied: "Well, that is no great offence. You know nowadays ladies do smoke."
However the court probation officer, John Holmes, blamed the people they were living with in an overcrowded house, saying several had been in court recently charged with breach of the peace. Holmes suggested that the couple leave the neighbourhood and Thomas Priestly said if he could get a place of their own, then he would willingly take his wife. Perhaps he was thinking they could sleep in separate rooms, allowing Florence to light up to her heart's content at night! However with the huge housing shortage, finding a home was much easier said than done. But the case was adjourned for a month to see if it was possible.
In last week's edition of the St Helens Reporter it was announced that the school leaving age was being raised to fifteen in January. However on the 27th the paper published a letter from the Chairman of the town's Education Committee clarifying the matter. James Heaton said the report had "worried a good many parents", who would have wanted their children to be working as soon as possible and thus bringing more cash into the home.
However the government had given local education authorities the option of keeping the leaving age at fourteen and St Helens would not be making any change. Although parents could, if they wished, allow their children to remain at school for another year. The Reporter also wrote this article about the shortage of houses in St Helens and the overcrowding of homes:
"Numerous instances have been quoted lately of the desperate plight to which families concerning overcrowded houses have been driven through the housing shortage, but surely the limit was reached by the incident recorded by Coun. W. Fawcett at the Town Council meeting on Wednesday. “I know of a house in St. Helens,” he told the Council, “where there are eighteen grown-up people,” but the Council, who have apparently grown somewhat callous to these stories, showed no sign of agitation.
"Coun. Fawcett, however, was not finished. “It is a two-roomed house in which they live,” he said, “and they have to adopt the three-shift system in order to get a sleep.” Members certainly pricked up their ears at that, but – recognising their impotency to effect a cure just yet – proceeded with a sigh to the next business."
The first Christmas advert of the year was published in the paper. It came from the Universal Bazaar who had premises next to the remains of the Parish Church and also kept a stall in the Covered Market. The Bazaar was advertising its 14th annual Doll and Toy Club. Members chose their goods in advance, they were then laid to one side and over the next few months people gave a weekly sum until the presents were paid off. They must have bred very patient kids in those days. The youngsters were expected to choose their toys in August and then wait four months before getting them!
In St Helens Police Court on that day John Rowe from Higher Parr Street was charged with stealing £74. The 16-year-old boy had stolen the considerable sum off his aunt, who clearly did not think much of banks. Mrs Rowe kept her savings of over £100 stuffed under her bed at her home in South John Street. Her nephew John took £74 of the cash and hid most of it behind a slate in an outhouse roof.
When his mother was hanging up her clothes-line she noticed that the slate had been moved and upon investigating found £32 of the money. A further £9 was discovered in her son's bedroom. After stealing the money the boy gave up his job at a blacksmith's but didn't tell his widowed mother and went through the pretence of going to work each day. John had previously stolen £34 from his Mum and she fainted in court and had to be carried out. However the Bench was quite lenient with her son. They told John that he had committed a serious offence but they would "give him a chance to recover himself" and bound him over for two years.
Also in court was William Sutton of Hardshaw Street who had been summoned on a charge of cruelty to a horse by insufficient care. An RSPCA official had examined the horse and found it covered in sores on one side of its body from head to tail. Some of the sores were described as being as big as saucers or plates and one of the animal's eyes was also partly closed.
Sutton said he had been dressing the sores with vinegar and water. That sounded a bit mad to me but in 2018 the NHS began a trial of adding vinegar to patients' bandages. That was after researchers had found that the acetic acid in vinegar could help stop wound infections and speed up healing. William Sutton was fined 20 shillings.
There were no evening papers published during the evening of the 27th in Liverpool and Manchester due to a printers dispute. The Merseyside papers affected would have been the Liverpool Evening Express, as well as the Echo. The former merged with the latter in 1958.
In St Helens Police Court on the 30th a Liverpool woman called Margaret McGuiness was sent to prison for a month for stealing threepence. That might seem odd after reading about the 16-year-old lad who had only been bound over after stealing £74. But the boy's youth had clearly been taken into account by the magistrates, who were disgusted by the behaviour of Mrs McGuiness.
She had taken threepence off a blind man called William Thorpe who had been given permission to collect cash outside the Congregational Church in Ormskirk Street. The woman denied the act but witnesses had seen her and as the magistrates sent Mrs McGuiness to jail, the Chairman said she had committed a "contemptible theft".
Also in court was William Critchley from Brook Street who was charged with attempting to commit suicide. The man had cut his throat after losing his job at Southport Colliery in Parr after going on holiday to Birmingham. However the magistrates said William appeared to be a very respectable man and offered to discharge him if he promised, "not to do anything of the kind again". This he agreed to do.
And finally the acts performing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 30th were: The Frasers ("Two dainty ladies in a novel singing and dancing scene"); Takeo and Komo Namba ("The famous Japo-American eccentric entertainers"); The Huntings ("A spectacular juggling & unsupported ladder act"); Bert Bradford ("That comedian"); Fred Morris ("Versatile entertainer with voice, piano & cornet") and Orpheus Trio ("Three men and a piano").
Next week's stories will include a claim of profiteering by a Church Street café, St Helens Ladies football team play in Morecambe, Beechams want to know if newspaper readers are "only middling" and there are extraordinary stories in strike editions of the Liverpool Echo.
After inspecting the "splendid" rose bushes in Calderstones Park, the Reporter wrote that the men's "glorious journey" ended at the Bridge Inn at Gateacre, where a "splendid" tea was eaten. After their nosh up, what was described as a silver coin was presented to each guest and a "blindfold bowling handicap" took place.
On the 25th Thomas Priestly from Oldfield Street was summoned to the Police Court by his wife Florence on a charge of wife desertion. This type of hearing was a precursor to the granting of a maintenance or affiliation order, as they were known. However the magistrates would first try their hands at marriage guidance counselling to see if they could reunite the couple. That was all well and good but playing a private matter out in a public court was far from helpful.
Thomas Priestly told the Bench that he had walked out on Florence for two reasons. She smoked cigarettes and drank beer with her mother. His wife vehemently denied going into a pub without her husband – although Thomas was not reported as having mentioned pubs. Many women drank at home and in February 1919, Chief Constable Ellerington had revealed that on a recent evening his force had kept watch on 23 licensed houses in St Helens over a period of two and a half hours.
They had counted a total of 1,728 women frequenting these places with 789 having visited their off-sales departments, where they bought drink to take home. The police chief remarked that some of the females were even observed enjoying a "nip" before leaving the pub. Shocking! Although it was his wife's smoking that seemed to irk Thomas Priestly the most. He told the Bench:
"She smokes four packets of cigarettes a day, and I cannot smoke that number when working. She will wake up three or four times during the night in bed and light cigarettes and there are cigarette ends and match stalks all over the floor. It gives me no heart for work." The Chairman of the Bench replied: "Well, that is no great offence. You know nowadays ladies do smoke."
However the court probation officer, John Holmes, blamed the people they were living with in an overcrowded house, saying several had been in court recently charged with breach of the peace. Holmes suggested that the couple leave the neighbourhood and Thomas Priestly said if he could get a place of their own, then he would willingly take his wife. Perhaps he was thinking they could sleep in separate rooms, allowing Florence to light up to her heart's content at night! However with the huge housing shortage, finding a home was much easier said than done. But the case was adjourned for a month to see if it was possible.
In last week's edition of the St Helens Reporter it was announced that the school leaving age was being raised to fifteen in January. However on the 27th the paper published a letter from the Chairman of the town's Education Committee clarifying the matter. James Heaton said the report had "worried a good many parents", who would have wanted their children to be working as soon as possible and thus bringing more cash into the home.
However the government had given local education authorities the option of keeping the leaving age at fourteen and St Helens would not be making any change. Although parents could, if they wished, allow their children to remain at school for another year. The Reporter also wrote this article about the shortage of houses in St Helens and the overcrowding of homes:
"Numerous instances have been quoted lately of the desperate plight to which families concerning overcrowded houses have been driven through the housing shortage, but surely the limit was reached by the incident recorded by Coun. W. Fawcett at the Town Council meeting on Wednesday. “I know of a house in St. Helens,” he told the Council, “where there are eighteen grown-up people,” but the Council, who have apparently grown somewhat callous to these stories, showed no sign of agitation.
"Coun. Fawcett, however, was not finished. “It is a two-roomed house in which they live,” he said, “and they have to adopt the three-shift system in order to get a sleep.” Members certainly pricked up their ears at that, but – recognising their impotency to effect a cure just yet – proceeded with a sigh to the next business."
The first Christmas advert of the year was published in the paper. It came from the Universal Bazaar who had premises next to the remains of the Parish Church and also kept a stall in the Covered Market. The Bazaar was advertising its 14th annual Doll and Toy Club. Members chose their goods in advance, they were then laid to one side and over the next few months people gave a weekly sum until the presents were paid off. They must have bred very patient kids in those days. The youngsters were expected to choose their toys in August and then wait four months before getting them!
In St Helens Police Court on that day John Rowe from Higher Parr Street was charged with stealing £74. The 16-year-old boy had stolen the considerable sum off his aunt, who clearly did not think much of banks. Mrs Rowe kept her savings of over £100 stuffed under her bed at her home in South John Street. Her nephew John took £74 of the cash and hid most of it behind a slate in an outhouse roof.
When his mother was hanging up her clothes-line she noticed that the slate had been moved and upon investigating found £32 of the money. A further £9 was discovered in her son's bedroom. After stealing the money the boy gave up his job at a blacksmith's but didn't tell his widowed mother and went through the pretence of going to work each day. John had previously stolen £34 from his Mum and she fainted in court and had to be carried out. However the Bench was quite lenient with her son. They told John that he had committed a serious offence but they would "give him a chance to recover himself" and bound him over for two years.
Also in court was William Sutton of Hardshaw Street who had been summoned on a charge of cruelty to a horse by insufficient care. An RSPCA official had examined the horse and found it covered in sores on one side of its body from head to tail. Some of the sores were described as being as big as saucers or plates and one of the animal's eyes was also partly closed.
Sutton said he had been dressing the sores with vinegar and water. That sounded a bit mad to me but in 2018 the NHS began a trial of adding vinegar to patients' bandages. That was after researchers had found that the acetic acid in vinegar could help stop wound infections and speed up healing. William Sutton was fined 20 shillings.
There were no evening papers published during the evening of the 27th in Liverpool and Manchester due to a printers dispute. The Merseyside papers affected would have been the Liverpool Evening Express, as well as the Echo. The former merged with the latter in 1958.
In St Helens Police Court on the 30th a Liverpool woman called Margaret McGuiness was sent to prison for a month for stealing threepence. That might seem odd after reading about the 16-year-old lad who had only been bound over after stealing £74. But the boy's youth had clearly been taken into account by the magistrates, who were disgusted by the behaviour of Mrs McGuiness.
She had taken threepence off a blind man called William Thorpe who had been given permission to collect cash outside the Congregational Church in Ormskirk Street. The woman denied the act but witnesses had seen her and as the magistrates sent Mrs McGuiness to jail, the Chairman said she had committed a "contemptible theft".
Also in court was William Critchley from Brook Street who was charged with attempting to commit suicide. The man had cut his throat after losing his job at Southport Colliery in Parr after going on holiday to Birmingham. However the magistrates said William appeared to be a very respectable man and offered to discharge him if he promised, "not to do anything of the kind again". This he agreed to do.
And finally the acts performing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 30th were: The Frasers ("Two dainty ladies in a novel singing and dancing scene"); Takeo and Komo Namba ("The famous Japo-American eccentric entertainers"); The Huntings ("A spectacular juggling & unsupported ladder act"); Bert Bradford ("That comedian"); Fred Morris ("Versatile entertainer with voice, piano & cornet") and Orpheus Trio ("Three men and a piano").
Next week's stories will include a claim of profiteering by a Church Street café, St Helens Ladies football team play in Morecambe, Beechams want to know if newspaper readers are "only middling" and there are extraordinary stories in strike editions of the Liverpool Echo.
This week's stories include the Oldfield Street man who objected to his wife smoking in bed, the boy who hid stolen cash in an outhouse roof, the two-roomed house occupied by 18 adults, the Universal Bazaar's Christmas Club and concern in St Helens about the school leaving age being raised to fifteen.
We begin on the 24th when the "old and infirm men" who attended a shelter in Thatto Heath Park (pictured above) went on their annual trip.
The group assembled in the park at 1:30pm and each man was presented with a pipe, a packet of tobacco and matches.
Two charabanc coaches then took the party on a journey through the countryside and for many it was their first trip in a motor vehicle.
After inspecting the "splendid" rose bushes in Calderstones Park, the Reporter wrote that the men's "glorious journey" ended at the Bridge Inn at Gateacre, where a "splendid" tea was eaten.
After their nosh up, what was described as a silver coin was presented to each guest and a "blindfold bowling handicap" took place.
On the 25th Thomas Priestly from Oldfield Street was summoned to the Police Court by his wife Florence on a charge of wife desertion.
This type of hearing was a precursor to the granting of a maintenance or affiliation order, as they were known.
However the magistrates would first try their hands at marriage guidance counselling to see if they could reunite the couple.
That was all well and good but playing a private matter out in a public court was far from helpful.
Thomas Priestly told the Bench that he had walked out on Florence for two reasons. She smoked cigarettes and drank beer with her mother.
His wife vehemently denied going into a pub without her husband – although Thomas was not reported as having mentioned pubs.
Many women drank at home and in February 1919, Chief Constable Ellerington had revealed that on a recent evening his force had kept watch on 23 licensed houses in St Helens over a period of two and a half hours.
They had counted a total of 1,728 women frequenting these places with 789 having visited their off-sales departments, where they bought drink to take home.
The police chief remarked that some of the females were even observed enjoying a "nip" before leaving the pub. Shocking!
Although it was his wife's smoking that seemed to irk Thomas Priestly the most. He told the Bench:
"She smokes four packets of cigarettes a day, and I cannot smoke that number when working. She will wake up three or four times during the night in bed and light cigarettes and there are cigarette ends and match stalks all over the floor. It gives me no heart for work."
The Chairman of the Bench replied: "Well, that is no great offence. You know nowadays ladies do smoke."
However the court probation officer, John Holmes, blamed the people they were living with in an overcrowded house, saying several had been in court recently charged with breach of the peace.
Holmes suggested that the couple leave the neighbourhood and Thomas Priestly said if he could get a place of their own, then he would willingly take his wife.
Perhaps he was thinking they could sleep in separate rooms, allowing Florence to light up to her heart's content at night!
However with the huge housing shortage, finding a home was much easier said than done. But the case was adjourned for a month to see if it was possible.
In last week's edition of the St Helens Reporter it was announced that the school leaving age was being raised to fifteen in January.
However on the 27th the paper published a letter from the Chairman of the town's Education Committee clarifying the matter.
James Heaton said the report had "worried a good many parents", who would have wanted their children to be working as soon as possible and thus bringing more cash into the home.
However the government had given local education authorities the option of keeping the leaving age at fourteen and St Helens would not be making any change.
Although parents could, if they wished, allow their children to remain at school for another year.
The Reporter also wrote this article about the shortage of houses in St Helens and the overcrowding of homes:
"Numerous instances have been quoted lately of the desperate plight to which families concerning overcrowded houses have been driven through the housing shortage, but surely the limit was reached by the incident recorded by Coun. W. Fawcett at the Town Council meeting on Wednesday.
"“I know of a house in St. Helens,” he told the Council, “where there are eighteen grown-up people,” but the Council, who have apparently grown somewhat callous to these stories, showed no sign of agitation.
"Coun. Fawcett, however, was not finished. “It is a two-roomed house in which they live,” he said, “and they have to adopt the three-shift system in order to get a sleep.” Members certainly pricked up their ears at that, but – recognising their impotency to effect a cure just yet – proceeded with a sigh to the next business."
The first Christmas advert of the year was published in the paper. It came from the Universal Bazaar who had premises next to the remains of the Parish Church and also kept a stall in the Covered Market.
The Bazaar was advertising its 14th annual Doll and Toy Club.
Members chose their goods in advance, they were then laid to one side and over the next few months people gave a weekly sum until the presents were paid off.
They must have bred very patient kids in those days.
The youngsters were expected to choose their toys in August and then wait four months before getting them!
In St Helens Police Court on that day John Rowe from Higher Parr Street was charged with stealing £74.
The 16-year-old boy had stolen the considerable sum off his aunt, who clearly did not think much of banks.
Mrs Rowe kept her savings of over £100 stuffed under her bed at her home in South John Street.
Her nephew John took £74 of the cash and hid most of it behind a slate in an outhouse roof.
When his mother was hanging up her clothes-line she noticed that the slate had been moved and upon investigating found £32 of the money. A further £9 was discovered in her son's bedroom.
After stealing the money the boy gave up his job at a blacksmith's but didn't tell his widowed mother and went through the pretence of going to work each day.
John had previously stolen £34 from his Mum and she fainted in court and had to be carried out. However the Bench was quite lenient with her son.
They told John that he had committed a serious offence but they would "give him a chance to recover himself" and bound him over for two years.
Also in court was William Sutton of Hardshaw Street who had been summoned on a charge of cruelty to a horse by insufficient care.
An RSPCA official had examined the horse and found it covered in sores on one side of its body from head to tail.
Some of the sores were described as being as big as saucers or plates and one of the animal's eyes was also partly closed.
Sutton said he had been dressing the sores with vinegar and water.
That sounded a bit mad to me but in 2018 the NHS began a trial of adding vinegar to patients' bandages.
That was after researchers had found that the acetic acid in vinegar could help stop wound infections and speed up healing. William Sutton was fined 20 shillings.
There were no evening papers published during the evening of the 27th in Liverpool and Manchester due to a printers dispute.
The Merseyside papers affected would have been the Liverpool Evening Express, as well as the Echo. The former merged with the latter in 1958.
In St Helens Police Court on the 30th a Liverpool woman called Margaret McGuiness was sent to prison for a month for stealing threepence.
That might seem odd after reading about the 16-year-old lad who had only been bound over after stealing £74.
But the boy's youth had clearly been taken into account by the magistrates, who were disgusted by the behaviour of Mrs McGuiness.
She had taken threepence off a blind man called William Thorpe who had been given permission to collect cash outside the Congregational Church in Ormskirk Street.
The woman denied the act but witnesses had seen her and as the magistrates sent Mrs McGuiness to jail, the Chairman said she had committed a "contemptible theft".
Also in court was William Critchley from Brook Street who was charged with attempting to commit suicide.
The man had cut his throat after losing his job at Southport Colliery in Parr after going on holiday to Birmingham.
However the magistrates said William appeared to be a very respectable man and offered to discharge him if he promised, "not to do anything of the kind again". This he agreed to do.
And finally the acts performing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 30th were:
The Frasers ("Two dainty ladies in a novel singing and dancing scene"); Takeo and Komo Namba ("The famous Japo-American eccentric entertainers"); The Huntings ("A spectacular juggling & unsupported ladder act"); Bert Bradford ("That comedian"); Fred Morris ("Versatile entertainer with voice, piano & cornet") and Orpheus Trio ("Three men and a piano").
Next week's stories will include a claim of profiteering by a Church Street café, St Helens Ladies football team play in Morecambe, Beechams want to know if newspaper readers are "only middling" and there are extraordinary stories in strike editions of the Liverpool Echo.
The group assembled in the park at 1:30pm and each man was presented with a pipe, a packet of tobacco and matches.
Two charabanc coaches then took the party on a journey through the countryside and for many it was their first trip in a motor vehicle.
After inspecting the "splendid" rose bushes in Calderstones Park, the Reporter wrote that the men's "glorious journey" ended at the Bridge Inn at Gateacre, where a "splendid" tea was eaten.
After their nosh up, what was described as a silver coin was presented to each guest and a "blindfold bowling handicap" took place.
On the 25th Thomas Priestly from Oldfield Street was summoned to the Police Court by his wife Florence on a charge of wife desertion.
This type of hearing was a precursor to the granting of a maintenance or affiliation order, as they were known.
However the magistrates would first try their hands at marriage guidance counselling to see if they could reunite the couple.
That was all well and good but playing a private matter out in a public court was far from helpful.
Thomas Priestly told the Bench that he had walked out on Florence for two reasons. She smoked cigarettes and drank beer with her mother.
His wife vehemently denied going into a pub without her husband – although Thomas was not reported as having mentioned pubs.
Many women drank at home and in February 1919, Chief Constable Ellerington had revealed that on a recent evening his force had kept watch on 23 licensed houses in St Helens over a period of two and a half hours.
They had counted a total of 1,728 women frequenting these places with 789 having visited their off-sales departments, where they bought drink to take home.
The police chief remarked that some of the females were even observed enjoying a "nip" before leaving the pub. Shocking!
Although it was his wife's smoking that seemed to irk Thomas Priestly the most. He told the Bench:
"She smokes four packets of cigarettes a day, and I cannot smoke that number when working. She will wake up three or four times during the night in bed and light cigarettes and there are cigarette ends and match stalks all over the floor. It gives me no heart for work."
The Chairman of the Bench replied: "Well, that is no great offence. You know nowadays ladies do smoke."
However the court probation officer, John Holmes, blamed the people they were living with in an overcrowded house, saying several had been in court recently charged with breach of the peace.
Holmes suggested that the couple leave the neighbourhood and Thomas Priestly said if he could get a place of their own, then he would willingly take his wife.
Perhaps he was thinking they could sleep in separate rooms, allowing Florence to light up to her heart's content at night!
However with the huge housing shortage, finding a home was much easier said than done. But the case was adjourned for a month to see if it was possible.
In last week's edition of the St Helens Reporter it was announced that the school leaving age was being raised to fifteen in January.
However on the 27th the paper published a letter from the Chairman of the town's Education Committee clarifying the matter.
James Heaton said the report had "worried a good many parents", who would have wanted their children to be working as soon as possible and thus bringing more cash into the home.
However the government had given local education authorities the option of keeping the leaving age at fourteen and St Helens would not be making any change.
Although parents could, if they wished, allow their children to remain at school for another year.
The Reporter also wrote this article about the shortage of houses in St Helens and the overcrowding of homes:
"Numerous instances have been quoted lately of the desperate plight to which families concerning overcrowded houses have been driven through the housing shortage, but surely the limit was reached by the incident recorded by Coun. W. Fawcett at the Town Council meeting on Wednesday.
"“I know of a house in St. Helens,” he told the Council, “where there are eighteen grown-up people,” but the Council, who have apparently grown somewhat callous to these stories, showed no sign of agitation.
"Coun. Fawcett, however, was not finished. “It is a two-roomed house in which they live,” he said, “and they have to adopt the three-shift system in order to get a sleep.” Members certainly pricked up their ears at that, but – recognising their impotency to effect a cure just yet – proceeded with a sigh to the next business."
The first Christmas advert of the year was published in the paper. It came from the Universal Bazaar who had premises next to the remains of the Parish Church and also kept a stall in the Covered Market.
The Bazaar was advertising its 14th annual Doll and Toy Club.
Members chose their goods in advance, they were then laid to one side and over the next few months people gave a weekly sum until the presents were paid off.
They must have bred very patient kids in those days.
The youngsters were expected to choose their toys in August and then wait four months before getting them!
In St Helens Police Court on that day John Rowe from Higher Parr Street was charged with stealing £74.
The 16-year-old boy had stolen the considerable sum off his aunt, who clearly did not think much of banks.
Mrs Rowe kept her savings of over £100 stuffed under her bed at her home in South John Street.
Her nephew John took £74 of the cash and hid most of it behind a slate in an outhouse roof.
When his mother was hanging up her clothes-line she noticed that the slate had been moved and upon investigating found £32 of the money. A further £9 was discovered in her son's bedroom.
After stealing the money the boy gave up his job at a blacksmith's but didn't tell his widowed mother and went through the pretence of going to work each day.
John had previously stolen £34 from his Mum and she fainted in court and had to be carried out. However the Bench was quite lenient with her son.
They told John that he had committed a serious offence but they would "give him a chance to recover himself" and bound him over for two years.
Also in court was William Sutton of Hardshaw Street who had been summoned on a charge of cruelty to a horse by insufficient care.
An RSPCA official had examined the horse and found it covered in sores on one side of its body from head to tail.
Some of the sores were described as being as big as saucers or plates and one of the animal's eyes was also partly closed.
Sutton said he had been dressing the sores with vinegar and water.
That sounded a bit mad to me but in 2018 the NHS began a trial of adding vinegar to patients' bandages.
That was after researchers had found that the acetic acid in vinegar could help stop wound infections and speed up healing. William Sutton was fined 20 shillings.
There were no evening papers published during the evening of the 27th in Liverpool and Manchester due to a printers dispute.
The Merseyside papers affected would have been the Liverpool Evening Express, as well as the Echo. The former merged with the latter in 1958.
In St Helens Police Court on the 30th a Liverpool woman called Margaret McGuiness was sent to prison for a month for stealing threepence.
That might seem odd after reading about the 16-year-old lad who had only been bound over after stealing £74.
But the boy's youth had clearly been taken into account by the magistrates, who were disgusted by the behaviour of Mrs McGuiness.
She had taken threepence off a blind man called William Thorpe who had been given permission to collect cash outside the Congregational Church in Ormskirk Street.
The woman denied the act but witnesses had seen her and as the magistrates sent Mrs McGuiness to jail, the Chairman said she had committed a "contemptible theft".
Also in court was William Critchley from Brook Street who was charged with attempting to commit suicide.
The man had cut his throat after losing his job at Southport Colliery in Parr after going on holiday to Birmingham.
However the magistrates said William appeared to be a very respectable man and offered to discharge him if he promised, "not to do anything of the kind again". This he agreed to do.
And finally the acts performing at the Hippodrome Theatre from the 30th were:
The Frasers ("Two dainty ladies in a novel singing and dancing scene"); Takeo and Komo Namba ("The famous Japo-American eccentric entertainers"); The Huntings ("A spectacular juggling & unsupported ladder act"); Bert Bradford ("That comedian"); Fred Morris ("Versatile entertainer with voice, piano & cornet") and Orpheus Trio ("Three men and a piano").
Next week's stories will include a claim of profiteering by a Church Street café, St Helens Ladies football team play in Morecambe, Beechams want to know if newspaper readers are "only middling" and there are extraordinary stories in strike editions of the Liverpool Echo.