150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 10 - 16 FEBRRUARY 1875
This week's many stories include the Valentine cards available to buy in Hardshaw Street, the congested nature of market days in St Helens, the amazing prison sentence given to a Bridge Street burglar, the epileptic who had a fit in the courtroom and the man that deserted his family for a life in Scotland is brought to book.
We begin on the 11th when on a train for St Helens that was about to leave Lime Street Station in Liverpool, a young German man named Fitz Louis Adam shot himself. A note was found on his body that said he had spent all his money having given his last penny to a beggar and adding that he had nothing to eat, nothing to drink and nowhere to sleep.
Also on the 11th a chap called Hayward of the Liverpool Peace Society delivered a lecture on the principles of peace in the Volunteer Hall in St Helens. Although James Radley, the Mayor of St Helens, was present to lend credibility to the event, the attendance was described as very limited.
Peter McPherson appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 12th charged with "burglariously entering the shop of Mr. Thomas Ward" and stealing 20 shillings 6d in cash and an umbrella valued at 5s. Mr Ward was a hairdresser in Bridge Street and he also owned a tobacconist's next door. McPherson was accused of breaking into both shops and smashing open and extracting money from their tills – which in those days were simply locked drawers.
The accused had been working as an assistant in the barber's and on the Monday morning when the burglary was discovered, McPherson had failed to turn up for work. And so suspicion immediately fell upon him, which increased when the police learned that the man had suddenly come into money. McPherson had been staying with his wife at the Lamb Inn in College Street and on the Sunday had been unable to pay for his lodgings. But on the following morning he had seen the pub's landlady and paid her what he owed. McPherson was also carrying the umbrella that had been stolen from the Bridge Street shops.
In court he attempted to explain his improved circumstances by claiming that a cousin from Liverpool had lent him a sovereign and his sister had given him the umbrella. The magistrates were not impressed with McPherson's excuses and committed him for trial at the next assizes hearings in Kirkdale. There – would you believe – the 25-year-old was sentenced to 10 years in prison! That was because McPherson had two previous felony convictions for burglary.
The St Helens Newspaper described on the 13th how Moody and Sankey, the American religious revivalists, had opened their spiritual crusade in Liverpool. Just as they were about to end the proceedings, the Reverend Robert Ward from St Helens had walked to the front of the platform and asked the meeting to pray for his town which he said was linked to Liverpool in its "notoriety for crime", adding: "In St. Helens we are expecting a great shower of blessings will come down upon Liverpool and we are in hopes that we will share in the blessing."
The Newspaper was again promoting its range of Valentine cards that were available to purchase from its shop in Hardshaw Street. Their advert said that a room especially devoted to the display of "every description of Valentines, amusing and sentimental", had been laid out and then wrote:
"Where unobserved in Cupid's bower,
You may while away a pleasant hour;
And pick and choose from stock replete,
Valentines that are choice and sweet."
A letter in the Newspaper provides some insights into what life was like on the two market days in St Helens. These were held on Saturdays and Mondays and the writer said the roads on those days were highly congested: "The result of all this is that the thoroughfare is closed to vehicles on Saturdays and Mondays – a wheelbarrow could not be got down Exchange street on Saturday evening – and the occupiers of houses and shops in the locality can receive neither goods nor customers, should either happen to arrive in a conveyance."
The correspondent also painted a picture of the roadway surrounding the market hall which was described as: "Now occupied on market days by a miscellaneous collection of ricketty wooden stalls and tables, displaying tin cans, hats, caps, translations of old boots and shoes, short lengths of gorgeously coloured ribbons and dilapidated artificial flowers, tea, toffee, and tripe establishments; stock of pills of marvellous composition and properties, bottles of infallible remedies for all the ills that flesh is heir to etc. – the whole being diversified by heaps of calico scraps, piles of oranges, onions, potatoes, and cabbages, groups of pigs, crockery by the square yard, and old clothes by the cart load."
On the 15th Patrick Murphy appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with deserting his wife and three children and leaving them chargeable to the Prescot Union. In other words a desperate Mrs Murphy had needed to go cap in hand to the Prescot Guardians to claim the so-called parish relief. They had awarded her 5 shillings a week, which was not very much when she had three children to look after but the dole-out stopped them from starving.
Patrick Murphy had walked out on his wife and children at the end of July 1874 and was eventually tracked down to Ayrshire where he was arrested and brought back to St Helens. The cost of the parish maintaining the man's family for 22 weeks was stated in court as being £5 10 shillings but getting him arrested and brought back home took the amount to over £9. The Relieving Officer James Fowler said it was a "most heartless case" and Murphy was sent to prison for three months.
William Dixon was summoned to the court to show cause why he should not contribute 2 shillings per week towards the maintenance of his elderly father. The latter was aged about 70 and like Mrs Murphy was receiving payments from the Prescot Union. But William Dixon appears to have been an epileptic as he was a coal miner but had to give up his job through having fits.
In fact William had a fit before the hearing of his case and he had to be carried from the courtroom into one of the anterooms until he had recovered. The defendant's wife told the Bench that her husband could not get employment because of his fits. They had five children but he had only been able to work for about three months during the past year. However, despite the man's straitened circumstances, the magistrates issued an order for Mr Dixon to pay two shillings a week towards the maintenance of his dad.
A rarity also occurred in the Petty Sessions. A landlord accused of selling booze during prohibited hours on a Sunday told the truth! Licensees charged with committing such an offence routinely offered all sorts of dubious excuses to the magistrates who rarely accepted them. But they did buy James Middlehurst's reason for selling whisky to a woman called Robinson at 4:55pm on a Sunday afternoon.
He was the landlord of the Gerard Arms at Moss Bank and PC 398 had seen him let Mrs Robinson into his house. The constable said he went closer and heard money "gingling" in the bar and when the woman came out he found she was carrying whisky. The defence case was that the landlord had acted from a sense of charity as Mrs Robinson had a son that was in such delicate health that a chemist had advised his parents to give him a little spirits occasionally.
On that day when the son came home from church he had looked very ill and his mother had gone to the Gerard Arms to get something for him. Alcohol was then given much more credit for its medicinal benefits than today and the magistrates dismissed the charges upon payment of costs.
Also in court was James Crawley who had clearly consumed too much medicine. He was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Bridge Street and assaulting PC Hargreaves in the execution of his duty. The officer explained that when he had apprehended Crawley he had violently resisted and kicked him several times on his legs. But the magistrates only fined him five shillings and costs for the drunkenness and decided to overlook the assault on the officer.
What PC Hargreaves and his black and blue legs made of that, I can't say – although I can guess! But at the same hearing an elderly man called Daniel Carson was sent to prison for 21 days for stealing a piece of ham valued at 5s 4d from a shop in Naylor Street. That's the Victorian justice system in a nutshell. Nothing for giving a policeman a good kicking but three weeks in prison for nicking a bit of food.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Valentine mania in St Helens, the high level of infant mortality, the claim of cruelty to an exhausted bull and the brutal husband from Gerards Bridge who threatened to "Corrigan" his wife.
We begin on the 11th when on a train for St Helens that was about to leave Lime Street Station in Liverpool, a young German man named Fitz Louis Adam shot himself. A note was found on his body that said he had spent all his money having given his last penny to a beggar and adding that he had nothing to eat, nothing to drink and nowhere to sleep.
Also on the 11th a chap called Hayward of the Liverpool Peace Society delivered a lecture on the principles of peace in the Volunteer Hall in St Helens. Although James Radley, the Mayor of St Helens, was present to lend credibility to the event, the attendance was described as very limited.
Peter McPherson appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 12th charged with "burglariously entering the shop of Mr. Thomas Ward" and stealing 20 shillings 6d in cash and an umbrella valued at 5s. Mr Ward was a hairdresser in Bridge Street and he also owned a tobacconist's next door. McPherson was accused of breaking into both shops and smashing open and extracting money from their tills – which in those days were simply locked drawers.
The accused had been working as an assistant in the barber's and on the Monday morning when the burglary was discovered, McPherson had failed to turn up for work. And so suspicion immediately fell upon him, which increased when the police learned that the man had suddenly come into money. McPherson had been staying with his wife at the Lamb Inn in College Street and on the Sunday had been unable to pay for his lodgings. But on the following morning he had seen the pub's landlady and paid her what he owed. McPherson was also carrying the umbrella that had been stolen from the Bridge Street shops.
In court he attempted to explain his improved circumstances by claiming that a cousin from Liverpool had lent him a sovereign and his sister had given him the umbrella. The magistrates were not impressed with McPherson's excuses and committed him for trial at the next assizes hearings in Kirkdale. There – would you believe – the 25-year-old was sentenced to 10 years in prison! That was because McPherson had two previous felony convictions for burglary.
The St Helens Newspaper described on the 13th how Moody and Sankey, the American religious revivalists, had opened their spiritual crusade in Liverpool. Just as they were about to end the proceedings, the Reverend Robert Ward from St Helens had walked to the front of the platform and asked the meeting to pray for his town which he said was linked to Liverpool in its "notoriety for crime", adding: "In St. Helens we are expecting a great shower of blessings will come down upon Liverpool and we are in hopes that we will share in the blessing."
"Where unobserved in Cupid's bower,
You may while away a pleasant hour;
And pick and choose from stock replete,
Valentines that are choice and sweet."
A letter in the Newspaper provides some insights into what life was like on the two market days in St Helens. These were held on Saturdays and Mondays and the writer said the roads on those days were highly congested: "The result of all this is that the thoroughfare is closed to vehicles on Saturdays and Mondays – a wheelbarrow could not be got down Exchange street on Saturday evening – and the occupiers of houses and shops in the locality can receive neither goods nor customers, should either happen to arrive in a conveyance."
The correspondent also painted a picture of the roadway surrounding the market hall which was described as: "Now occupied on market days by a miscellaneous collection of ricketty wooden stalls and tables, displaying tin cans, hats, caps, translations of old boots and shoes, short lengths of gorgeously coloured ribbons and dilapidated artificial flowers, tea, toffee, and tripe establishments; stock of pills of marvellous composition and properties, bottles of infallible remedies for all the ills that flesh is heir to etc. – the whole being diversified by heaps of calico scraps, piles of oranges, onions, potatoes, and cabbages, groups of pigs, crockery by the square yard, and old clothes by the cart load."
On the 15th Patrick Murphy appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with deserting his wife and three children and leaving them chargeable to the Prescot Union. In other words a desperate Mrs Murphy had needed to go cap in hand to the Prescot Guardians to claim the so-called parish relief. They had awarded her 5 shillings a week, which was not very much when she had three children to look after but the dole-out stopped them from starving.
Patrick Murphy had walked out on his wife and children at the end of July 1874 and was eventually tracked down to Ayrshire where he was arrested and brought back to St Helens. The cost of the parish maintaining the man's family for 22 weeks was stated in court as being £5 10 shillings but getting him arrested and brought back home took the amount to over £9. The Relieving Officer James Fowler said it was a "most heartless case" and Murphy was sent to prison for three months.
William Dixon was summoned to the court to show cause why he should not contribute 2 shillings per week towards the maintenance of his elderly father. The latter was aged about 70 and like Mrs Murphy was receiving payments from the Prescot Union. But William Dixon appears to have been an epileptic as he was a coal miner but had to give up his job through having fits.
In fact William had a fit before the hearing of his case and he had to be carried from the courtroom into one of the anterooms until he had recovered. The defendant's wife told the Bench that her husband could not get employment because of his fits. They had five children but he had only been able to work for about three months during the past year. However, despite the man's straitened circumstances, the magistrates issued an order for Mr Dixon to pay two shillings a week towards the maintenance of his dad.
A rarity also occurred in the Petty Sessions. A landlord accused of selling booze during prohibited hours on a Sunday told the truth! Licensees charged with committing such an offence routinely offered all sorts of dubious excuses to the magistrates who rarely accepted them. But they did buy James Middlehurst's reason for selling whisky to a woman called Robinson at 4:55pm on a Sunday afternoon.
He was the landlord of the Gerard Arms at Moss Bank and PC 398 had seen him let Mrs Robinson into his house. The constable said he went closer and heard money "gingling" in the bar and when the woman came out he found she was carrying whisky. The defence case was that the landlord had acted from a sense of charity as Mrs Robinson had a son that was in such delicate health that a chemist had advised his parents to give him a little spirits occasionally.
On that day when the son came home from church he had looked very ill and his mother had gone to the Gerard Arms to get something for him. Alcohol was then given much more credit for its medicinal benefits than today and the magistrates dismissed the charges upon payment of costs.
Also in court was James Crawley who had clearly consumed too much medicine. He was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Bridge Street and assaulting PC Hargreaves in the execution of his duty. The officer explained that when he had apprehended Crawley he had violently resisted and kicked him several times on his legs. But the magistrates only fined him five shillings and costs for the drunkenness and decided to overlook the assault on the officer.
What PC Hargreaves and his black and blue legs made of that, I can't say – although I can guess! But at the same hearing an elderly man called Daniel Carson was sent to prison for 21 days for stealing a piece of ham valued at 5s 4d from a shop in Naylor Street. That's the Victorian justice system in a nutshell. Nothing for giving a policeman a good kicking but three weeks in prison for nicking a bit of food.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Valentine mania in St Helens, the high level of infant mortality, the claim of cruelty to an exhausted bull and the brutal husband from Gerards Bridge who threatened to "Corrigan" his wife.
This week's many stories include the Valentine cards available to buy in Hardshaw Street, the congested nature of market days in St Helens, the amazing prison sentence given to a Bridge Street burglar, the epileptic who had a fit in the courtroom and the man that deserted his family for a life in Scotland is brought to book.
We begin on the 11th when on a train for St Helens that was about to leave Lime Street Station in Liverpool, a young German man named Fitz Louis Adam shot himself.
A note was found on his body that said he had spent all his money having given his last penny to a beggar and adding that he had nothing to eat, nothing to drink and nowhere to sleep.
Also on the 11th a chap called Hayward of the Liverpool Peace Society delivered a lecture on the principles of peace in the Volunteer Hall in St Helens.
Although James Radley, the Mayor of St Helens, was present to lend credibility to the event, the attendance was described as very limited.
Peter McPherson appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 12th charged with "burglariously entering the shop of Mr. Thomas Ward" and stealing 20 shillings 6d in cash and an umbrella valued at 5s.
Mr Ward was a hairdresser in Bridge Street and he also owned a tobacconist's next door.
McPherson was accused of breaking into both shops and smashing open and extracting money from their tills – which in those days were simply locked drawers.
The accused had been working as an assistant in the barber's and on the Monday morning when the burglary was discovered, McPherson had failed to turn up for work.
And so suspicion immediately fell upon him, which increased when the police learned that the man had suddenly come into money.
McPherson had been staying with his wife at the Lamb Inn in College Street and on the Sunday had been unable to pay for his lodgings.
But on the following morning he had seen the pub's landlady and paid her what he owed. McPherson was also carrying the umbrella that had been stolen from the Bridge Street shops.
In court he attempted to explain his improved circumstances by claiming that a cousin from Liverpool had lent him a sovereign and his sister had given him the umbrella.
The magistrates were not impressed with McPherson's excuses and committed him for trial at the next assizes hearings in Kirkdale.
There – would you believe – the 25-year-old was sentenced to 10 years in prison! That was because McPherson had two previous felony convictions for burglary.
The St Helens Newspaper described on the 13th how Moody and Sankey, the American religious revivalists, had opened their spiritual crusade in Liverpool.
Just as they were about to end the proceedings, the Reverend Robert Ward from St Helens had walked to the front of the platform and asked the meeting to pray for his town which he said was linked to Liverpool in its "notoriety for crime", adding:
"In St. Helens we are expecting a great shower of blessings will come down upon Liverpool and we are in hopes that we will share in the blessing."
The Newspaper was again promoting its range of Valentine cards that were available to purchase from its shop in Hardshaw Street.
Their advert said that a room especially devoted to the display of "every description of Valentines, amusing and sentimental", had been laid out and then wrote:
"Where unobserved in Cupid's bower,
You may while away a pleasant hour;
And pick and choose from stock replete,
Valentines that are choice and sweet."
A letter in the Newspaper provides some insights into what life was like on the two market days in St Helens.
These were held on Saturdays and Mondays and the writer said the roads on those days were highly congested:
"The result of all this is that the thoroughfare is closed to vehicles on Saturdays and Mondays – a wheelbarrow could not be got down Exchange street on Saturday evening – and the occupiers of houses and shops in the locality can receive neither goods nor customers, should either happen to arrive in a conveyance."
The correspondent also painted a picture of the roadway surrounding the market hall which was described as:
"Now occupied on market days by a miscellaneous collection of ricketty wooden stalls and tables, displaying tin cans, hats, caps, translations of old boots and shoes, short lengths of gorgeously coloured ribbons and dilapidated artificial flowers, tea, toffee, and tripe establishments; stock of pills of marvellous composition and properties, bottles of infallible remedies for all the ills that flesh is heir to etc. – the whole being diversified by heaps of calico scraps, piles of oranges, onions, potatoes, and cabbages, groups of pigs, crockery by the square yard, and old clothes by the cart load."
On the 15th Patrick Murphy appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with deserting his wife and three children and leaving them chargeable to the Prescot Union.
In other words a desperate Mrs Murphy had needed to go cap in hand to the Prescot Guardians to claim the so-called parish relief.
They had awarded her 5 shillings a week, which was not very much when she had three children to look after but the dole-out stopped them from starving.
Patrick Murphy had walked out on his wife and children at the end of July 1874 and was eventually tracked down to Ayrshire where he was arrested and brought back to St Helens.
The cost of the parish maintaining the man's family for 22 weeks was stated in court as being £5 10 shillings but getting him arrested and brought back home took the amount to over £9.
The Relieving Officer James Fowler said it was a "most heartless case" and Murphy was sent to prison for three months.
William Dixon was summoned to the court to show cause why he should not contribute 2 shillings per week towards the maintenance of his elderly father.
The latter was aged about 70 and like Mrs Murphy was receiving payments from the Prescot Union.
But William Dixon appears to have been an epileptic as he was a coal miner but had to give up his job through having fits.
In fact William had a fit before the hearing of his case and he had to be carried from the courtroom into one of the anterooms until he had recovered.
The defendant's wife told the Bench that her husband could not get employment because of his fits.
They had five children but he had only been able to work for about three months during the past year.
However, despite the man's straitened circumstances, the magistrates issued an order for Mr Dixon to pay two shillings a week towards the maintenance of his dad.
A rarity also occurred in the Petty Sessions. A landlord accused of selling booze during prohibited hours on a Sunday told the truth!
Licensees charged with committing such an offence routinely offered all sorts of dubious excuses to the magistrates who rarely accepted them.
But they did buy James Middlehurst's reason for selling whisky to a woman called Robinson at 4:55pm on a Sunday afternoon.
He was the landlord of the Gerard Arms at Moss Bank and PC 398 had seen him let Mrs Robinson into his house.
The constable said he went closer and heard money "gingling" in the bar and when the woman came out he found she was carrying whisky.
The defence case was that the landlord had acted from a sense of charity as Mrs Robinson had a son that was in such delicate health that a chemist had advised his parents to give him a little spirits occasionally.
On that day when the son came home from church he had looked very ill and his mother had gone to the Gerard Arms to get something for him.
Alcohol was then given much more credit for its medicinal benefits than today and the magistrates dismissed the charges upon payment of costs.
Also in court was James Crawley who had clearly consumed too much medicine. He was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Bridge Street and assaulting PC Hargreaves in the execution of his duty.
The officer explained that when he had apprehended Crawley he had violently resisted and kicked him several times on his legs.
But the magistrates only fined him five shillings and costs for the drunkenness and decided to overlook the assault on the officer.
What PC Hargreaves and his black and blue legs made of that, I can't say – although I can guess!
But at the same hearing an elderly man called Daniel Carson was sent to prison for 21 days for stealing a piece of ham valued at 5s 4d from a shop in Naylor Street.
That's the Victorian justice system in a nutshell. Nothing for giving a policeman a good kicking but three weeks in prison for nicking a bit of food.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Valentine mania in St Helens, the high level of infant mortality, the claim of cruelty to an exhausted bull and the brutal husband from Gerards Bridge who threatened to "Corrigan" his wife.
We begin on the 11th when on a train for St Helens that was about to leave Lime Street Station in Liverpool, a young German man named Fitz Louis Adam shot himself.
A note was found on his body that said he had spent all his money having given his last penny to a beggar and adding that he had nothing to eat, nothing to drink and nowhere to sleep.
Also on the 11th a chap called Hayward of the Liverpool Peace Society delivered a lecture on the principles of peace in the Volunteer Hall in St Helens.
Although James Radley, the Mayor of St Helens, was present to lend credibility to the event, the attendance was described as very limited.
Peter McPherson appeared in the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 12th charged with "burglariously entering the shop of Mr. Thomas Ward" and stealing 20 shillings 6d in cash and an umbrella valued at 5s.
Mr Ward was a hairdresser in Bridge Street and he also owned a tobacconist's next door.
McPherson was accused of breaking into both shops and smashing open and extracting money from their tills – which in those days were simply locked drawers.
The accused had been working as an assistant in the barber's and on the Monday morning when the burglary was discovered, McPherson had failed to turn up for work.
And so suspicion immediately fell upon him, which increased when the police learned that the man had suddenly come into money.
McPherson had been staying with his wife at the Lamb Inn in College Street and on the Sunday had been unable to pay for his lodgings.
But on the following morning he had seen the pub's landlady and paid her what he owed. McPherson was also carrying the umbrella that had been stolen from the Bridge Street shops.
In court he attempted to explain his improved circumstances by claiming that a cousin from Liverpool had lent him a sovereign and his sister had given him the umbrella.
The magistrates were not impressed with McPherson's excuses and committed him for trial at the next assizes hearings in Kirkdale.
There – would you believe – the 25-year-old was sentenced to 10 years in prison! That was because McPherson had two previous felony convictions for burglary.
The St Helens Newspaper described on the 13th how Moody and Sankey, the American religious revivalists, had opened their spiritual crusade in Liverpool.
Just as they were about to end the proceedings, the Reverend Robert Ward from St Helens had walked to the front of the platform and asked the meeting to pray for his town which he said was linked to Liverpool in its "notoriety for crime", adding:
"In St. Helens we are expecting a great shower of blessings will come down upon Liverpool and we are in hopes that we will share in the blessing."
Their advert said that a room especially devoted to the display of "every description of Valentines, amusing and sentimental", had been laid out and then wrote:
"Where unobserved in Cupid's bower,
You may while away a pleasant hour;
And pick and choose from stock replete,
Valentines that are choice and sweet."
A letter in the Newspaper provides some insights into what life was like on the two market days in St Helens.
These were held on Saturdays and Mondays and the writer said the roads on those days were highly congested:
"The result of all this is that the thoroughfare is closed to vehicles on Saturdays and Mondays – a wheelbarrow could not be got down Exchange street on Saturday evening – and the occupiers of houses and shops in the locality can receive neither goods nor customers, should either happen to arrive in a conveyance."
The correspondent also painted a picture of the roadway surrounding the market hall which was described as:
"Now occupied on market days by a miscellaneous collection of ricketty wooden stalls and tables, displaying tin cans, hats, caps, translations of old boots and shoes, short lengths of gorgeously coloured ribbons and dilapidated artificial flowers, tea, toffee, and tripe establishments; stock of pills of marvellous composition and properties, bottles of infallible remedies for all the ills that flesh is heir to etc. – the whole being diversified by heaps of calico scraps, piles of oranges, onions, potatoes, and cabbages, groups of pigs, crockery by the square yard, and old clothes by the cart load."
On the 15th Patrick Murphy appeared in St Helens Petty Sessions charged with deserting his wife and three children and leaving them chargeable to the Prescot Union.
In other words a desperate Mrs Murphy had needed to go cap in hand to the Prescot Guardians to claim the so-called parish relief.
They had awarded her 5 shillings a week, which was not very much when she had three children to look after but the dole-out stopped them from starving.
Patrick Murphy had walked out on his wife and children at the end of July 1874 and was eventually tracked down to Ayrshire where he was arrested and brought back to St Helens.
The cost of the parish maintaining the man's family for 22 weeks was stated in court as being £5 10 shillings but getting him arrested and brought back home took the amount to over £9.
The Relieving Officer James Fowler said it was a "most heartless case" and Murphy was sent to prison for three months.
William Dixon was summoned to the court to show cause why he should not contribute 2 shillings per week towards the maintenance of his elderly father.
The latter was aged about 70 and like Mrs Murphy was receiving payments from the Prescot Union.
But William Dixon appears to have been an epileptic as he was a coal miner but had to give up his job through having fits.
In fact William had a fit before the hearing of his case and he had to be carried from the courtroom into one of the anterooms until he had recovered.
The defendant's wife told the Bench that her husband could not get employment because of his fits.
They had five children but he had only been able to work for about three months during the past year.
However, despite the man's straitened circumstances, the magistrates issued an order for Mr Dixon to pay two shillings a week towards the maintenance of his dad.
A rarity also occurred in the Petty Sessions. A landlord accused of selling booze during prohibited hours on a Sunday told the truth!
Licensees charged with committing such an offence routinely offered all sorts of dubious excuses to the magistrates who rarely accepted them.
But they did buy James Middlehurst's reason for selling whisky to a woman called Robinson at 4:55pm on a Sunday afternoon.
He was the landlord of the Gerard Arms at Moss Bank and PC 398 had seen him let Mrs Robinson into his house.
The constable said he went closer and heard money "gingling" in the bar and when the woman came out he found she was carrying whisky.
The defence case was that the landlord had acted from a sense of charity as Mrs Robinson had a son that was in such delicate health that a chemist had advised his parents to give him a little spirits occasionally.
On that day when the son came home from church he had looked very ill and his mother had gone to the Gerard Arms to get something for him.
Alcohol was then given much more credit for its medicinal benefits than today and the magistrates dismissed the charges upon payment of costs.
Also in court was James Crawley who had clearly consumed too much medicine. He was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Bridge Street and assaulting PC Hargreaves in the execution of his duty.
The officer explained that when he had apprehended Crawley he had violently resisted and kicked him several times on his legs.
But the magistrates only fined him five shillings and costs for the drunkenness and decided to overlook the assault on the officer.
What PC Hargreaves and his black and blue legs made of that, I can't say – although I can guess!
But at the same hearing an elderly man called Daniel Carson was sent to prison for 21 days for stealing a piece of ham valued at 5s 4d from a shop in Naylor Street.
That's the Victorian justice system in a nutshell. Nothing for giving a policeman a good kicking but three weeks in prison for nicking a bit of food.
St Helens Newspaper courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the Valentine mania in St Helens, the high level of infant mortality, the claim of cruelty to an exhausted bull and the brutal husband from Gerards Bridge who threatened to "Corrigan" his wife.