150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (16th - 22nd AUGUST 1871)
This week's stories include the mild penalty imposed for a savage clogs assault, concern over an impending cholera outbreak, a card sharper is caught at Newton Fair and the man who beat the Rainford Colliery Company at its own game.
As people age I think every generation believes that present-day youngsters behave worse than they did in their youth. They were even saying that 150 years ago! Superintendent James Fowler was the man in charge of Prescot Police and on the 16th the Liverpool Mercury reported what the 57-year-old had told magistrates at Prescot Petty Sessions. After three boys named Peter Moran, Thomas Flannery and Edward Cairnes had been charged with a breach of the peace, Supt. Fowler said:
"I scarcely know what to do with the rising generation of the lower strata of Prescot. On Sunday evenings, particularly when parties were coming from church, some of the streets are a pandemonium." Last year Superintendent Fowler had told the Prescot Bench that there were then a "number of strange policemen located in the town". He didn't mean that he had some oddball officers – they were just new to Prescot!
Also in the Sessions labourer Patrick Corley was sent to prison for six months for a violent assault on his sister. That was an unusually lengthy sentence for violence and suggests the attack was a particularly bad one.
For some weeks the newspapers had been warning its readers that cholera was coming to England. It was a particularly fearsome disease that is claimed to have caused more deaths, more quickly, than any other 19th century epidemic. During the summer of 1871 cholera had broken out in places like Germany and Russia. This had greatly worried the authorities, as the horrendous 1830s epidemic was still in many people's living memory. And although tourism abroad was only for the select few, sailors could bring the dreaded disease into this country through its many busy ports.
On the 16th it was reported that cholera had arrived in London and on the following day the monthly meeting of St Helens Sanitary Committee was held. After the Corporation's sanitary inspector had reported several nuisances in the town, Alderman Hardwick called for the "most rigorous sanitary precautions in anticipation of the approach of cholera." Poor sanitation helped to spread cholera and after a discussion, the committee instructed the inspector to make a thorough inspection of houses in St Helens.
He was told to report upon every sanitary defect that he could find and to hand out whitewash and brushes to all who were willing to use them. In answer to a question from the committee, the sanitary inspector claimed that within the most populous parts of the borough, the drainage was as good as could be found in any town in England. And as most towns in England had rubbish sanitation – that was no great claim to make!
A sharper was the old name for someone engaging in sharp practice, usually at cards. On the 19th the Warrington Examiner described how one person had been nabbed in Newton, although this individual was also a thief:
"A SHARPER CAUGHT. – At Messrs. Nicholson and White's office on Saturday, before G. Artingstall Esq., John Jones was charged with stealing a ten pound note the property of Richard Entwistle, cowkeeper, Moores Gate, Farnworth. The prosecutor was at Newton Fair yesterday week, and about noon he went into a public-house with a person he met in the fair. The prisoner shortly afterwards entered the inn, and pulled out three playing cards, and asked the prosecutor to play, but he refused.
"Suddenly the man who entered the house with the prosecutor pulled the latter's hand, in which was a ten pound note, out of his pocket, and gave it to the prisoner, who made off. The prisoner was subsequently apprehended in a field, where he had gone for concealment, but his mate escaped. The note was not found, and the prisoner was committed for trial." At the man's trial in Liverpool on October 31st, John Jones was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 21st, Ann and Eliza Burrows were remanded on charges of unlawfully wounding Ann Green. The pair were accused of throwing down the woman and then beating her on the head with their clogs until she lost consciousness. As a result of what was called a "savage assault", Mrs Green was now reported as lying in a dangerous state.
Two days later the two women returned to court but did not receive much of a punishment. The Liverpool Daily Post explained that was because the parties were a "bad and quarrelsome lot altogether" – so Mrs Green had seemingly, in the eyes of the authorities, got what she deserved. And so in punishment the Burrows women were merely ordered to find sureties to keep the peace for two months.
There was an interesting case in St Helens County Court (on the corner of East Street and Market Street) on the 22nd when a Widnes beerseller called Deakin was sued for £40. The plaintiff was a man called Leicester who had been walking home from the railway station carrying a child in his arms when he fell down the defendant's cellar.
Leicester injured his ankle and his side and required medical treatment for three weeks. He claimed the fall had caused him "certain physical disabilities" that might affect him for some time. The defendant did not deny leaving his cellar open and causing the accident – but reckoned Leicester was putting his injuries on a bit. The case was tried by a jury who seemed to agree with the beerseller, as they brought in a verdict of just £12 and costs.
Once a man married he acquired all of his wife's assets – but not, apparently, her previously incurred debts, only the ones acquired during their marriage. That is the conclusion to be reached from another case in St Helens County Court when a draper called McCready brought an action against a woman named Pigott for a debt contracted while she'd been a spinster.
Some time ago the draper had obtained a court order against the woman demanding payment of goods supplied to her. But then she married a man named Pigott. But then she married a man named Pigott. Under the Married Women's Property Act the judge decided that the woman had no exclusive assets of her own and so rejected the draper's application. So if you were a single woman with lots of debts – get married and watch all your liabilities vanish! That appeared to be the message and good luck to them!
Another interesting case concerned Rainford Colliery of Siding Lane (pictured above). They, like other mines, were happy to prosecute their men who didn't show up for work. The management always insisted that two weeks notice had to be given – however the contract requirement worked both ways and applied equally to the bosses as well as the miners.
In the 1870s men and women were regularly sacked on the spot in all sorts of jobs – often for minor infringements – and their back pay denied. Usually they had little redress, as they had no legal contract with their employer – however miners with fortnightly contracts were an exception. A mineworker called Connor – who appeared to live in Parsons Brow, at the rear of present day Beech Gardens in Rainford – had been told to attend the pit on one Sunday to do some "special work". That was probably connected with safety work, which was usually undertaken on the Sabbath when the mine was not being worked.
Connor probably did not feel obliged to work on his day off and so did not attend. However when he went to his job on the following day, he was sacked on the spot and denied his back pay. So the labourer sued the Rainford Colliery Company for £1 17s 6d. That entailed his unpaid wages and pay due to him in lieu of two weeks notice. The colliery company had no legal defence and I'm pleased to say that the judge awarded Connor the full amount claimed and court costs.
And finally, beware of messages in a bottle! Before ships were fitted with wireless sets, sailors and passengers on sinking ships would often place messages in bottles requesting help. One would have thought that the chance of someone finding the bottle in time to raise the alarm and rescue any survivors was incredibly small – but desperate people will, of course, grab the shortest of straws.
And there were countless shipwrecks during the 1870s and many sailors' and passengers' bodies were never found. So the messages could also serve as an explanation for their disappearance and a goodbye to loved ones. Just how people found the wherewithal to locate a bottle, paper and a writing implement while in a sinking boat, I do not know – although not all such sinkings happened quickly.
Not all messages in bottles were genuine, too. Just like some folk today get a thrill out of making bogus fire alarm calls, fake emergency messages were also apparently placed in bottles. This short piece was published in the Warrington Examiner this week:
"SUSPECTED HOAX AT WIDNES. – On Tuesday afternoon a bottle was found upon the shore near Widnes, containing a piece of blue paper, on the back of which was written in pencil: “All are lost. We are sinking. The ship Gad Fly. Captain J. Shaw Green.” In the official list of British shipping there is a vessel called the Gad Fly, belonging to Mr. George Tanner, of Crediton, Devon, but the supposed name of the captain cannot be traced. The affair is considered by the underwriters to be the trick of an idle idiot, reckless of the pain that may arise out of his wretched stupidity."
Next week's stories will include a tragedy in the Sutton Glassworks reservoir, the man accused of exposing himself to a woman, the fighting men of Haydock and Newton and the agitation in the coal mines.
As people age I think every generation believes that present-day youngsters behave worse than they did in their youth. They were even saying that 150 years ago! Superintendent James Fowler was the man in charge of Prescot Police and on the 16th the Liverpool Mercury reported what the 57-year-old had told magistrates at Prescot Petty Sessions. After three boys named Peter Moran, Thomas Flannery and Edward Cairnes had been charged with a breach of the peace, Supt. Fowler said:
"I scarcely know what to do with the rising generation of the lower strata of Prescot. On Sunday evenings, particularly when parties were coming from church, some of the streets are a pandemonium." Last year Superintendent Fowler had told the Prescot Bench that there were then a "number of strange policemen located in the town". He didn't mean that he had some oddball officers – they were just new to Prescot!
Also in the Sessions labourer Patrick Corley was sent to prison for six months for a violent assault on his sister. That was an unusually lengthy sentence for violence and suggests the attack was a particularly bad one.
For some weeks the newspapers had been warning its readers that cholera was coming to England. It was a particularly fearsome disease that is claimed to have caused more deaths, more quickly, than any other 19th century epidemic. During the summer of 1871 cholera had broken out in places like Germany and Russia. This had greatly worried the authorities, as the horrendous 1830s epidemic was still in many people's living memory. And although tourism abroad was only for the select few, sailors could bring the dreaded disease into this country through its many busy ports.
On the 16th it was reported that cholera had arrived in London and on the following day the monthly meeting of St Helens Sanitary Committee was held. After the Corporation's sanitary inspector had reported several nuisances in the town, Alderman Hardwick called for the "most rigorous sanitary precautions in anticipation of the approach of cholera." Poor sanitation helped to spread cholera and after a discussion, the committee instructed the inspector to make a thorough inspection of houses in St Helens.
He was told to report upon every sanitary defect that he could find and to hand out whitewash and brushes to all who were willing to use them. In answer to a question from the committee, the sanitary inspector claimed that within the most populous parts of the borough, the drainage was as good as could be found in any town in England. And as most towns in England had rubbish sanitation – that was no great claim to make!
A sharper was the old name for someone engaging in sharp practice, usually at cards. On the 19th the Warrington Examiner described how one person had been nabbed in Newton, although this individual was also a thief:
"A SHARPER CAUGHT. – At Messrs. Nicholson and White's office on Saturday, before G. Artingstall Esq., John Jones was charged with stealing a ten pound note the property of Richard Entwistle, cowkeeper, Moores Gate, Farnworth. The prosecutor was at Newton Fair yesterday week, and about noon he went into a public-house with a person he met in the fair. The prisoner shortly afterwards entered the inn, and pulled out three playing cards, and asked the prosecutor to play, but he refused.
"Suddenly the man who entered the house with the prosecutor pulled the latter's hand, in which was a ten pound note, out of his pocket, and gave it to the prisoner, who made off. The prisoner was subsequently apprehended in a field, where he had gone for concealment, but his mate escaped. The note was not found, and the prisoner was committed for trial." At the man's trial in Liverpool on October 31st, John Jones was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 21st, Ann and Eliza Burrows were remanded on charges of unlawfully wounding Ann Green. The pair were accused of throwing down the woman and then beating her on the head with their clogs until she lost consciousness. As a result of what was called a "savage assault", Mrs Green was now reported as lying in a dangerous state.
Two days later the two women returned to court but did not receive much of a punishment. The Liverpool Daily Post explained that was because the parties were a "bad and quarrelsome lot altogether" – so Mrs Green had seemingly, in the eyes of the authorities, got what she deserved. And so in punishment the Burrows women were merely ordered to find sureties to keep the peace for two months.
There was an interesting case in St Helens County Court (on the corner of East Street and Market Street) on the 22nd when a Widnes beerseller called Deakin was sued for £40. The plaintiff was a man called Leicester who had been walking home from the railway station carrying a child in his arms when he fell down the defendant's cellar.
Leicester injured his ankle and his side and required medical treatment for three weeks. He claimed the fall had caused him "certain physical disabilities" that might affect him for some time. The defendant did not deny leaving his cellar open and causing the accident – but reckoned Leicester was putting his injuries on a bit. The case was tried by a jury who seemed to agree with the beerseller, as they brought in a verdict of just £12 and costs.
Once a man married he acquired all of his wife's assets – but not, apparently, her previously incurred debts, only the ones acquired during their marriage. That is the conclusion to be reached from another case in St Helens County Court when a draper called McCready brought an action against a woman named Pigott for a debt contracted while she'd been a spinster.
Some time ago the draper had obtained a court order against the woman demanding payment of goods supplied to her. But then she married a man named Pigott. But then she married a man named Pigott. Under the Married Women's Property Act the judge decided that the woman had no exclusive assets of her own and so rejected the draper's application. So if you were a single woman with lots of debts – get married and watch all your liabilities vanish! That appeared to be the message and good luck to them!
In the 1870s men and women were regularly sacked on the spot in all sorts of jobs – often for minor infringements – and their back pay denied. Usually they had little redress, as they had no legal contract with their employer – however miners with fortnightly contracts were an exception. A mineworker called Connor – who appeared to live in Parsons Brow, at the rear of present day Beech Gardens in Rainford – had been told to attend the pit on one Sunday to do some "special work". That was probably connected with safety work, which was usually undertaken on the Sabbath when the mine was not being worked.
Connor probably did not feel obliged to work on his day off and so did not attend. However when he went to his job on the following day, he was sacked on the spot and denied his back pay. So the labourer sued the Rainford Colliery Company for £1 17s 6d. That entailed his unpaid wages and pay due to him in lieu of two weeks notice. The colliery company had no legal defence and I'm pleased to say that the judge awarded Connor the full amount claimed and court costs.
And finally, beware of messages in a bottle! Before ships were fitted with wireless sets, sailors and passengers on sinking ships would often place messages in bottles requesting help. One would have thought that the chance of someone finding the bottle in time to raise the alarm and rescue any survivors was incredibly small – but desperate people will, of course, grab the shortest of straws.
And there were countless shipwrecks during the 1870s and many sailors' and passengers' bodies were never found. So the messages could also serve as an explanation for their disappearance and a goodbye to loved ones. Just how people found the wherewithal to locate a bottle, paper and a writing implement while in a sinking boat, I do not know – although not all such sinkings happened quickly.
Not all messages in bottles were genuine, too. Just like some folk today get a thrill out of making bogus fire alarm calls, fake emergency messages were also apparently placed in bottles. This short piece was published in the Warrington Examiner this week:
"SUSPECTED HOAX AT WIDNES. – On Tuesday afternoon a bottle was found upon the shore near Widnes, containing a piece of blue paper, on the back of which was written in pencil: “All are lost. We are sinking. The ship Gad Fly. Captain J. Shaw Green.” In the official list of British shipping there is a vessel called the Gad Fly, belonging to Mr. George Tanner, of Crediton, Devon, but the supposed name of the captain cannot be traced. The affair is considered by the underwriters to be the trick of an idle idiot, reckless of the pain that may arise out of his wretched stupidity."
Next week's stories will include a tragedy in the Sutton Glassworks reservoir, the man accused of exposing himself to a woman, the fighting men of Haydock and Newton and the agitation in the coal mines.
This week's stories include the mild penalty imposed for a savage clogs assault, concern over an impending cholera outbreak, a card sharper is caught at Newton Fair and the man who beat the Rainford Colliery Company at its own game.
As people age I think every generation believes that present-day youngsters behave worse than they did in their youth. They were even saying that 150 years ago!
Superintendent James Fowler was the man in charge of Prescot Police and on the 16th the Liverpool Mercury reported what the 57-year-old had told magistrates at Prescot Petty Sessions.
After three boys named Peter Moran, Thomas Flannery and Edward Cairnes had been charged with a breach of the peace, Supt. Fowler said:
"I scarcely know what to do with the rising generation of the lower strata of Prescot. On Sunday evenings, particularly when parties were coming from church, some of the streets are a pandemonium."
Last year Superintendent Fowler had told the Prescot Bench that there were then a "number of strange policemen located in the town".
He didn't mean that he had some oddball officers – they were just new to Prescot!
Also in the Sessions labourer Patrick Corley was sent to prison for six months for a violent assault on his sister.
That was an unusually lengthy sentence for violence and suggests the attack was a particularly bad one.
For some weeks the newspapers had been warning its readers that cholera was coming to England.
It was a particularly fearsome disease that is claimed to have caused more deaths, more quickly, than any other 19th century epidemic.
During the summer of 1871 cholera had broken out in places like Germany and Russia. This had greatly worried the authorities, as the horrendous 1830s epidemic was still in many people's living memory.
And although tourism abroad was only for the select few, sailors could bring the dreaded disease into this country through its many busy ports.
On the 16th it was reported that cholera had arrived in London and on the following day the monthly meeting of St Helens Sanitary Committee was held.
After the Corporation's sanitary inspector had reported several nuisances in the town, Alderman Hardwick called for the "most rigorous sanitary precautions in anticipation of the approach of cholera."
Poor sanitation helped to spread cholera and after a discussion, the committee instructed the inspector to make a thorough inspection of houses in St Helens.
He was told to report upon every sanitary defect that he could find and to hand out whitewash and brushes to all who were willing to use them.
In answer to a question from the committee, the sanitary inspector claimed that within the most populous parts of the borough, the drainage was as good as could be found in any town in England.
And as most towns in England had rubbish sanitation – that was no great claim to make!
A sharper was the old name for someone engaging in sharp practice, usually at cards.
On the 19th the Warrington Examiner described how one person had been nabbed in Newton, although this individual was also a thief:
"A SHARPER CAUGHT. – At Messrs. Nicholson and White's office on Saturday, before G. Artingstall Esq., John Jones was charged with stealing a ten pound note the property of Richard Entwistle, cowkeeper, Moores Gate, Farnworth.
"The prosecutor was at Newton Fair yesterday week, and about noon he went into a public-house with a person he met in the fair.
"The prisoner shortly afterwards entered the inn, and pulled out three playing cards, and asked the prosecutor to play, but he refused.
"Suddenly the man who entered the house with the prosecutor pulled the latter's hand, in which was a ten pound note, out of his pocket, and gave it to the prisoner, who made off.
"The prisoner was subsequently apprehended in a field, where he had gone for concealment, but his mate escaped. The note was not found, and the prisoner was committed for trial."
At the man's trial in Liverpool on October 31st, John Jones was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 21st, Ann and Eliza Burrows were remanded on charges of unlawfully wounding Ann Green.
The pair were accused of throwing down the woman and then beating her on the head with their clogs until she lost consciousness.
As a result of what was called a "savage assault", Mrs Green was now reported as lying in a dangerous state.
Two days later the two women returned to court but did not receive much of a punishment.
The Liverpool Daily Post explained that was because the parties were a "bad and quarrelsome lot altogether" – so Mrs Green had seemingly, in the eyes of the authorities, got what she deserved.
And so in punishment the Burrows women were merely ordered to find sureties to keep the peace for two months.
There was an interesting case in St Helens County Court (on the corner of East Street and Market Street) on the 22nd when a Widnes beerseller called Deakin was sued for £40.
The plaintiff was a man called Leicester who had been walking home from the railway station carrying a child in his arms when he fell down the defendant's cellar.
Leicester injured his ankle and his side and required medical treatment for three weeks.
He claimed the fall had caused him "certain physical disabilities" that might affect him for some time.
The defendant did not deny leaving his cellar open and causing the accident – but reckoned Leicester was putting his injuries on a bit.
The case was tried by a jury who seemed to agree with the beerseller, as they brought in a verdict of just £12 and costs.
Once a man married he acquired all of his wife's assets – but not, apparently, her previously incurred debts, only the ones acquired during their marriage.
That is the conclusion to be reached from another case in St Helens County Court when a draper called McCready brought an action against a woman named Pigott for a debt contracted while she'd been a spinster.
Some time ago the draper had obtained a court order against the woman demanding payment of goods supplied to her. But then she married a man named Pigott.
Under the Married Women's Property Act the judge decided that the woman had no exclusive assets of her own and so rejected the draper's application.
So if you were a single woman with lots of debts – get married and watch all your liabilities vanish! That appeared to be the message and good luck to them!
Another interesting case concerned Rainford Colliery of Siding Lane (pictured above). They, like other mines, were happy to prosecute their men who didn't show up for work.
The management always insisted that two weeks notice had to be given – however the contract requirement worked both ways and applied equally to the bosses as well as the miners.
In the 1870s men and women were regularly sacked on the spot in all sorts of jobs – often for minor infringements – and their back pay denied.
Usually they had little redress, as they had no legal contract with their employer – however miners with fortnightly contracts were an exception.
A mineworker called Connor – who appeared to live in Parsons Brow, at the rear of present day Beech Gardens in Rainford – had been told to attend the pit on one Sunday to do some "special work".
That was probably connected with safety work, which was usually undertaken on the Sabbath when the mine was not being worked.
Connor probably did not feel obliged to work on his day off and so did not attend.
However when he went to his job on the following day, he was sacked on the spot and denied his back pay.
So the labourer sued the Rainford Colliery Company for £1 17s 6d. That entailed his unpaid wages and pay due to him in lieu of two weeks notice.
The colliery company had no legal defence and I'm pleased to say that the judge awarded Connor the full amount claimed and court costs.
And finally, beware of messages in a bottle! Before ships were fitted with wireless sets, sailors and passengers on sinking ships would often place messages in bottles requesting help.
One would have thought that the chance of someone finding the bottle in time to raise the alarm and rescue any survivors was incredibly small – but desperate people will, of course, grab the shortest of straws.
And there were countless shipwrecks during the 1870s and many sailors' and passengers' bodies were never found.
So the messages could also serve as an explanation for their disappearance and a goodbye to loved ones.
Just how people found the wherewithal to locate a bottle, paper and a writing implement while in a sinking boat, I do not know – although not all such sinkings happened quickly.
Not all messages in bottles were genuine, too. Just like some folk today get a thrill out of making bogus fire alarm calls, fake emergency messages were also apparently placed in bottles.
This short piece was published in the Warrington Examiner this week:
"SUSPECTED HOAX AT WIDNES. – On Tuesday afternoon a bottle was found upon the shore near Widnes, containing a piece of blue paper, on the back of which was written in pencil:
"“All are lost. We are sinking. The ship Gad Fly. Captain J. Shaw Green.”
"In the official list of British shipping there is a vessel called the Gad Fly, belonging to Mr. George Tanner, of Crediton, Devon, but the supposed name of the captain cannot be traced.
"The affair is considered by the underwriters to be the trick of an idle idiot, reckless of the pain that may arise out of his wretched stupidity."
Next week's stories will include a tragedy in the Sutton Glassworks reservoir, the man accused of exposing himself to a woman, the fighting men of Haydock and Newton and the agitation in the coal mines.
As people age I think every generation believes that present-day youngsters behave worse than they did in their youth. They were even saying that 150 years ago!
Superintendent James Fowler was the man in charge of Prescot Police and on the 16th the Liverpool Mercury reported what the 57-year-old had told magistrates at Prescot Petty Sessions.
After three boys named Peter Moran, Thomas Flannery and Edward Cairnes had been charged with a breach of the peace, Supt. Fowler said:
"I scarcely know what to do with the rising generation of the lower strata of Prescot. On Sunday evenings, particularly when parties were coming from church, some of the streets are a pandemonium."
Last year Superintendent Fowler had told the Prescot Bench that there were then a "number of strange policemen located in the town".
He didn't mean that he had some oddball officers – they were just new to Prescot!
Also in the Sessions labourer Patrick Corley was sent to prison for six months for a violent assault on his sister.
That was an unusually lengthy sentence for violence and suggests the attack was a particularly bad one.
For some weeks the newspapers had been warning its readers that cholera was coming to England.
It was a particularly fearsome disease that is claimed to have caused more deaths, more quickly, than any other 19th century epidemic.
During the summer of 1871 cholera had broken out in places like Germany and Russia. This had greatly worried the authorities, as the horrendous 1830s epidemic was still in many people's living memory.
And although tourism abroad was only for the select few, sailors could bring the dreaded disease into this country through its many busy ports.
On the 16th it was reported that cholera had arrived in London and on the following day the monthly meeting of St Helens Sanitary Committee was held.
After the Corporation's sanitary inspector had reported several nuisances in the town, Alderman Hardwick called for the "most rigorous sanitary precautions in anticipation of the approach of cholera."
Poor sanitation helped to spread cholera and after a discussion, the committee instructed the inspector to make a thorough inspection of houses in St Helens.
He was told to report upon every sanitary defect that he could find and to hand out whitewash and brushes to all who were willing to use them.
In answer to a question from the committee, the sanitary inspector claimed that within the most populous parts of the borough, the drainage was as good as could be found in any town in England.
And as most towns in England had rubbish sanitation – that was no great claim to make!
A sharper was the old name for someone engaging in sharp practice, usually at cards.
On the 19th the Warrington Examiner described how one person had been nabbed in Newton, although this individual was also a thief:
"A SHARPER CAUGHT. – At Messrs. Nicholson and White's office on Saturday, before G. Artingstall Esq., John Jones was charged with stealing a ten pound note the property of Richard Entwistle, cowkeeper, Moores Gate, Farnworth.
"The prosecutor was at Newton Fair yesterday week, and about noon he went into a public-house with a person he met in the fair.
"The prisoner shortly afterwards entered the inn, and pulled out three playing cards, and asked the prosecutor to play, but he refused.
"Suddenly the man who entered the house with the prosecutor pulled the latter's hand, in which was a ten pound note, out of his pocket, and gave it to the prisoner, who made off.
"The prisoner was subsequently apprehended in a field, where he had gone for concealment, but his mate escaped. The note was not found, and the prisoner was committed for trial."
At the man's trial in Liverpool on October 31st, John Jones was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In the St Helens Petty Sessions on the 21st, Ann and Eliza Burrows were remanded on charges of unlawfully wounding Ann Green.
The pair were accused of throwing down the woman and then beating her on the head with their clogs until she lost consciousness.
As a result of what was called a "savage assault", Mrs Green was now reported as lying in a dangerous state.
Two days later the two women returned to court but did not receive much of a punishment.
The Liverpool Daily Post explained that was because the parties were a "bad and quarrelsome lot altogether" – so Mrs Green had seemingly, in the eyes of the authorities, got what she deserved.
And so in punishment the Burrows women were merely ordered to find sureties to keep the peace for two months.
There was an interesting case in St Helens County Court (on the corner of East Street and Market Street) on the 22nd when a Widnes beerseller called Deakin was sued for £40.
The plaintiff was a man called Leicester who had been walking home from the railway station carrying a child in his arms when he fell down the defendant's cellar.
Leicester injured his ankle and his side and required medical treatment for three weeks.
He claimed the fall had caused him "certain physical disabilities" that might affect him for some time.
The defendant did not deny leaving his cellar open and causing the accident – but reckoned Leicester was putting his injuries on a bit.
The case was tried by a jury who seemed to agree with the beerseller, as they brought in a verdict of just £12 and costs.
Once a man married he acquired all of his wife's assets – but not, apparently, her previously incurred debts, only the ones acquired during their marriage.
That is the conclusion to be reached from another case in St Helens County Court when a draper called McCready brought an action against a woman named Pigott for a debt contracted while she'd been a spinster.
Some time ago the draper had obtained a court order against the woman demanding payment of goods supplied to her. But then she married a man named Pigott.
Under the Married Women's Property Act the judge decided that the woman had no exclusive assets of her own and so rejected the draper's application.
So if you were a single woman with lots of debts – get married and watch all your liabilities vanish! That appeared to be the message and good luck to them!
The management always insisted that two weeks notice had to be given – however the contract requirement worked both ways and applied equally to the bosses as well as the miners.
In the 1870s men and women were regularly sacked on the spot in all sorts of jobs – often for minor infringements – and their back pay denied.
Usually they had little redress, as they had no legal contract with their employer – however miners with fortnightly contracts were an exception.
A mineworker called Connor – who appeared to live in Parsons Brow, at the rear of present day Beech Gardens in Rainford – had been told to attend the pit on one Sunday to do some "special work".
That was probably connected with safety work, which was usually undertaken on the Sabbath when the mine was not being worked.
Connor probably did not feel obliged to work on his day off and so did not attend.
However when he went to his job on the following day, he was sacked on the spot and denied his back pay.
So the labourer sued the Rainford Colliery Company for £1 17s 6d. That entailed his unpaid wages and pay due to him in lieu of two weeks notice.
The colliery company had no legal defence and I'm pleased to say that the judge awarded Connor the full amount claimed and court costs.
And finally, beware of messages in a bottle! Before ships were fitted with wireless sets, sailors and passengers on sinking ships would often place messages in bottles requesting help.
One would have thought that the chance of someone finding the bottle in time to raise the alarm and rescue any survivors was incredibly small – but desperate people will, of course, grab the shortest of straws.
And there were countless shipwrecks during the 1870s and many sailors' and passengers' bodies were never found.
So the messages could also serve as an explanation for their disappearance and a goodbye to loved ones.
Just how people found the wherewithal to locate a bottle, paper and a writing implement while in a sinking boat, I do not know – although not all such sinkings happened quickly.
Not all messages in bottles were genuine, too. Just like some folk today get a thrill out of making bogus fire alarm calls, fake emergency messages were also apparently placed in bottles.
This short piece was published in the Warrington Examiner this week:
"SUSPECTED HOAX AT WIDNES. – On Tuesday afternoon a bottle was found upon the shore near Widnes, containing a piece of blue paper, on the back of which was written in pencil:
"“All are lost. We are sinking. The ship Gad Fly. Captain J. Shaw Green.”
"In the official list of British shipping there is a vessel called the Gad Fly, belonging to Mr. George Tanner, of Crediton, Devon, but the supposed name of the captain cannot be traced.
"The affair is considered by the underwriters to be the trick of an idle idiot, reckless of the pain that may arise out of his wretched stupidity."
Next week's stories will include a tragedy in the Sutton Glassworks reservoir, the man accused of exposing himself to a woman, the fighting men of Haydock and Newton and the agitation in the coal mines.