150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (24th - 30th MAY 1871)
This week's stories include the Thatto Heath pigeon flying match, the police are accused of "monstrous conduct disgraceful to the town of St Helens", the dispute between the Newton toll collector and the vegetable hawker, the policeman accused of committing assault at an Earlestown theatre and The Times gives a graphic description of the burning of Paris.
The need for a simple system of knowing who was down a coal mine was demonstrated by an incident on the 27th at Bickershaw Colliery. Thomas Rigby and James Clarke had been due to come up from their shift around four o’clock in the afternoon but nobody was bothered when they didn't show. There were two ways of ascending the mine and so it was assumed that the pair had surfaced via the alternative shaft.
The men's families were, however, concerned when they did not return home and on the following morning a search was initiated down the pit. Their bodies ware found near their working place in what was described as a "shockingly mutilated condition" after a stone weighing about ten cwt had dropped on them. It wasn't until a few years later that a system of tallies or checks was introduced (and made mandatory in 1913) so that colliery management could see at a glance who was underground.
I've often provided examples of the rudeness of brilliant solicitor Thomas Swift, but haven't provided many instances of how well he fought for his clients in court. On the 27th the St Helens Newspaper described a case in which Swift's combative style came to the fore. It concerned a man called Thomas Brown who appeared to live in Hell Bess Lane (later Sherdley Road) who was accused of stealing straw from Peasley Cross Colliery, owned by Bournes and Robinson.
It transpired that a man called Naylor had given Brown the straw – but instead of checking his claim, the police, without a warrant, searched Brown's house and found a spade and some sacks that they thought could also have been stolen. Brown denied those thefts but after the police promised him a better outcome in court if he pleaded guilty, he confessed. This is how the Newspaper reported Thomas Swift's fiery defence of his client in the St Helens Petty Sessions:
"I say this man has been made the victim of a course of conduct which is disgraceful to the town of St. Helens, and to any district in which it may be perpetrated. The prisoner is met with the bundle of straw under his arm [at 4am Friday morning], and he is questioned by the man Aspinall [colliery watchman]. He said at once that Naylor had given it to him, but …he was locked up, and during the whole of the intervening period up to Sunday night, there is not a creature connected with his case who thinks it worth his while to go to Naylor and ask him if it were true that he had given the prisoner the straw.
"When they do go, they find the statement true, and they abandon that part of the charge. And then, because they find this straw under his arm, of which he gives a perfectly true, honest, and satisfactory account, his house is fair game. His wife is not to be considered, his children are not to be regarded; but because Bournes and Robinson have suspicion, he is to be locked up on a trumpery charge, and his house attacked in his absence. Talk about an Englishman's home being his castle!
"It is all monstrous. If a man be poor, his house is desecrated and searched, without warrant, authority, or any justification whatever. This man has been twenty years in the employment of Bournes and Robinson, and yet, when he has been most improperly arrested for the straw, an effort is made to eke out this wretched, miserable case, by the paltry charges made." After the magistrates had heard Swift's sterling defence of his client, the case against Thomas Brown was dismissed.
The Newton Petty Sessions were also held on the 27th and a policeman called William Gardner was charged with assault. Robert Read had been watching a performance at a theatre in Earlestown and in order to improve his view had been standing on a form. Constable William Gardner from Haydock Street ordered Read to stand down. However because other members of the audience were also standing on forms and not being told to get down, Read started arguing with PC Gardner. That led to his ejectment from the theatre and upon refusing to reveal his name, Read received three violent blows to his head with a cane.
Well that was the man's story – but it wasn't the constable's. PC Gardner's version was that complaints had been made about Read annoying women and the moment the officer spoke to him, Read struck him in the mouth. Robert Read had already been fined for his behaviour in court, which didn't help his case, although he had a number of witnesses that supported his account. The constable's solicitor claimed these were "mostly of that class who would swear anything against a policeman." Although they sufficiently impressed the Bench, who decided that the cane assaults had been proved and fined the policeman ten shillings.
There was a certain logic to road tolls. They brought in valuable cash that was – at least in theory – used to maintain the roads and the users of larger vehicles that caused more damage had to pay more. However tolls were also very unpopular. Some of the roads were not maintained as well as they should and it was hardly a free country if its citizens had to pay to get from A to B.
Since its creation in 1868, St Helens Corporation had been taking over roads tolls and agreeing instead to pay for the maintenance of the streets on behalf of its ratepayers. But its remit did not extend to Newton-le-Willows where Robert Price was the lessee for the district, enabling private enterprise to run hand-in-hand with what at least in principle was a well-meaning system. But as we know principle and practice can be quite different bedfellows!
At the Newton Petty Sessions Mary Peake was summoned by Robert Price for "publicly exposing goods for sale without having previously paid toll for the same at Earlestown". Mrs Peake was a vegetable hawker – or at least she owned the cart with her name emblazoned upon it but she seems to have let her children do all the selling. The case against her was that vegetables had been sold in Cross Lane and Price had asked her daughter for the toll money but she had positively refused to pay it.
Mrs Peake was represented by solicitor Thomas Swift – who regularly makes these articles primarily for his rudeness in court but the man was also extremely astute. In cross-examination Robert Price had to admit to Mr Swift that during much of the past twelve mouths Mrs Peake had been paying him tolls of 1s 6d per week. However the toll man's lease to collect the tolls on market days had only been only signed on the 1st of the month.
Price also told the court that he considered every day in Newton to be a market day and argued that he had a right to collect tolls on each day whether traders where in the market place or on the streets. Mr Swift said from the list of tolls that were publicly posted in the market and which had been produced in court, the plaintiff was only entitled to charge a fee on the designated market day – which was a Saturday. After much discussion between the solicitors and the Bench the case was eventually dismissed. I wonder if the vegetable lady ever got any refunds from the toll man? It sounds like another court case could be brewing!
With many Irish people now living in the St Helens district there was much resentment and hostility against the incomers and some blatant discrimination. Job adverts for domestic staff would often specify that applicants had to be Protestant or English. Fights would often occur, with this description of such a case in the Newton Sessions published by the Leigh Chronicle:
"AN INTERNATIONAL FIGHT – Four young men named respectively, Joseph Caines, Michael Kelly, John Birmingham, and John Forshaw, were charged with committing a breach of the peace by fighting at Haydock, on the 22nd inst. P.C. McKimm said about half-past six on the night in question, he saw the four defendants fighting together. It appeared to be a national fight, two of the men being English and two Irish, and they were being severally backed by the partizans of the different nationalities. They were each bound over to keep the peace in their own recognizances of £10, and ordered to pay costs."
On the 29th at the St Helens Petty Sessions, Peter Fildes, Daniel Tolan, Robert Worsley, Joseph Poole, James Ashton, and Edward Birch were charged with obstructing the public road at Thatto Heath by joining with about 300 others in a pigeon-flying match. The six defendants were dismissed with a caution, with the Chairman of the Bench admitting that such an amusement was better than drinking or fighting.
And finally this had been "La Semaine Sanglante", which sounds an awful lot nicer than "The bloody week" as it translates! A quick background: The Franco-Prussian war had ended with around 180,000 deaths; a revolutionary uprising called the Commune had governed Paris for two months and now the French Army was violently liberating it. The Paris correspondent of The Times gave this incredibly graphic description of the city as it appeared on the evening of the 24th:
"Flames and bombshells are fast reducing the magnificent city to a huge and shapeless ruin. Its architectural glories are rapidly passing away in smoke and flame, such as have never been witnessed since the burning of Moscow, and amid a roar of cannon, a screaming of mitrailleuses [rapid-firing field guns], a bursting of projectiles, and a horrid rattle of musketry from different quarters which are appalling. A more lovely day it would be impossible to imagine – a sky of unusual brightness, blue as the clearest ever seen, a sun of surpassing brilliancy even for Paris, scarcely a breath of wind to ruffle the Seine.
"Such of the great buildings as the spreading conflagration has not reached stand in the clearest relief as they are seen for probably the last time; but in a dozen spots, at both sides of the bridges, sheets of flame and awful volumes of smoke rise to the sky and positively obscure the light of the sun. I am making these notes on the Trocadero. Close and immediately opposite me is the Invalides, with its gilded dome shining brightly as ever. The wide esplanade of the Ecole Militaire, almost immediately underneath it, is nearly covered with armed men, cannon, and horses.
"Shells from the positions of General Cissey, at Montrouge, are every minute falling close to the lofty dome of the Pantheon. It and the fine building of Val de Grace, near it, seem certain to be destroyed by missiles before the incendiary fire reaches them. No one doubts that the Palais de Justice is sharing the fate of the Tuileries and the Louvre. The Louvre is not yet wholly gone, and perhaps the fire will not reach all its courts. Every one is now crying out, “The Palais Royal burns!” and we ascertain that it does. We cannot see Notre Dame or the Hotel Dieu. It is probable that both are fast becoming ashes.
"Not an instant passes without an explosion. Stones and timber and iron are flying high into the air, and falling to the earth with horrible crashes. The very trees are on fire. They are crackling, and their leaves and branches are like tinder. We see clearly now that the Palais de Justice, Ste. Chapelle, the Prefecture of Police, and the Hotel de Ville are all blazing without a possibility existing of any portion of any one of them being saved from the general wreck and ruin. As I am leaving for Versailles to get off this telegram, the military are as far as the Pont Neuf on the left bank of the river, and just beyond the Hotel de Ville on the right. Now, at six o’clock, it is all but certain that when this fire is extinguished, scarcely one of the great monuments of Paris will have escaped entire destruction."
Next week's stories will include the wandering cows of Ashton-in-Makerfield, the illegal furniture remover from North Road, the villas that were for rent at St Ann's and the extraordinary suicide of a Rainford girl.
The need for a simple system of knowing who was down a coal mine was demonstrated by an incident on the 27th at Bickershaw Colliery. Thomas Rigby and James Clarke had been due to come up from their shift around four o’clock in the afternoon but nobody was bothered when they didn't show. There were two ways of ascending the mine and so it was assumed that the pair had surfaced via the alternative shaft.
The men's families were, however, concerned when they did not return home and on the following morning a search was initiated down the pit. Their bodies ware found near their working place in what was described as a "shockingly mutilated condition" after a stone weighing about ten cwt had dropped on them. It wasn't until a few years later that a system of tallies or checks was introduced (and made mandatory in 1913) so that colliery management could see at a glance who was underground.
I've often provided examples of the rudeness of brilliant solicitor Thomas Swift, but haven't provided many instances of how well he fought for his clients in court. On the 27th the St Helens Newspaper described a case in which Swift's combative style came to the fore. It concerned a man called Thomas Brown who appeared to live in Hell Bess Lane (later Sherdley Road) who was accused of stealing straw from Peasley Cross Colliery, owned by Bournes and Robinson.
It transpired that a man called Naylor had given Brown the straw – but instead of checking his claim, the police, without a warrant, searched Brown's house and found a spade and some sacks that they thought could also have been stolen. Brown denied those thefts but after the police promised him a better outcome in court if he pleaded guilty, he confessed. This is how the Newspaper reported Thomas Swift's fiery defence of his client in the St Helens Petty Sessions:
"I say this man has been made the victim of a course of conduct which is disgraceful to the town of St. Helens, and to any district in which it may be perpetrated. The prisoner is met with the bundle of straw under his arm [at 4am Friday morning], and he is questioned by the man Aspinall [colliery watchman]. He said at once that Naylor had given it to him, but …he was locked up, and during the whole of the intervening period up to Sunday night, there is not a creature connected with his case who thinks it worth his while to go to Naylor and ask him if it were true that he had given the prisoner the straw.
"When they do go, they find the statement true, and they abandon that part of the charge. And then, because they find this straw under his arm, of which he gives a perfectly true, honest, and satisfactory account, his house is fair game. His wife is not to be considered, his children are not to be regarded; but because Bournes and Robinson have suspicion, he is to be locked up on a trumpery charge, and his house attacked in his absence. Talk about an Englishman's home being his castle!
"It is all monstrous. If a man be poor, his house is desecrated and searched, without warrant, authority, or any justification whatever. This man has been twenty years in the employment of Bournes and Robinson, and yet, when he has been most improperly arrested for the straw, an effort is made to eke out this wretched, miserable case, by the paltry charges made." After the magistrates had heard Swift's sterling defence of his client, the case against Thomas Brown was dismissed.
The Newton Petty Sessions were also held on the 27th and a policeman called William Gardner was charged with assault. Robert Read had been watching a performance at a theatre in Earlestown and in order to improve his view had been standing on a form. Constable William Gardner from Haydock Street ordered Read to stand down. However because other members of the audience were also standing on forms and not being told to get down, Read started arguing with PC Gardner. That led to his ejectment from the theatre and upon refusing to reveal his name, Read received three violent blows to his head with a cane.
Well that was the man's story – but it wasn't the constable's. PC Gardner's version was that complaints had been made about Read annoying women and the moment the officer spoke to him, Read struck him in the mouth. Robert Read had already been fined for his behaviour in court, which didn't help his case, although he had a number of witnesses that supported his account. The constable's solicitor claimed these were "mostly of that class who would swear anything against a policeman." Although they sufficiently impressed the Bench, who decided that the cane assaults had been proved and fined the policeman ten shillings.
There was a certain logic to road tolls. They brought in valuable cash that was – at least in theory – used to maintain the roads and the users of larger vehicles that caused more damage had to pay more. However tolls were also very unpopular. Some of the roads were not maintained as well as they should and it was hardly a free country if its citizens had to pay to get from A to B.
Since its creation in 1868, St Helens Corporation had been taking over roads tolls and agreeing instead to pay for the maintenance of the streets on behalf of its ratepayers. But its remit did not extend to Newton-le-Willows where Robert Price was the lessee for the district, enabling private enterprise to run hand-in-hand with what at least in principle was a well-meaning system. But as we know principle and practice can be quite different bedfellows!
At the Newton Petty Sessions Mary Peake was summoned by Robert Price for "publicly exposing goods for sale without having previously paid toll for the same at Earlestown". Mrs Peake was a vegetable hawker – or at least she owned the cart with her name emblazoned upon it but she seems to have let her children do all the selling. The case against her was that vegetables had been sold in Cross Lane and Price had asked her daughter for the toll money but she had positively refused to pay it.
Mrs Peake was represented by solicitor Thomas Swift – who regularly makes these articles primarily for his rudeness in court but the man was also extremely astute. In cross-examination Robert Price had to admit to Mr Swift that during much of the past twelve mouths Mrs Peake had been paying him tolls of 1s 6d per week. However the toll man's lease to collect the tolls on market days had only been only signed on the 1st of the month.
Price also told the court that he considered every day in Newton to be a market day and argued that he had a right to collect tolls on each day whether traders where in the market place or on the streets. Mr Swift said from the list of tolls that were publicly posted in the market and which had been produced in court, the plaintiff was only entitled to charge a fee on the designated market day – which was a Saturday. After much discussion between the solicitors and the Bench the case was eventually dismissed. I wonder if the vegetable lady ever got any refunds from the toll man? It sounds like another court case could be brewing!
With many Irish people now living in the St Helens district there was much resentment and hostility against the incomers and some blatant discrimination. Job adverts for domestic staff would often specify that applicants had to be Protestant or English. Fights would often occur, with this description of such a case in the Newton Sessions published by the Leigh Chronicle:
"AN INTERNATIONAL FIGHT – Four young men named respectively, Joseph Caines, Michael Kelly, John Birmingham, and John Forshaw, were charged with committing a breach of the peace by fighting at Haydock, on the 22nd inst. P.C. McKimm said about half-past six on the night in question, he saw the four defendants fighting together. It appeared to be a national fight, two of the men being English and two Irish, and they were being severally backed by the partizans of the different nationalities. They were each bound over to keep the peace in their own recognizances of £10, and ordered to pay costs."
On the 29th at the St Helens Petty Sessions, Peter Fildes, Daniel Tolan, Robert Worsley, Joseph Poole, James Ashton, and Edward Birch were charged with obstructing the public road at Thatto Heath by joining with about 300 others in a pigeon-flying match. The six defendants were dismissed with a caution, with the Chairman of the Bench admitting that such an amusement was better than drinking or fighting.
"Flames and bombshells are fast reducing the magnificent city to a huge and shapeless ruin. Its architectural glories are rapidly passing away in smoke and flame, such as have never been witnessed since the burning of Moscow, and amid a roar of cannon, a screaming of mitrailleuses [rapid-firing field guns], a bursting of projectiles, and a horrid rattle of musketry from different quarters which are appalling. A more lovely day it would be impossible to imagine – a sky of unusual brightness, blue as the clearest ever seen, a sun of surpassing brilliancy even for Paris, scarcely a breath of wind to ruffle the Seine.
"Such of the great buildings as the spreading conflagration has not reached stand in the clearest relief as they are seen for probably the last time; but in a dozen spots, at both sides of the bridges, sheets of flame and awful volumes of smoke rise to the sky and positively obscure the light of the sun. I am making these notes on the Trocadero. Close and immediately opposite me is the Invalides, with its gilded dome shining brightly as ever. The wide esplanade of the Ecole Militaire, almost immediately underneath it, is nearly covered with armed men, cannon, and horses.
"Shells from the positions of General Cissey, at Montrouge, are every minute falling close to the lofty dome of the Pantheon. It and the fine building of Val de Grace, near it, seem certain to be destroyed by missiles before the incendiary fire reaches them. No one doubts that the Palais de Justice is sharing the fate of the Tuileries and the Louvre. The Louvre is not yet wholly gone, and perhaps the fire will not reach all its courts. Every one is now crying out, “The Palais Royal burns!” and we ascertain that it does. We cannot see Notre Dame or the Hotel Dieu. It is probable that both are fast becoming ashes.
"Not an instant passes without an explosion. Stones and timber and iron are flying high into the air, and falling to the earth with horrible crashes. The very trees are on fire. They are crackling, and their leaves and branches are like tinder. We see clearly now that the Palais de Justice, Ste. Chapelle, the Prefecture of Police, and the Hotel de Ville are all blazing without a possibility existing of any portion of any one of them being saved from the general wreck and ruin. As I am leaving for Versailles to get off this telegram, the military are as far as the Pont Neuf on the left bank of the river, and just beyond the Hotel de Ville on the right. Now, at six o’clock, it is all but certain that when this fire is extinguished, scarcely one of the great monuments of Paris will have escaped entire destruction."
Next week's stories will include the wandering cows of Ashton-in-Makerfield, the illegal furniture remover from North Road, the villas that were for rent at St Ann's and the extraordinary suicide of a Rainford girl.
This week's stories include the Thatto Heath pigeon flying match, the police are accused of "monstrous conduct disgraceful to the town of St Helens", the dispute between the Newton toll collector and the vegetable hawker, the policeman accused of committing assault at an Earlestown theatre and The Times gives a graphic description of the burning of Paris.
The need for a simple system of knowing who was down a coal mine was demonstrated by an incident on the 27th at Bickershaw Colliery.
Thomas Rigby and James Clarke had been due to come up from their shift around four o’clock in the afternoon but nobody was bothered when they didn't show.
There were two ways of ascending the mine and so it was assumed that the pair had surfaced via the alternative shaft.
The men's families were, however, concerned when they did not return home and on the following morning a search was initiated down the pit.
Their bodies ware found near their working place in what was described as a "shockingly mutilated condition" after a stone weighing about ten cwt had dropped on them.
It wasn't until a few years later that a system of tallies or checks was introduced (and made mandatory in 1913) so that colliery management could see at a glance who was underground.
I've often provided examples of the rudeness of brilliant solicitor Thomas Swift, but haven't provided many instances of how well he fought for his clients in court.
On the 27th the St Helens Newspaper described a case in which Swift's combative style came to the fore.
It concerned a man called Thomas Brown who appeared to live in Hell Bess Lane (later Sherdley Road) who was accused of stealing straw from Peasley Cross Colliery, owned by Bournes and Robinson.
It transpired that a man called Naylor had given Brown the straw – but instead of checking his claim, the police, without a warrant, searched Brown's house and found a spade and some sacks that they thought could also have been stolen.
Brown denied those thefts but after the police promised him a better outcome in court if he pleaded guilty, he confessed.
This is how the Newspaper reported Thomas Swift's fiery defence of his client in the St Helens Petty Sessions:
"I say this man has been made the victim of a course of conduct which is disgraceful to the town of St. Helens, and to any district in which it may be perpetrated.
"The prisoner is met with the bundle of straw under his arm [at 4am Friday morning], and he is questioned by the man Aspinall [colliery watchman].
"He said at once that Naylor had given it to him, but …he was locked up, and during the whole of the intervening period up to Sunday night, there is not a creature connected with his case who thinks it worth his while to go to Naylor and ask him if it were true that he had given the prisoner the straw.
"When they do go, they find the statement true, and they abandon that part of the charge. And then, because they find this straw under his arm, of which he gives a perfectly true, honest, and satisfactory account, his house is fair game.
"His wife is not to be considered, his children are not to be regarded; but because Bournes and Robinson have suspicion, he is to be locked up on a trumpery charge, and his house attacked in his absence. Talk about an Englishman's home being his castle!
"It is all monstrous. If a man be poor, his house is desecrated and searched, without warrant, authority, or any justification whatever.
"This man has been twenty years in the employment of Bournes and Robinson, and yet, when he has been most improperly arrested for the straw, an effort is made to eke out this wretched, miserable case, by the paltry charges made."
After the magistrates had heard Swift's sterling defence of his client, the case against Thomas Brown was dismissed.
The Newton Petty Sessions were also held on the 27th and a policeman called William Gardner was charged with assault.
Robert Read had been watching a performance at a theatre in Earlestown and in order to improve his view had been standing on a form.
Constable William Gardner from Haydock Street ordered Read to stand down.
However because other members of the audience were also standing on forms and not being told to get down, Read started arguing with PC Gardner.
That led to his ejectment from the theatre and upon refusing to reveal his name, Read received three violent blows to his head with a cane.
Well that was the man's story – but it wasn't the constable's.
PC Gardner's version was that complaints had been made about Read annoying women and the moment the officer spoke to him, Read struck him in the mouth.
Robert Read had already been fined for his behaviour in court, which didn't help his case, although he had a number of witnesses that supported his account.
The constable's solicitor claimed these were "mostly of that class who would swear anything against a policeman."
Although they sufficiently impressed the Bench, who decided that the cane assaults had been proved and fined the policeman ten shillings.
There was a certain logic to road tolls. They brought in valuable cash that was – at least in theory – used to maintain the roads and the users of larger vehicles that caused more damage had to pay more.
However tolls were also very unpopular. Some of the roads were not maintained as well as they should and it was hardly a free country if its citizens had to pay to get from A to B.
Since its creation in 1868, St Helens Corporation had been taking over roads tolls and agreeing instead to pay for the maintenance of the streets on behalf of its ratepayers.
But its remit did not extend to Newton-le-Willows where Robert Price was the lessee for the district, enabling private enterprise to run hand-in-hand with what at least in principle was a well-meaning system.
But as we know principle and practice can be quite different bedfellows!
At the Newton Petty Sessions Mary Peake was summoned by Robert Price for "publicly exposing goods for sale without having previously paid toll for the same at Earlestown".
Mrs Peake was a vegetable hawker – or at least she owned the cart with her name emblazoned upon it but she seems to have let her children do all the selling.
The case against her was that vegetables had been sold in Cross Lane and Price had asked her daughter for the toll money but she had positively refused to pay it.
This is another case where solicitor Thomas Swift made a positive impression in court.
In cross-examination Robert Price had to admit to Mr Swift that during much of the past twelve months Mrs Peake had been paying him tolls of 1s 6d per week.
However the toll man's lease to collect the tolls on market days had only been only signed on the 1st of the month.
Price also told the court that he considered every day in Newton to be a market day and argued that he had a right to collect tolls on each day whether traders where in the market place or on the streets.
Mr Swift said from the list of tolls that were publicly posted in the market and which had been produced in court, the plaintiff was only entitled to charge a fee on the designated market day – which was a Saturday.
After much discussion between the solicitors and the Bench the case was eventually dismissed.
I wonder if the vegetable lady ever got any refunds from the toll man? It sounds like another court case could be brewing!
With many Irish people now living in the St Helens district there was much resentment and hostility against the incomers and some blatant discrimination.
Job adverts for domestic staff would often specify that applicants had to be Protestant or English.
Fights would often occur, with this description of such a case in the Newton Sessions published by the Leigh Chronicle:
"AN INTERNATIONAL FIGHT – Four young men named respectively, Joseph Caines, Michael Kelly, John Birmingham, and John Forshaw, were charged with committing a breach of the peace by fighting at Haydock, on the 22nd inst.
"P.C. McKimm said about half-past six on the night in question, he saw the four defendants fighting together.
"It appeared to be a national fight, two of the men being English and two Irish, and they were being severally backed by the partizans of the different nationalities.
"They were each bound over to keep the peace in their own recognizances of £10, and ordered to pay costs."
On the 29th at the St Helens Petty Sessions, Peter Fildes, Daniel Tolan, Robert Worsley, Joseph Poole, James Ashton, and Edward Birch were charged with obstructing the public road at Thatto Heath by joining with about 300 others in a pigeon-flying match.
The six defendants were dismissed with a caution, with the Chairman of the Bench admitting that such an amusement was better than drinking or fighting.
And finally this had been "La Semaine Sanglante", which sounds an awful lot nicer than "The bloody week" as it translates!
A quick background: The Franco-Prussian war had ended with around 180,000 deaths; a revolutionary uprising called the Commune had governed Paris for two months and now the French Army was violently liberating it.
The Paris correspondent of The Times gave this incredibly graphic description of the city as it appeared on the evening of the 24th:
"Flames and bombshells are fast reducing the magnificent city to a huge and shapeless ruin.
"Its architectural glories are rapidly passing away in smoke and flame, such as have never been witnessed since the burning of Moscow, and amid a roar of cannon, a screaming of mitrailleuses [rapid-firing field guns], a bursting of projectiles, and a horrid rattle of musketry from different quarters which are appalling.
"A more lovely day it would be impossible to imagine – a sky of unusual brightness, blue as the clearest ever seen, a sun of surpassing brilliancy even for Paris, scarcely a breath of wind to ruffle the Seine.
"Such of the great buildings as the spreading conflagration has not reached stand in the clearest relief as they are seen for probably the last time; but in a dozen spots, at both sides of the bridges, sheets of flame and awful volumes of smoke rise to the sky and positively obscure the light of the sun.
"I am making these notes on the Trocadero. Close and immediately opposite me is the Invalides, with its gilded dome shining brightly as ever.
"The wide esplanade of the Ecole Militaire, almost immediately underneath it, is nearly covered with armed men, cannon, and horses.
"Shells from the positions of General Cissey, at Montrouge, are every minute falling close to the lofty dome of the Pantheon.
"It and the fine building of Val de Grace, near it, seem certain to be destroyed by missiles before the incendiary fire reaches them.
"No one doubts that the Palais de Justice is sharing the fate of the Tuileries and the Louvre.
"The Louvre is not yet wholly gone, and perhaps the fire will not reach all its courts. Every one is now crying out, “The Palais Royal burns!” and we ascertain that it does.
"We cannot see Notre Dame or the Hotel Dieu. It is probable that both are fast becoming ashes. Not an instant passes without an explosion.
"Stones and timber and iron are flying high into the air, and falling to the earth with horrible crashes.
"The very trees are on fire. They are crackling, and their leaves and branches are like tinder.
"We see clearly now that the Palais de Justice, Ste. Chapelle, the Prefecture of Police, and the Hotel de Ville are all blazing without a possibility existing of any portion of any one of them being saved from the general wreck and ruin.
"As I am leaving for Versailles to get off this telegram, the military are as far as the Pont Neuf on the left bank of the river, and just beyond the Hotel de Ville on the right.
"Now, at six o’clock, it is all but certain that when this fire is extinguished, scarcely one of the great monuments of Paris will have escaped entire destruction."
Next week's stories will include the wandering cows of Ashton-in-Makerfield, the illegal furniture remover from North Road, the villas that were for rent at St Ann's and the extraordinary suicide of a Rainford girl.
The need for a simple system of knowing who was down a coal mine was demonstrated by an incident on the 27th at Bickershaw Colliery.
Thomas Rigby and James Clarke had been due to come up from their shift around four o’clock in the afternoon but nobody was bothered when they didn't show.
There were two ways of ascending the mine and so it was assumed that the pair had surfaced via the alternative shaft.
The men's families were, however, concerned when they did not return home and on the following morning a search was initiated down the pit.
Their bodies ware found near their working place in what was described as a "shockingly mutilated condition" after a stone weighing about ten cwt had dropped on them.
It wasn't until a few years later that a system of tallies or checks was introduced (and made mandatory in 1913) so that colliery management could see at a glance who was underground.
I've often provided examples of the rudeness of brilliant solicitor Thomas Swift, but haven't provided many instances of how well he fought for his clients in court.
On the 27th the St Helens Newspaper described a case in which Swift's combative style came to the fore.
It concerned a man called Thomas Brown who appeared to live in Hell Bess Lane (later Sherdley Road) who was accused of stealing straw from Peasley Cross Colliery, owned by Bournes and Robinson.
It transpired that a man called Naylor had given Brown the straw – but instead of checking his claim, the police, without a warrant, searched Brown's house and found a spade and some sacks that they thought could also have been stolen.
Brown denied those thefts but after the police promised him a better outcome in court if he pleaded guilty, he confessed.
This is how the Newspaper reported Thomas Swift's fiery defence of his client in the St Helens Petty Sessions:
"I say this man has been made the victim of a course of conduct which is disgraceful to the town of St. Helens, and to any district in which it may be perpetrated.
"The prisoner is met with the bundle of straw under his arm [at 4am Friday morning], and he is questioned by the man Aspinall [colliery watchman].
"He said at once that Naylor had given it to him, but …he was locked up, and during the whole of the intervening period up to Sunday night, there is not a creature connected with his case who thinks it worth his while to go to Naylor and ask him if it were true that he had given the prisoner the straw.
"When they do go, they find the statement true, and they abandon that part of the charge. And then, because they find this straw under his arm, of which he gives a perfectly true, honest, and satisfactory account, his house is fair game.
"His wife is not to be considered, his children are not to be regarded; but because Bournes and Robinson have suspicion, he is to be locked up on a trumpery charge, and his house attacked in his absence. Talk about an Englishman's home being his castle!
"It is all monstrous. If a man be poor, his house is desecrated and searched, without warrant, authority, or any justification whatever.
"This man has been twenty years in the employment of Bournes and Robinson, and yet, when he has been most improperly arrested for the straw, an effort is made to eke out this wretched, miserable case, by the paltry charges made."
After the magistrates had heard Swift's sterling defence of his client, the case against Thomas Brown was dismissed.
The Newton Petty Sessions were also held on the 27th and a policeman called William Gardner was charged with assault.
Robert Read had been watching a performance at a theatre in Earlestown and in order to improve his view had been standing on a form.
Constable William Gardner from Haydock Street ordered Read to stand down.
However because other members of the audience were also standing on forms and not being told to get down, Read started arguing with PC Gardner.
That led to his ejectment from the theatre and upon refusing to reveal his name, Read received three violent blows to his head with a cane.
Well that was the man's story – but it wasn't the constable's.
PC Gardner's version was that complaints had been made about Read annoying women and the moment the officer spoke to him, Read struck him in the mouth.
Robert Read had already been fined for his behaviour in court, which didn't help his case, although he had a number of witnesses that supported his account.
The constable's solicitor claimed these were "mostly of that class who would swear anything against a policeman."
Although they sufficiently impressed the Bench, who decided that the cane assaults had been proved and fined the policeman ten shillings.
There was a certain logic to road tolls. They brought in valuable cash that was – at least in theory – used to maintain the roads and the users of larger vehicles that caused more damage had to pay more.
However tolls were also very unpopular. Some of the roads were not maintained as well as they should and it was hardly a free country if its citizens had to pay to get from A to B.
Since its creation in 1868, St Helens Corporation had been taking over roads tolls and agreeing instead to pay for the maintenance of the streets on behalf of its ratepayers.
But its remit did not extend to Newton-le-Willows where Robert Price was the lessee for the district, enabling private enterprise to run hand-in-hand with what at least in principle was a well-meaning system.
But as we know principle and practice can be quite different bedfellows!
At the Newton Petty Sessions Mary Peake was summoned by Robert Price for "publicly exposing goods for sale without having previously paid toll for the same at Earlestown".
Mrs Peake was a vegetable hawker – or at least she owned the cart with her name emblazoned upon it but she seems to have let her children do all the selling.
The case against her was that vegetables had been sold in Cross Lane and Price had asked her daughter for the toll money but she had positively refused to pay it.
This is another case where solicitor Thomas Swift made a positive impression in court.
In cross-examination Robert Price had to admit to Mr Swift that during much of the past twelve months Mrs Peake had been paying him tolls of 1s 6d per week.
However the toll man's lease to collect the tolls on market days had only been only signed on the 1st of the month.
Price also told the court that he considered every day in Newton to be a market day and argued that he had a right to collect tolls on each day whether traders where in the market place or on the streets.
Mr Swift said from the list of tolls that were publicly posted in the market and which had been produced in court, the plaintiff was only entitled to charge a fee on the designated market day – which was a Saturday.
After much discussion between the solicitors and the Bench the case was eventually dismissed.
I wonder if the vegetable lady ever got any refunds from the toll man? It sounds like another court case could be brewing!
With many Irish people now living in the St Helens district there was much resentment and hostility against the incomers and some blatant discrimination.
Job adverts for domestic staff would often specify that applicants had to be Protestant or English.
Fights would often occur, with this description of such a case in the Newton Sessions published by the Leigh Chronicle:
"AN INTERNATIONAL FIGHT – Four young men named respectively, Joseph Caines, Michael Kelly, John Birmingham, and John Forshaw, were charged with committing a breach of the peace by fighting at Haydock, on the 22nd inst.
"P.C. McKimm said about half-past six on the night in question, he saw the four defendants fighting together.
"It appeared to be a national fight, two of the men being English and two Irish, and they were being severally backed by the partizans of the different nationalities.
"They were each bound over to keep the peace in their own recognizances of £10, and ordered to pay costs."
On the 29th at the St Helens Petty Sessions, Peter Fildes, Daniel Tolan, Robert Worsley, Joseph Poole, James Ashton, and Edward Birch were charged with obstructing the public road at Thatto Heath by joining with about 300 others in a pigeon-flying match.
The six defendants were dismissed with a caution, with the Chairman of the Bench admitting that such an amusement was better than drinking or fighting.
A quick background: The Franco-Prussian war had ended with around 180,000 deaths; a revolutionary uprising called the Commune had governed Paris for two months and now the French Army was violently liberating it.
The Paris correspondent of The Times gave this incredibly graphic description of the city as it appeared on the evening of the 24th:
"Flames and bombshells are fast reducing the magnificent city to a huge and shapeless ruin.
"Its architectural glories are rapidly passing away in smoke and flame, such as have never been witnessed since the burning of Moscow, and amid a roar of cannon, a screaming of mitrailleuses [rapid-firing field guns], a bursting of projectiles, and a horrid rattle of musketry from different quarters which are appalling.
"A more lovely day it would be impossible to imagine – a sky of unusual brightness, blue as the clearest ever seen, a sun of surpassing brilliancy even for Paris, scarcely a breath of wind to ruffle the Seine.
"Such of the great buildings as the spreading conflagration has not reached stand in the clearest relief as they are seen for probably the last time; but in a dozen spots, at both sides of the bridges, sheets of flame and awful volumes of smoke rise to the sky and positively obscure the light of the sun.
"I am making these notes on the Trocadero. Close and immediately opposite me is the Invalides, with its gilded dome shining brightly as ever.
"The wide esplanade of the Ecole Militaire, almost immediately underneath it, is nearly covered with armed men, cannon, and horses.
"Shells from the positions of General Cissey, at Montrouge, are every minute falling close to the lofty dome of the Pantheon.
"It and the fine building of Val de Grace, near it, seem certain to be destroyed by missiles before the incendiary fire reaches them.
"No one doubts that the Palais de Justice is sharing the fate of the Tuileries and the Louvre.
"The Louvre is not yet wholly gone, and perhaps the fire will not reach all its courts. Every one is now crying out, “The Palais Royal burns!” and we ascertain that it does.
"We cannot see Notre Dame or the Hotel Dieu. It is probable that both are fast becoming ashes. Not an instant passes without an explosion.
"Stones and timber and iron are flying high into the air, and falling to the earth with horrible crashes.
"The very trees are on fire. They are crackling, and their leaves and branches are like tinder.
"We see clearly now that the Palais de Justice, Ste. Chapelle, the Prefecture of Police, and the Hotel de Ville are all blazing without a possibility existing of any portion of any one of them being saved from the general wreck and ruin.
"As I am leaving for Versailles to get off this telegram, the military are as far as the Pont Neuf on the left bank of the river, and just beyond the Hotel de Ville on the right.
"Now, at six o’clock, it is all but certain that when this fire is extinguished, scarcely one of the great monuments of Paris will have escaped entire destruction."
Next week's stories will include the wandering cows of Ashton-in-Makerfield, the illegal furniture remover from North Road, the villas that were for rent at St Ann's and the extraordinary suicide of a Rainford girl.