"HENRY ROGERS, aged 15, WILLIAM GLASS. aged 15, and EVA COOK, aged 13, were summoned for stealing ninepennyworth of coke and wood the property of Exeter Gas Light and Coke Company, on November 22nd at St. Thomas.
"....P.C.Rounsefell deposed that at 7.30 a.m., he saw the defendants with about twenty others in Haven Roads following the carts coming from the Gas Comany's premises and taking pieces of coke out. Those who could not reach, knocked the coke out with a stick.
"On the three defendants taking their bags to go home, witness stopped and took them back to the Gas Works, where their bags were weighed, Rogers's weighed 41 pounds, that of Glass fifteen pounds, and Cook's thirty-five pounds....Cook said what he (she) picked up was from the ballast heap. - The boys said they simply picked up what fell out of the carts.
"....The Bench fined defendants 2s 6d each or three days' imprisonement, and thought the company ought to be more careful."
It had been half past seven of a November morning. A small army of children had been chasing behind the Gas Company's laden coke-carts to glean fuel to take home. They had come with their bags and, the little ones, with sticks. P,C Rounsefell had nabbed two fifteen-year-old boys and a thirteen-year-old girl and, at the Castle in Exeter, the Bench, consisting of an Admiral, a Knight, a Colonel, who was also a Lord, and a, no doubt distinguished, Commoner, (viz: Admiral White, CB, Sir Dudley Duckworth King, Colonel Lord Courteney, and Mr. W. T. Bayne) condemned them as thieves.
I only hope, by some miracle, the three children managed to find their get-out-of-jail half-crowns.
Source, The Exeter Flying Post, 9th December 1893.
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