SIX STRIPES EACH, EXETER, 1876.

In August 1876:

"SYDNEY BOWDEN, WILLIAM BOWDEN, and WILLIAM SPARKS, three lads, the eldest being ten, living in Well-lane, were summoned for having placed stones on the rails on the incline between Lion's Holt and the tunnel.

"P. C. Leeworthy stated that about eight o'clock the previous evening he was on the railway bridge in Lion's Holt, and therefrom saw the lads picking up stones between the rails and placing them on the metals  On seeing him the eldest lad, William Bowden, knocked the stones off the metals and ran away.

"Mrs Sparkes said her child only placed pins on the metals, and produced some that had been crushed by the train,  The mother of the Bowdens said she had thrashed her boys.

"The parents reluctantly consented to have the childen whipped, and they were put behind to receive six stripes each.

"Mr. Rogers, who appeared on behalf of the Company, said that if the stones had been large they would have thrown the engine off the metals as it was a very steep incline, but as the defendants were young the Company were willing to leave the matter with the Magistrates"

The eldest of these boys, William Bowden, was ten!  How young, for humanity's sake!, were the others?  Their tender age did not spare them six stripes each in the cells behind the Exeter Guildhall.... and the Bowden boys, perhaps, were being thrashed for a second time!

When I wa s a little boy, in Mossley Hill, we liked to bend halfpennies by putting them on the line.  It was strictly forbidden.  I don't remember any thrashings but this was a long lifetime later.  

One doesn't often see therefrom these days.  Wherefore!?

Does anyone still speak of the metals of the track?

Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 30th August 1876. 

PUSHING FEMALES, EXETER, 1876

From The Exeter Flying Post, 23rd August, 1876:

"THOMAS HOOKWAY, a lad, was charged with misbehaviour in High-street the previous evening. (Sunday.)  Capt. Bent stated that the conduct of lads in High-street was so bad that he had to put on an extra force of officers to keep order.

"P.C. Ray saw defendant standing with others on the footpath and obstructing the thoroughfare.  He ordered them off.  Subsequently he saw defendant push two females from the inside to the outside of the path.

"Defendant said he knew the females and denied having pushed them.  He was convicted for a similar offence in March last.  The Bench fined him 3s., or a week."

Along Exeter's High-street in 1876 ran not the pavement nor the sidewalk but the footpath.  It was the footpath across which Thomas Hookway chose to push females but only those whom he knew.  It seems that this had become habitual misbehaviour.

Capt Bent, chief of the city police force, told the court that the conduct of lads was so bad that he had to put on an extra force of officers to keep order.  It would, however, seem that the worst example of misbehaviour that he could find was Thomas Hookway shoving a couple of girls.

I could wish that he and his extra force of officers might be along Queen Street, say, or in the Northernhay Gardens during the Exeter College term. 

 

HORROR-STRUCK, EXETER, 1867.

In July 1867, the Reverend J. C. Jackson of Hackney wrote a strong letter to The Times which was reprinted in The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of 19th July:

"At Exeter some of the most interesting tombs in the country have been simply destroyed.  Of the Courtney tomb there is not a vestige of old work left, and the so-called restoration is partly in stucco.  The figures themselves are perfectly ridiculous.  More than this the monuments no longer stand over the places of interment.   Happily, at present, there have been few funds for restoring this charming building, or we might have to regret even geater loss than in the case of Lincoln.  Where cash has been forthcoming it has been worse than wasted.

When I heard of the proposed restoration of Bishop Oldham's tomb, I made a point of going down to Exeter to see how things really stood, and I was horror-struck.  This fine monument was thus treated.  First, all vestiges of old colour, of which much remained in its original comdition, were removed;  then all the stonework, except the sculpture, and it is said, though I can scarcely believe it, the effigy was re-tooled, and finally the whole was painted up in oil colours of the most distressing crudeness,  just as any village painter might do it.  The face has been aptly compared to a Guy Fawkes.  The furbishing up of the Carew monument is not a bit better; even the inscriptions are now of no sort of authority, except as possible copies."  

I am taking the Reverend  J. C. Jackson at his word and shall never again look at the monuments in the Exeter Cathedral with the same eyes.