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.