James Thomas's master was Dr, Ridgway. Dr Ridgway had ordered James Thomas to shoot all the birds that came into his garden because they devoured the seeds that he sowed.
James obeyed his orders only too zealously. His bag included a fancy bird, a pigeon, the property of Mr. Kerswell, gardener and, in November, 1869, he was brought up in front of the Mayor and magistrates at the Exeter Guildhall.
In his defence, James Thomas said of pigeons: "They be reglar tigrants for all green things in a garden." but the court considered that to be no justification for his having killed Mr. Kerswell's fancy pigeon, and he was fined half-a-crown and had to pay five shillings, the value of the bird, as well as the court costs.
I hope Dr Ridgway footed the bill but I have my doubts.
I blog this unlikely gobbet of news chiefly for the sake of James Thomas's expressive word tigrant which I have not found in any dictionary but we know what James meant. The news item, however, also illustrates how little compunction our Victorian fathers felt about the killing of small creatures. Nobody, it seems, suggested to Dr Ridgway that it might be a sad idea to employ a man to shoot every bird in an Exeter garden.
Source: The Western Times, 17th November, 1860
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