At the Castle of Exeter on Friday 15th November 1844, a man named Dinham, who five months before had been taken up by the constable of the parish of St Thomas, Ratcliffe for stealing cabbage plants at Alphington, came to court accusing the constable of malpractice.
Dinham swore that the day after he was arrested....
"....Ratcliffe came to him in the lock-up house and offered to cut off the ends of the stumps so as to destroy the identity of the cabbages, if Dinham would give him 5s. This he could not do; but he said his wife should bring him a pawn-ticket for a watch, which was done the following morning before he went to the Magistrates at the Castle.
"The tale was to be corroborated by the evidence of Dinham's wife, but she was contradicted. Ratcliffe did not deny he had the ticket, but he proved that he took it honestly for his expenses after this case was dismissed, as it was from not one of the stumps fitting. Who cut the stumps, however, remans a mystery. The bench dismissed this complaint,"
This altogether bizarre case defeats me. Here was Dinham, virtually admitting to the Great Cabbage Robbery by saying he had bribed the constable with a pawn-ticket to cut the stumps off the 'evidence.' This, presumably, because the prosecutor in the cabbage-case depended on evidence collected in the cabbage-field by trying to match the cut cabbage stumps to the stumps still in the ground. (an interesting image!)
The constable, Ratcliffe, still held the pawn-ticket and Dinham's watch was still in the pawn -shop. Dinham's alleged cabbage-stealing had been dismissed for lack of stump-evidence. Ratcliffe somehow convinced the Magistrates that the pawn-ticket came his way legitimately. It is hard to imagine how.
The Gazette avers that the stumps had been cut but that who had cut them remained a mystery. The bench dismissed the complaint.
Curiouser and curiouser!
Source: The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 16th November, 1844.
