"At the Guildhall yesterday, George Brannen, 17 years of age, and presenting an appearance of great emaciation, was committed for trial at the Exeter Michaelmas Sessions, for stealing two splash tumbler-pigeons from the dwelling of Charles Wills in Quay Lane.
"The prisoner had been shown the pigeons in an excess of innocent vanity, and must have watched him afterwards, as ingress had been obtained to the pigeons by unlocking the house-door with a key. which had been secreted by the prosecutor about the window when he went out.
"The prisoner sold the pigeons to Mr. Ford (Jennings and Ford) of this city for 2s.6d. The prisoner said he had been induced to steal the pigeons from hunger, having had nothing to eat for four days, and that his father, who resided in Magdalen-street, had turned him out of door necessitous, and he was not allowed to return. He had been formerly apprenticed to a tailor, form whose service he had run away."
Here is more evidence, if it were needed, of poverty in mid-Victorian Exeter. A poor teenager, the emaciated, necessitous runaway-apprentice, George Brannen, had been in Quay Lane. He had not eaten for days. He was probably thinking only of food. His father had kicked him out from the family home. Charles Wills invited him in to admire his splash tumbler-pigeons. Young George stole them and sold them to Mr. Ford for half-a-crown. He must have known that Mr. Ford was something of a pigeon fancier. Now he was facing, at the least, a prison sentence.
Jennings and Ford was an estabished firm of carriers in South-street, Exeter.
Splash is still in use to describe a form of colouring in tumbler pigeons. As far as I can make out they can be either splash or grizzle but not necessarily exclusively.
For once a Gazette reporter, here in the second paragraph, is having trouble with his style. These days, O tempora O mores!, newspaper journalists abuse the English language as a matter of course.
Source: The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 5th October, 1844.
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