September 1874 – What the papers said 150 years ago
Introduction
September 1874 was very much a “slow news” month in terms of local stories so the papers devoted more column inches than usual to non-local news articles.
We start with a summary of everyday local court activity…
News / Police Court News
Belfast Courts
“An Affectionate Husband” – Belfast Newsletter 24 Sep 1874
Under the curious heading “An Affectionate Husband” the Newsletter carried a story about a prisoner named William John M’Ginley. He appeared before the court “in a state bordering on nudity” and charged for assaulting his wife. McGinley was arrested at his home following an attack on his wife.
The wife “appeared in the witness box with marks of violence on her face” told the court that her husband assaulted her, at their Falls Road house the previous evening. She added that he would not work and gave her and her family all the trouble in his power.
Head-Constable Knox said he knew the prisoner and that he was a great annoyance to his wife and family. “The prisoner was sent to jail for three months, at the termination of that period to find bail for his future good behaviour”.
Ligoniel Petty Sessions – Belfast Morning News 24 September 1874
CRUELTY TO A HORSE – A young lad named Patrick Hill was summoned by Sub-Constable Barkley for being guilty of cruelty to a horse. The sub-constable said the defendant was working the horse in Ballysillan. The animal was found to be suffering from five sores. The report noted that “the defendant was a poor boy”. He was fined бs and costs.
DRUNK BY THE WAYSIDE – Constable James M’Donnell brought Philip Magee to court, charged with drunkenness. Constable M’Donnell stated that he found the defendant lying drunk on the Springfield Road. The prisoner resisted the arrest “and gave a great deal of trouble“. The guilty verdict resulted in Magee being fined 6s and costs.
A ‘NOVEL’ COURT APPLICATION – Mr. Harper, appearing on behalf of his client, Thomas Stephenson, stated he was there to contest a notice “served under the Grand Jury Act” requesting the Ligoniel Petty Sessions to authorise a man called Thomas Orr to enter his clients land ‘and to take away a portion of the same. Orr confirmed that he intended to take sods from Stephenson’s land for a footpath in the Ballydownfine townland.
On his clients behalf, Mr Harper said that he did not believe that any Act of Parliament would support this action.
When questioned on the purpose of pursuing thIs action, Mr Orr stated that he wanted to put both stones and sods on the road – the materials to be obtained from Mr Stephenson’s fields. He had not planned to bring the action before the court but Mr Stephenson had refused any suggestion of arbitration.
Justice of the Peace, Mr. W. T. B Lyons Esq. asked Mr Orr to show “an Act of Parliament empowering the magistrates to give you liberty to take the sods off the man’s land. I never heard of such a thing as “scrawing” a man’s land in my life”. Mr. Harper agreed that he could see no such authority in the Act of Parliament and that his client, Mr Stephenson, was not obliged to allow access to his lands for the purpose described.
Thomas Orr said he was bound by specification to put those sods on the road noting that he had seen people stripping half an acre in the lower part of the county for making fences and taking gravel. Removing sods and stones from Mr Stephenson’s land was “all the same“.
Justice of the Peace Lyons disagreed, stating that Orr had no right to take “scraws” under the law even though the taking of gravel was permitted. Given that gravel was not the intended target, the application was refused.
Correspondence / Comments/ Editorials
The role of women in life and occupation was a recurring topic in news reporting of the day as seen in previous months. Continuing the theme, there was new advice on the appropriate steps to become a good wife…
Woman’s Natural Occupation – Belfast Morning News 1st September 1874
On the 1st September 1874, the Belfast Morning News published a comment/ editorial originally published in the Pall Mall Gazette suggesting that the today’s woman “is too much engaged at the present moment in studying political economy to give much time or attention to domestic economy”.
On the subject of ‘domestic economy’, It was suggested that women could take an interest in some remarks on the subject made by Mr. Sewell, the Inspector of Schools, in his latest report.
Guiding the house, which is one-half of woman’s natural occupation, cannot be learned to any very useful extent, any more than shoemaking, from precept only. But where this subject ranks with the other subjects of instruction in a school, it presses on a girl’s attention the most useful and honourable occupation of her sex.
Girls yield much sooner than boys to the refining influences of education; but this refinement has a tendency to develop their softer rather than their more useful qualities. To dress with taste, to read novels and poetry, to be A milliner’s apprentice till she marries and mismanages her house
Mr Sewell notes, with regret, that this is the fate of many well- educated girls in our primary schools…
If domestic service cannot be escaped, it is undertaken as a sad necessity, and its duties discharged with wearisome carelessness and inefficiency. Marriage puts these girls very early in life in possession of homes of their own. Thrift, laborious thrift, industry, intelligence, and thoroughness in house affairs, are no mean qualities in any woman – they are indispensable in the wives of working men, if they are to have well-ordered homes.
Mr. Sewell, the Inspector of Schools, 1874
Mr Sewell suggests that lessons in domestic economy may correct “the tendency to laziness” or “at least serve to bring the child of working parents face to face with the realities of her station in life, and accustom her to the idea of honestly working for her living“.
The Umbrella – Londonderry Journal 11 September 1874
On the 11th September 1874 we were treated to a virtual ode to the humble umbrella (and an inspired observation on honesty) attributed to ‘Scribner’s for September‘.
As civilisation becomes more and more refined, the hopes of those who seek after a sign by which a gentleman can be infallibly distinguished, settle with increasing unanimity about the umbrella.
Really, if we look at it, there is no other movable article of what we may call man’s vestatory furniture (we invent this word to cover finger-rings, eye-glasses, cane, sleeve-buttons, knives, pencils, &c., which, of course, are not clothing) that is so universal an adjunct to the modern human being as an umbrella.
Scribner’s for September, 1874
The author notes that everyone must have an umbrella whether they are rich or poor, high or low, learned or unlearned, lay or cleric, good or bad as umbrellas are made in every style and shape, and of all degrees of costliness to meet the craving of humanity at large.
The author warns of the consequent temptation of this universal need – “The temptation to appropriate, annex, convey, or, to put it bluntly, to steal, umbrellas is one from which no son of Adam is exempt”.
“A man may be punctilious about returning pennies; he may walk five miles to return a borrowed book, or he may never be known to ask for a postage-stamp without paying for it on the spot- and yet he may not be able to resist taking a better umbrella than his own from the rack by mistake, and he may be always forgetting to return the very stylish one he borrowed from a confiding friend on a rainy evening”.
Scribner’s for September, 1874
It is suggested that “the umbrella is an unfailing sensitive-paper to detect the touch of a dishonest hand”.
He concludes…
If Diogenes had known all that we know in our day, he would not have wasted his time tramping about Athens with a lantern to find an honest man. He would have rolled himself up comfortably in his big earthen wine-jar, with his head on one of his dogs, and gone to sleep, leaving his green cotton umbrella leaning up against the outside of his tub.
Scribner’s for September, 1874
Sample Advertisements / Classifieds
Other News
A Fight in a Kitchen – Belfast Morning News 15th September 1874
The Belfast Morning News, among others, reported on a case appearing before the Westminster Police Court where Annie Williamson, a cook, was charged with assaulting Sarah Tidy, her fellow-servant, at 141 Denbigh Street, Pimlico.
Ms. Tidy, “whose head, it is stated, was very badly cut“, said that on Thursday afternoon she wished to make some tea for a lady who was ill in bed, but the prisoner would not allow her to get the water, and knocked her cap off”.
Ignoring the provocation, Ms. Tidy took up a kettle, but the cook snatched it from her and put it in the sink. When she went to recover it, the prisoner put her new cap on the fire, and put a saucepan on it.
Tidy stated that as she tried to remove the saucepan in order to rescue her cap she called the cook “a bad woman”. At this, “the prisoner then picked up a broken plate and struck her across the temple with it” before striking her a second time, on the wrist. It was stated that “The prisoner then fastened her in the room, but she escaped and went for a policeman“.
The prisoner, Annie Williamson, claimed to the contrary that her actions were done in self- defence – stating that the “not at all friendly” Ms. Tidy had tried to throw boiling water over her.
Ms. Tidy denied these statements, adding that the cook “had quarrelled with everybody during the three weeks she had been in the house“.
A policeman who took the cook into custody stated that Williamson said it was all the fault of the Ms. Tidy for “nagging” at her. He added that there were no witnesses at the scene but the mistress said she heard the servants quarrelling. The wound on Ms. Tidy’s head was a deep one, and the surgeon said that had it not been attended to in good time the consequences might have been serious.
Annie Williamson, the accused, was remanded in custody pending the attendance and assessment by a doctor.
A Romantic Lunatic – Belfast Morning News – 15th September 1874
On 15th September the Belfast Morning News carried a story reported initially in ‘Le Droit ‘– a Canadian French-language newspaper, published in Gatineau, Quebec.
Le Droit relates that a man has just died in the Bicêtre Asylum “whose lunacy had a very singular origin“.
The man, Justin, exhibited waxwork figures at Montrouge – his gallery consisting of likenesses of ‘contemporary celebrities and great criminals‘.
On a pedestal in the centre was the figure of a young girl remarkable for her graceful figure and perfect features, her hair falling in long curls over her naked shoulders.
Justin had named her Eliza, and was so struck by her beauty that he passed hours in contemplating. her. She seemed to speak to him, and her blue eyes, with their long eyelashes, seemed to respond to his passion.
Caught up in this attraction, Justin began to neglect his business producing no new works to draw people to the gallery. Even as poverty approached he paid no mind. However, Justin was married!
Irritated at the serious, indeed deteriorating circumstances his wife destroyed the wax figure. On seeing the fragments, Justin was furious and, seizing a broomstick, he attacked his wife. It was suggested that he would have killed her if not for the intervention of neighbours who heard her cries.
On the basis that Justin had lost his mind and needed to be secured for the safety of his wife (and others) Justin was sent to Bicêtre Asylum where he lived each day for five years “under the charm of Eliza, whose image seemed always before him”.
Kissing in Church – Impartial Reporter 10th September 1874
The Impartial Reporter notes that a Columbia clergyman, while preaching a sermon, noticed a man and woman under the gallery in the act of kissing each other behind a hymn-book. Though many would have been angered, he remained calm.
He beamed mildly at the offenders over his spectacles and, when the young man kissed her the 15th time, he merely broke his sermon short and “offered a fervent prayer on behalf of the young man in the pink necktie and the maiden in the blue bonnet and grey shawl, who were profaning the sanctuary by kissing one another in pew 78“. The congregation replied ‘Amen.’
Its noted that “the young woman pulled her veil down, and the man sat there and swore softly to himself. He does not go to church now as much as he did”.
The Wild Man – Impartial Reporter 3rd September 1874
The Impartial Reporter relates an intriguing tale reported originally in the Oregon Journal claiming that “an interesting and mysterious being has lately made his appearance in Ogle County, Illinois, in the United States”.
The Oregon Register reports a tendency for him to frequent the township of Nashua. Naturally this had reduced Nashua “to a state of the most painful anxiety and alarm”.
This ‘wild man’ haunts the forest growths of the neighbourhood. and only emerges at sunset. His face is covered with a paste-board mask, with lions painted on the cheeks. His dress is composed of cloth, stripped yellow and white, and is painfully short, extending only just below his hips.
Oregon Register
The ‘wild man’ was first observed approaching the railway track near the Honey Creek station house. While the station master was “gazing at him in mute horror the wild man made a dash at a carpet and carried it off, it is presumed for the purposes of personal adornment”.
The wild man is reported to have long grey hair which covers his shoulders and he “walks on all fours, groaning and growling like a bear”.
A few nights ago “he was chased by an organised party on horseback, when he made the most astonishing leaps over fences and completely baffled his pursuers”.
The hunt for the wild man goes on …
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE NEWS
Click here for replies to the questions most often asked about the newspaper stories…
- Newspapers in the 1870s did not have headline cover news as is common today. Instead the cover and several inside pages would be devoted to Classified Ads. The papers often had only 6-8 pages.
- Much of the published ‘News’ centred on politicians speeches in Parliament or in local constituencies – these were often reproduced in full. We generally ignore these as politicians speeches then were just as dull as their speeches today and life’s too short. We may highlight points made in the event that they say anything interesting.
- We cannot read the months content of every newspaper of the day. We try to vary the papers read each month to cover Belfast and other areas.
- We are sometimes asked about the use of AI images on these posts. The simple fact is that there were no photos/ images published in the papers of the time but modern search engines expect posts to contain at least one image if the article is to rank well in search results. We carried out a previous poll of our readers on the inclusion of AI images and found that 80% prefer some images rather than a page of solid text.
- Court cases of the time were dominated by simple drunk & disorderly, domestic violence, theft and street fighting/ rioting cases. We generally ignore these and look for stories with a bit more interest/ character.
- Foreign news was generally covered in brief paragraphs or even single sentences giving little context to the story. We rarely have the time to investigate these stories in more detail but will expand on a story occasionally where we feel it may be of interest.
- The papers, and presumably the readers, were fascinated by foreign ‘stories’ of disasters, the supernatural, horror stories and somewhat dubious tales (true or not). We include some of these stories each month as a representation of public curiosity at the time of life in foreign lands.
Previous Monthly News
What was being reported in the Belfast newspapers 150 years ago? Read some of the news & stories here…
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