100 YEARS AGO: COMICAL SCENES AT SALFORD MAGISTRATES COURT AS DRUNKEN MAN DEFENDS HIMSELF

The pages of the Salford City Reporter newspaper from 1922 especially the Magistrates Court page is usually full of tales regarding drunken men, fights, thefts, drunken women, pick pockets, illegal gambling etc, so it was a pleasure to find this story, concerning a Mr Arthur Paine who lived at Park Place, which it has to be said had a reputation for cheap lodging houses, drunks and general misbehaviour.

Arthur appeared at the Magistrates Court in June 1922 charged with being drunk and disorderly in Park Place and when asked if this was true, he replied in loud tones, "Certainly not!"

Police Constable Crane told the Court that he visited the home of the accused just before midnight following a complaint made by the accused man's wife at Cross Lane police station, when he got there he saw Arthur who was drunk arguing with his wife and son and was told to behave.

Some thirty minutes later, Arthur turned up at Cross Lane police station and was abusive to the Sergeant who was in charge, who told him to go to bed and sleep it off, Arthur went back to his home but couldn't resist arguing with P.C. Crane yet again, who took him into custody.

Arthur then took the stand and told the Court,

"I never knew a man who was was drunk, not go to sleep and I have been talking with another man in my cell all night. I asked the Sergeant if I could see a Doctor, I am in a Court of Justice and I expect justice, when people live in the environment of Park Place they get into a certain groove, they become uncontrollable.

"I had, had a little controversy with my wife and she told me to clear off, and so I told her to clear off, my son then took his mother to the police station to make a complaint against me, when the Constable arrived I told him that I had been chastising my son and his mother took his side which annoyed me".

He then gesticulated towards the Stipendiary Magistrate Mr Makin and told him, as if in confidence.

"You know some of the feminine gender are a bit irritable and bad tempered at times, she had worked herself up into one of those passions, on the way back from the police station I saw my wife making her way towards the canal, you know that she had an accident and that might have upset her, I told the Constable that she may have gone to the canal to drown herself, he grabbed my arm and dragged me to the police station and if that isn't the stone cold truth may I drop down dead.

"I don't suppose you want an Inquest here anyway but I have told the absolute truth and this is nothing but a planned job, there are dozens of  officers in this locality out to get me"

Constable Frame addressed the Court  and asked Arthur if he had been drinking and was told that he had only had a drop of whisky as he suffered from neurasthenia. also he had taken bromide of potassium which gave him depression.

The man who shared a cell with Arthur at the police station said that in his opinion that he was not sober, which was met with indignation by Arthur who called him a liar and then declared.

" I wasn't drunk they don't make stuff that would make me drunk"

Not certain that this helped his defence as the Magistrate fined him twelve shillings and sixpence or eleven days in prison.

I can remember Park Place as a boy growing up in that area of Cross Lane and it had a dodgy reputation even then, early photos show the houses to be large Georgian homes which over the years deteriorated and were converted into rooms to let.

Photo: Park Place in the 1950s.