100 YEARS AGO: PENDLETON WOMAN IN TROUBLE WITH THE POLICE

I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said, that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes, I would like to add another to that statement.

I can virtually guarantee that if you go to someone's house for what ever reason, you will see a pint pot or a glass that has been nicked from a pub, c'mon admit it, we have all a Stella, Carling, Heineken, Boddingtons or Holts glass lurking in the cupboard...

This story from the pages of the Salford City Reporter, September 1921, tells of what happened to a Mrs Catherine Walker who was found to be in possession of drinking glasses from a local pub, be warned.

She appeared at Salford Magistrates Court charged with stealing (or receiving, well knowing them to have been stolen) five drinking glasses from The Cattle Market Hotel, Cross Lane, Salford and a further charge of being in unlawful possession of 44 more glasses.

Superintendent Clark told the Court that a few days ago from something that came to the knowledge  of Groves and Whitnall brewery who owned the pub and was passed onto him, concerning a number of drinking glasses in a house on West High Street, Salford, a search warrant was applied for and granted.

The next evening, Detectives Coates and MacDonald visited the house and asked Mrs Walker if she had any drinking glasses that didn't belong to her, bearing the name of the Cattle Market Hotel, to which she replied, "No".

One of the Detectives went into the living room and saw two glasses with the Imperial measure stamp on them, on the table, in a nearby locked cupboard was found a further 44 glasses, five of which were stamped, Cattle Market Hotel.

She told them that the five glasses had been in her house for a number of years, and then added that she ran a boarding house which catered for artists performing at the nearby Salford Hippodrome and thought that, "theatricals had bought them in at various times" as for the other glasses they belonged to her.

The manager of the Cattle Market was asked if there was any marks on the five engraved glasses which would indicate if they had been taken within the past two years, he said that in the case of two of them, that particular glass was not made two years ago.

For the defence, Mr A. Gilman Jones said that with regard to the first case there was no evidence of theft, and as a matter of fact Mrs Walker had only been in the Cattle Market pub once during the past, three or four years, and that her husband had died, two years ago.

He then tried to switch the blame onto the Artistes who had stayed at her house who he described as being, "happy go lucky people and travelling on a Sunday they brought food with them including, glasses, knives and forks, and they must have visited the Cattle Market pub and brought them out of the pub and back to her lodging house"  Seems plausible enough to me.

Mrs Walker then told the court that she had seen some of the glasses stamped, Cattle Market Hotel, and it was simply neglect on her part, not to return them, and since her husband had died there had been no new additions to the glasses collection, is she blaming him, now?

The Stipendiary Magistrate ruled that she was guilty of receiving the five stamped glasses and fined her £5 or 28 days in prison, the second charge against her of unlawful possession of the other glasses was dropped.

A strange case to say the least, I wonder who tipped the brewery off about her glasses collection, a disgruntled lodger perhaps? and also was she allowed to keep the remaining other glasses?

So the next time your in Wetherspoons or some such pub, think about Mrs Walker afore slipping a glass into your pocket or bag....