100 years ago
What was a householder to do when fowls marauded his potato patch? According to a decision of Scarborough magistrates, he must not, as the defendant put it, “have a go” at them with a catapult.

Apparently, though the fowl may be committing any amount of damage nothing stronger than “moral suasion” must be used.

In fact, the aggrieved one must only “shoo” it off the premises. Our columnist added that it was to be hoped that the printer would set “shoo” correctly, and not issue it as “shoe” in case some reader might interpret it to mean that he was to “boot it” out of the garden.

In such a case we might have been deemed guilty of incitement to violence and behaving in a “foul” manner.


50 years ago
York had the quickest rent collection of any County Borough in England. This was revealed by the city treasurer, Mr Bernard Littlefair, in a talk about the work of his department at the annual meeting of the York Catholic Women’s League.

The York rent collectors averaged about 72 seconds a house, or 90 seconds a house if the time was calculated from leaving and returning to the office. And this was despite the fact that many of the houses had front gardens and many tenants lived on first or second floors.

York people were very good rent payers, said Mr Littlefair, and they were also good payers of rates. At the end of the previous year only £2,000 in rates was not collected out of a total of £1¾m.


25 years ago
Eyebrows were raised outside York Theatre Royal as passers-by looked up to see a tent on the foyer roof.

But the occupants, three members of the 1st Clifton Venture Sea Scouts, were undaunted by the inevitable comments their presence raised.

The trio were spending the night in the tent at the weekend as a challenge to mark the 21st birthday of venture scouting in Britain. “It’s been great fun but very cold,” said Kathryn Hodgson, aged 16, of Haxby.

“We have had a few remarks from drunks and we were woken up at half-past two by three people who wouldn’t go away until we opened the door of the tent. But it’s gone well,” she added.

This was just one of nine challenges the Scout commissioners had set the youngsters. Others throughout the year included discussing under-age drinking and climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest’s height. The aim behind the challenges was to publicise venture scouting.