Tuesday, April 6, 2004

100 years ago: A 14-year-old boy was charged at the York City Police Court with having stolen a pair of slippers from a shop on Bridge Street the previous month. The evidence showed that the defendant gave the shoes to a little boy and told him to take them to Merrimans pawnshop, and asked 2s 6d on them, saying they belonged to his sister.

The younger boy did as he was told, but the pawnbrokers assistant was suspicious and would not lend the money on them. The police were informed, and the defendant was arrested, the shop proprietor testified that they had been her slippers, and that the defendant was formerly her errand boy. He was found guilty, and was ordered to have 12 strokes with the birch rod.

50 years ago: Staff at the North Eastern Region lost property store at the Railway Institute, in Queen Street in York, were busy packing for their next auction sale in Leeds. Hundreds of coats, hats, gloves, umbrellas and library books were neatly stacked, bearing a ticket giving the date and place found, and the name of the finder, where they remained for four months unless they were claimed. After that time, they were sent for sale, with the money going towards the cost of having stored them for that time.

As well as the more usual items left on trains, the items going for auctions also included a pair of wooden spears, a glass eye, spikes worn by people climbing telegraph poles, a bridle, police truncheons, a pair of handcuffs, some dentures, two crutches and a wooden leg and it wasnt the first leg they had sold. The most unusual thing staff could remember being brought in was a skeleton in a box, which was unclaimed and so it too went for auction.

10 years ago: A new report revealing which fish are where in River Ouse was published by Yorkshire Water, who had obtained the results by electronic fishing late the previous summer. According to the survey the biggest fish were to be caught off Acomb Landing as it was a favourite haunt for pike, but at Fulford rods had a better chance of pulling in a perch, while at Moor Monkton the angler would probably hook a roach.

Updated: 08:54 Tuesday, April 06, 2004