Letitia Horswell ran an eating house (the nineteenth-century equivalent of a café or fast food restaurant) on the Blackfriars Road. At about 9 o’clock on the evening of 16 August 1877 two men (brothers) entered her shop and ordered food.

The men asked for soup and bread, paying 6d each. However when one of the men (a plasterer named Albert Crockford) tasted his oxtail soup he spat it out, declaring it was bad. He told Mrs Horswell that ‘he was a good judge of soup, and demanded his money back’.

Letitia refused his request telling him that it was very good soup and that none of her customers had ever complained about it before. Crockford insisted she reimburse him and threatened to call the police if she continued to refuse to. Mrs Horswell was equally intractable and stood her ground; the soup was good, she ‘sold a great quantity of it’ and he would be getting no refund from her.

At this Crockford rose from his seat, marched over to the front door and shouted for a policeman. Although an officer soon arrived he could not (or would not) do anything. Mrs Horswell had broken no law and was powerless to compel the landlady to reimburse her customer.

Frustrated, Crockwell now seized his bowl of soup and threw it in Letitia’s face. The poor woman was temporarily blinded and her dress was ruined. She was angry, not just at the damage caused to her clothes (valued at 3s) but at ‘the insult she had received’. She took the only course of redress she had available and had the constable arrest Crockford for the assault.

The next day the pair appeared in the Southwark Police court before Mr Benson. He sympathised with Mrs Horswell and told the defendant that it was ‘rather expensive for [her] to have a dress spoiled by every dissatisfied customer’.

In his defence Crockford said he had not intended to throw the soup at Mrs Horswell but out into the street, he was very sorry for the harm and damage done. He had been drinking with his brother he explained, before they decided to get some sustenance.

Mr Benson suggested it might have been better ‘had they commenced with the soup and ended with the beer’, as drinking on an empty stomach was never a good idea. He advised Crockford to compensate Mrs Horswell for the damage and insult or he would be forced to fine him ‘heavily’. After a brief conversation the two parties agreed an undisclosed fee and both went their separate ways. This was an example of the magistrate helping smooth social relations by brokering a deal between the two combatants.

[from The Illustrated Police News etc, Saturday, August 18, 1877]