John Ridley was standing at the corner of Stainsby Road in Poplar, East London at a quarter past five in the afternoon. Thomas Jackson was walking along East India Dock Road at the same time. Both saw two men stirring pitch in a boiler. A group of small children were playing near a puddle of pitch they’d found and perhaps they were annoying the men.

Suddenly one of the men – a 32 year-old man named Alfred Hunt – emptied the contents of a pail of pitch he was using into the boiler and threw the dregs towards the children. He also aimed a ladle-full of hot pitch at them, but both fell short. He tried again this time he hit a three-year old girl named Ann Harris. When Jackson remonstrated with him he chucked a ladleful in his direction, which soiled his clothes but did no other harm.

The little girl was burned by the hot pitch and was quickly rushed to the Poplar Hospital where her injuries were treated by the house surgeon, Mr Bristoe. She was treated for burns to the hands and face but later released. She’d had a lucky escape and her injuries were ‘slight’ but it must have been a traumatic experience for the poor child.

Hunt was tried before Mr Lushington at Thames Police court but despite what I think we would consider a serious act of mindless violence he was discharged. The girl was fine of course and Mr Jackson may have accepted compensation for the damage to his clothes. Alfred Hunt had had a lucky escape as well it seems.

[from The Morning Post, Monday, September 03, 1888]