Tag: argument

The booze does the talking as a business transaction ends in injury

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Accidents do happen but they can still result in court cases, especially if injury is involved. This was the case with Thomas Clossy, a traveller who wound up in bed with a London prostitute one night in late December 1858.

Clossy had been drinking with a woman he’d met in the City Road. Earlier Fanny Herd (described in court as a ‘handsome and well-dressed female of the “unfortunate” class’) had ‘entertained him at her rooms on Westmorland Road. Now the pair were in the Eagle Tavern sipping glasses of ‘port wine-negus’ (which is port mixed with orange or lemon, species and hot water).

At her rooms Clossy had enjoyed a simple meal and a bottle of stout (along with the other ‘entertainment’) but he seemed reluctant to pay her for that. The pair argued and Fanny threw the contents of her glass on the floor, with some of it going over the traveller’s clothes. Clossy retaliated and hurled his drink at her, losing his grip of the glass in the process. The vessel broke as it hit the woman on the head and she was rushed off to be treated in hospital.

Appearing in court at Worship Street Clossy was sorry for what he’d done; it was an accident and probably the result of how he’d been holding the glass (by its base, presumably because it was hot). It took several days before Fanny was able to attend court but when she did she seemed content to accept the man’s apology so long as it was accompanied by a suitable compensation. The pair left the court together after Clossy agreed to pay whatever he owed her along with something extra by way of compensation for the injury he’d caused.

[from The Morning Post, Friday, 7 January, 1859]

An avoidable tragedy at Christmas

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James Arthur and Timothy Howard worked together at a charcoal factory in New Gravel Lane, Shadwell. They were workmates and drinking buddies but not close friends. That said, they rarely quarreled and both were hard workers who were well spoken of by their employer.

They were employed to work on a platform which stood 18 feet above the factory floor and on Christmas Eve 1868 both were working there even though it was late in the evening. Perhaps with their minds on how they would celebrate Christmas and the Boxing Day holiday they started to talk about beer and how much they might drink. A ‘chaffing match’ ensued as each man boasted about the amount of drink he could get on credit (a measure of their financial worth of sorts) and this escalated into a row.

Howard taunted Arthur, suggesting that in the past he’d used a woman poorly and run up a debt on her behalf before leaving her. What had began as friendly ‘banter’ quickly descended into open hostility and Arthur looked dagger at his mate. He reached for a shovel and threatened Howard with it.

Realising he’d gone too far Howard tried to calm things and told his workmate to put the makeshift weapon down. When Arthur declined the two came to blows and the pair swore at each other. Howard struck him once or twice without return and Arthur staggered backwards. He missed his footing, slipped, and tumbled over the edge of the platform, plummeting the 18 feet down to the floor.

Howard clambered down the ladder and ran over to his mate, ‘who was quite dead’, his neck broken.

The foreman arrived on the scene and, seeing what had occurred, called the police. Howard was arrested while the police surgeon examined the deceased. Howard tried to say he’d not hit his friend but there had been at least two witnesses who’d been drawn to the noise the pair had made in their arguing.  Mr Benson (the magistrate at Thames Police court) remanded Howard in custody so that these witnesses could be brought to give their testimony.

At a later hearing Timothy Howard (described as an ‘Irish labourer’) was fully committed to trial for the manslaughter of his work colleague. On the 11 January 1869 he was convicted at the Old Bailey but ‘very strongly’ recommended to mercy by the jury who accepted that it was really a tragic accident, their was no intent on Howard’s part. The judge clearly agreed as he only sent the man to prison for a fortnight, a shorter term than many drunker brawlers would have received at Thames before the magistrates.

[from The Standard, Monday, 28 December, 1868]