Tag: champagne

‘I suppose you want something?’When a failure to tip leads to violence

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The Alhambra Theatre of Variety, Leicester Square c.1874

Today’s blog concerns the problematic area of tipping in a restaurant or bar. Should you always do it? How much should you leave? What happens if you don’t?

John Bartholomew and his friend Lenning had come up to London from Acton where they each farmed land. Both had money and a night out at the Alhambra Music Hall was probably part of a business trip to the capital to sell, or make arrangement to sell, their produce.

Having enjoyed some of the performance the two men decided to visit the bar and ordered drinks. They called over a waiter who brought them brandy and lemonade. Bartholomew put down a half-crown and the waiter, Thomas Lipman, left 6d in change.

‘I suppose you want something?’ Bartholomew asked the waiter, meaning a tip.

Lipman thanked him and picked up the coin but the farmer stopped him, making a grab for the money.

‘Then you wont get it’, he said.

Lipman was understandably annoyed and muttered something along the lines of of ‘how do you expect me to live?’ At this point Bartholomew pulled a large roll of banknotes from his pocket and made a very public display of counting them, showing off his wealth in front of his friend and the waiter .

It was crass in the extreme and it was also dangerous. The music hall attracted all sorts of London lowlife and the farmer was risking being identified as someone worth robbing, and Lipman said so. Bartholomew was not bothered and rejected the warning; he declared he’d kill anyone who tried. The waiter told him he was fool to say so and at this the farmer lost his temper completely and punched Thomas in the face, blackening his eye.

This led to Bartholomew’s arrest and his appearance at Marlborough Street Police court the following day. Mr Tyrwhitt was presiding and he listened while first Lipman and then Bartholomew gave alternate descriptions of what had happened the previous night.

Bartholomew claimed that Lipman had insulted him, calling him a fool, snatching the sixpence from him, and dismissing the roll of money he produced as counterfeit. Mr Tyrwhitt commented that the last was a quite ‘natural remark’ to make as ‘no one would suppose that anybody would pull out genuine ones in such a place’. The famer’s companion suggested then that Lipman had dismissed them both as not worthy of his attention and even called over another waiter to serve them champagne at his expense since they clearly had no real money of his own.

This seems highly unlikely and evidence of two visitors to the capital being unsure of how to behave in it. Mr Tyrwhitt fined John Bartholomew the relatively small sum of 5s and sent them off to lick their wounds. Lipman returned to Alhambra to renew his acquaintance with the music hall’s often drunken and demanding clientele.

Waiting staff wages vary considerably but they still rely on tips to supplement what a fairly basic wages.  The minimum wage has made a difference but you wont get rich working in bars and restaurants in the capital today. The average annual salary is between £18,500-26,500 and given that the average cost of renting a flat is about £750-£1000 a month you can see that their money won’t go very far. So yes, always tip if you can and, if the service is particularly good, give a little more.

The Alhambra Theatre of Variety on Leicester Square was a popular destination for lovers of entertainment. There one could listen to music and opera, watch ballet, or take in one of the ‘patriotic demonstrations’ of Britain’s imperial power. Today the Odeon cinema stands on the site of the music hall, and Leicester Square remains a magnet for tourists visiting the capital. I certainly wouldn’t flash my money about in public there at 11 o’clock at night today.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, September 29, 1869]

Of billiards, bribery and champagne

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Sergeant Wills and his fellow police officer had arrived at the Hopples pub in King Street, Hammersmith at a quarter past one in the morning on the 16 November 1876. The public house should have been quiet, all the drinkers gone, and the place closed up, but the police were working on information that an after hours session was underway.

Determined to break it up the two men entered the premises and, sure enough, they found a number of people sat around the landlord’s parlour table. The landlord was a Mr Ward and he explained that an important billiards match had been played earlier and that the four men that remained were his guests, and would be ‘leaving directly’.

William Cook was famous in the 1800s. He had won the World Championship many times, taking his first victory in 1870 and dominating the sport until mid century when he was overtaken by John Roberts (himself the son of another professional billiards player). The game (which today is much less well known that snooker or pool) was popular in the nineteenth century and drew an audience of spectators, including on at least one occasion members of the royal family.

Presumably Mr Ward hoped that Sergeant Wills would be impressed that such an illustrious celebrity had been in his establishment and that it would justify the late night drinking session. But the police weren’t in the mood to be impressed and while the landlord pleaded his case the other officer took down the names of all those present so they could issued with summons to appear in the Hammersmith Police court.

Ward’s last attempt was also his worst. He leaned close and whispered in the police sergeant’s ear:

‘You had better have a bottle of champagne, and say no more about it’.

That was an attempt at bribery and Wills wasn’t about to let that pass.

‘No thank you, I want the names and addresses of the gentlemen and I shall report the case’.

And so he did.

On Saturday 2 December Ward and the four men that had been discovered in his parlour all appeared at Hammersmith in front of Mr Paget the sitting magistrate. The policeman set out his case and the landlord was defended by his solicitor, a Mr Child. The defense was that the pub was shut up and no drinks were being sold; the men were simply there after hours as guests.

Mr Paget accepted this and so he dismissed the first summons, that of running the house out of hours. As that prosecution had failed it followed that those against the four gentlemen would also be dismissed which just left the matter of attempting to bribe an officer of the law.

The magistrate was reluctant to punish the landlord; he kept a respectable house and Paget clearly felt the police had overstepped themselves. There was nothing wrong in a man sharing a few drinks with his friends so long as he wasn’t trading at the same time. It was understandable that the men wished to finish the evening discussing the merits of the two players they had just watched compete.

So he imposed a fine of £5 with costs (for the summons) of 5s 6d but said he would not record the conviction, so it would not affect Ward’s attempt to renew his license in future. It was a slap down for the police and a justification of sorts for Mr Ward. Importantly, the four ‘gentlemen’ had their names kept our of the papers as well.

[from Reynolds’s Newspaper, Sunday, December 3, 1876]

The perils of drinking with strangers

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William Kirbyshire, of Aswell in Hertfordshire, had come down to London to get married. As he strolled along Regent Street a man stopped him and asked the way to Leicester Square. William apologised and he too was a stranger in the capital and regretted he was unable to help. The man thanked him and walked away. A few minutes later William decided it was time for some refreshment and he entered the next public house he came to.

As he propped up the bar nursing his drink he noticed the man that had asked him for directions chatting to two others. One of them came over and introduced himself as William Hook. Hook asked William if he ‘knew of any place of amusement where the evening could be passed pleasantly’. William mentioned a couple of places and Hook suggested they go there together, but the visitor to London declined.

Hook was seemingly persistent in making friends however and offered to treat him to a bottle of champagne, an offer that was soon lowered to beer. As the pair were joined by Hook’s companions, Peter Stevens and William Smith, the drink began to flow and very quickly the conversation turned to boasts of strength.

Hook declared that he could throw a ‘certain weight 30 yards’ and was prepared to put money on it. It took some persuasion but eventually William agreed to meet Hook and the others at a different pub later that day. When he arrived the three men were already there, and Hook bought them a round. They soon moved on to a third pub – this was turning into what we might call a ‘pub crawl’ – and Hook was in effervescent mood.

He stated loudly that he ‘thought nothing of spending £20 on a lark, as he could have £100 whenever he wanted it’.

The impression he was giving was a wealthy young man who had deep pockets. He was also luring the unwary Kirbyshire in however, and Smith and Stevens soon played their part in this.

As William and his new found chums began to toss coins (a simple game of chance) Smith leaned over and whispered to him that since Hook ‘had plenty of money, he might as well have some of it as anybody else’. William was ready to play and bet and won a shilling from Hook straight away. The others now persuaded him to carry on and managed to get him to lay a huge bet of £10 (about £500 today). Reluctant at first he was only convinced when he saw Stevens put down 5 sovereigns.

Hook won the toss and paid up but William he felt he’d been cheated. He claimed that a ‘plant had been played on him’ by the men and demanded his money back. When they gave him back a few sovereigns but refused to hand over the rest he called a policeman and had them arrested. The next day the four men all appeared before the magistrate at Clerkenwell Police court.

Mr Beadon, the justice, was unsympathetic. As far as he was concerned while the trio of gamblers were ‘known bad characters’ in the area and this was clearly a scam, they hadn’t actually broken the law. Instead William was simply a dupe and he had ‘acted in a very foolish manner in drinking and betting with strangers’. Hook, Smith and Stevens were discharged while William Kirbyshire slunk away to lick his wounds and put the whole thing down to experience.

London was a dangerous place for the unwary. It remains so today and visitors were constantly being warned to keep a close eye on their possessions in the crowded streets and not to take strangers at face value. One wonders what William’s future wife thought of the whole affair, if he even chose to tell her.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, March 11, 1857]

A waiter’s cheeky swig lands him him in court

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The Strand, London (late 1800s)

In 1881 Thomas Carr (originally from Norfolk) owned and ran the King’s Head public house at 265 The Strand.* The hostelry was close to where the new Royal Courts of Justice was nearing completion (it opened in 1882) and on one of London’s busiest thoroughfares (as the illustration above suggests). In late November Mr Carr employed a waiter to work in the pub serving what would seem to be quite high class customers.

William Whitlock had been working at the King’s Head for just three weeks when he seriously blotted his copybook. He was accused of stealing a bottle of champagne by Mr Carr’s son, and prosecuted at the Bow Street Police court in front of the sitting magistrate, Mr Flowers.

Mr Carr junior said he had seen the waiter carrying a bottle of champagne into the pantry and so followed him in. Once inside he challenged him and Whitlock told him that a gentlemen had left some wine in the bottle after he’d finished with it and he was taking it as ‘his perquisites’.

Carr explained that ‘in obtaining wine for customers it is the practice to give a bono check [a blank cheque in other words], and mby these means the prisoner [Whitlock] obtained the bottle of champagne on the representation that it was for a customer’.

Now, whether he intended to take the whole bottle or just finish the dregs is not made clear. Carr’s son said he saw Whitlock pouring water into the bottle – to dilute the wine or rinse it out having swigged the last half glass? Either way he had ‘no right to any wine’ while he was working and so shouldn’t have acted as he did. But it hardly seems to be the crime of the century.

Nevertheless the magistrate was faulty adamant that a crime (theft) had been committed. He found the waiter guilty and sentenced him to one month’s imprisonment. I doubt Mr Carr expected this outcome nor , it seems, did he welcome it. His solicitor approached the bench and pleaded for Whitlock’s freedom. Mr Flowers then agreed to substitute a 30s fine for the prison term. This was still a hefty punishment for a low paid worker – 30s in 1881 represents about £200 in spending power today – but at least it kept him out of gaol at Christmas.

[from The Illustrated Police News etc, Saturday, December 17, 1881]

*The pub has long gone and now it is a smart office block owned by a Japanese telecom company.

Police corruption in the 1840s: H Division in the dock at Lambeth

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In late April 1842 four police constables appeared at Lambeth Police Court as defendants charged with pilfering from the London Docks. John Broughton, Robert Bird, Joseph Linscott and Thomas Trotman stood accused of stealing brandy and wine whilst they were supposed to have been on duty. The four men were represented by a solicitor, a Mr Pelham and the case was heard before Mr Henry, the Lambeth magistrate.

The case was brought by William Pierse, Police Superintendent at H Division (later to be the home of the BBC’s Ripper Street) , and he stated that he received information that the men had been taking home ‘quantities of wine and brandy’ when they had finished their shifts at the docks. Acting on this tip off he visited the home of Broughton (199 H) at 12 William Street, St George-in-the-East.

Pierse challenged the policeman with the information he had and Broughton denied all knowledge. The superintendent asked if he had any objections to a search of his property and Broughton said he neither had any objection nor any alcohol in the house. However, as soon as the senior officer began to open some of his cupboards  PC Broughton quickly produced  a bottle of brandy, claiming it was a gift from a ship’s mate aboard The Ocean.

If this was meant to stop there search then it failed and the brandy was quickly joined by ‘a champagne bottle and two smaller bottles, and a small earthenware bottle of brandy’. He tried to pass these off as presents, before he was cautioned and confessed to having taken them from the docks.

Pelham cross examined the superintendent but didn’t challenge his evidence, merely extracting a statement that up until then Broughton had held a good character in the force, and had served at the docks for the last 12 months. Superintendent Pierse then offered very similar evidence against each of the other officers in the dock.

So, we now had a policeman who, by his own confession, was guilty (at best) of a breach of trust and, at worst, of outright theft. The question now came of proving that he (and the other officers) had deliberately stolen it from the dockyards.

The court called in a Mr Clements who worked for the Dock Company as a ‘confidential constable’. This suggests that he was private security hired to protect the company’s stock. Clements said he was quite happy to let the police investigation take it course but he offered his own thoughts on the thefts.

According to him no brandy or champagne or other wine was left lying around the dock area but there were substantial stocks in the warehouses. So in his view the police must have carried away the alcohol ‘in small quantities’; and this, he added, ‘they had an opportunity of doing, as they always wore their great coats when leaving the dock, and they were never searched’.

Pilfering from the docks was widespread in the 1800s (as it had been in the 1700s, and would be till the docks finally closed in the late 20th century) but it was much easier if you were unlikely to be searched.

Mr Pelham now made a plea for his clients.

‘He expressed a hope that, as they all had wives and families who were solely dependent on them for support, and as their conduct in the present instance would lead to their dismissal from the force, he [i.e. Mr Henry, the justice] would merely fine them’.

That would indeed have been a good result for the men, and much better than ordinary thieves might have expected from the court. In the opinion of Mr Henry this was a very serious crime but he was mindful of the reality that proving that the brandy and wine found at the men’s homes was that taken from the docks would be difficult, if not impossible. For that reason alone, he said, he would not send them before an Old Bailey jury.

He was left with the only option available to send a message that this sort of behaviour was entirely unacceptable. He sent each of them to the house of correction for two months. One can imagine that for four young coppers, that was unlikely to be a pleasant experience. On top of that, they were unemployed and unlikely to find trusted work for some time, if at all.

[from The Morning Chronicle, Wednesday, April 27, 1842]