Tag: detaining goods

‘She is a most dangerous woman, your Worship, I assure you’. A butcher’s warning at the Guildhall.

Butcher,_late_19th_century

William Brennan made a robust defence of his actions when he appeared before Alderman Lawrence at Guildhall Police court in September 1848. The City of London butcher had been summoned for detaining property belonging to Mrs Low, a ‘tall, good looking, elderly woman’ who had lived at a house in Lamb’s Passage.

Mrs Low stated for the record that eleven weeks previously she had left London to work in the country. Having been living with Brennan she told the court that he had asked her to leave behind several items of her property, including a table and chairs and a number of boxes. The butcher would be able to use them but not lend or rent them to anyone else. When she came back she took away some of her things but he refused to allow her all of them, hence the summons. The relationship between Mrs Low and the butcher was confusing and led to some amusement in the Guildhall.

Brennan denied withholding Mrs Low’s property but said she had come to lodge with him 15 months ago. She was a widow but had been ‘courting a bit’ before she took up her position outside of the capital.  He said she’d left some things in his shed and sold the rest; he denied unlawfully retaining anything.

Alderman Lawrence questioned the butcher:

‘how did you become acquainted with her, and what sweethearting took place between you?’

Brennan was horrified.

‘Sweethearting with me, your worship! No, no not so bad as that , although I had enough of her [which prompted laughter in court]. I have a delicate little wife of my own, and this ere woman has frightened her out of her wits [more laughter].’

He continued:

‘Why, this woman lodged with me, and I couldn’t get quit of her; she would stop in my house whether I would go or no, and so to get quit of her I had to leave the house. She stole my saw, my chopper and other things, and fixed herself in my house like a post’.

He again denied holding on to her property and said that in all the time she’d stayed with him and his wife she’d ‘never paid a farthing’ in rent. ‘She is a most dangerous woman, I assure your Worship’.

The gathered audience in court was probably in fits by now, delighting in Brennan’s discomfort as he revealed that he – a butcher – had been bested by a supposedly weaker older woman. The alderman couldn’t pick a winner here however and sent one of the court’s officers to investigate who owned what and whether there was any truth in the accusation leveled against the city butcher. One imagines that either way Brennan was not going to live this down anytime soon.

[from The Morning Chronicle, Thursday, September 14, 1848]

The curious (and confusing) case of the dog in the Shepherd’s Bush pub

woman-with-terrier-magnet-0057-428x428

In January 1876 George Leeds paid Thomas Stevens £10 for a white fox terrier. He named the dog ‘Norman’ and asked no questions about its pedigree, or how Stevens had come by it.

In fact Stevens had acquired the dog by chance, or rather the dog had acquired him. Stevens had been in the Swakeley Hotel, a pub on Goldhawk Road at Shepherd’s Bush, when he noticed a dog running around the place. It followed him home and he had kept it for several weeks, renaming it ‘Tiger’,  before selling it to Mr Leeds. In the meantime he said he notified the police that he had found a missing dog, but nothing had come of it.

However, the dog was not Stevens’ to sell, it already had an owner, a Mr Alfred Larmuth. Alfred Larmuth had been looking for his pet since he had lost it, in October 1875. Larmuth and the dog, who he called ‘Prince’, had been in the Swakeley when the dog had disappeared. He had called out for it but couldn’t find it.

Presumably his search was eventually successful because, perhaps with the help of the police, he had tracked down his dog (or seen it with Leeds in the street) and he took out a summons to bring it (and George Leeds) to court.

The magistrate in the Hammersmith Police Court now had a complicated issue of ownership to adjudicate on. George Leeds was summoned for ‘detaining’ Larmuth’s dog. Thomas Stevens appeared to give evidence, but was not charged with theft. Just whom did the dog belong to, and was it the same dog anyway?

While the magistrate decided ‘Prince’, ‘Tiger’, or ‘Norman’, sat quietly in court waiting to find out who would be taking him home. It was quickly decided that regardless of the different names it had bene given, it was the same terrier Mt Larmuth had lost back in October.

In the end the magistrate, Mr Ingham, determined that no crime had been committed but Alfred Larmuth was not the legal owner. If he had bought ‘Prince’ in Leadenhall Market he would have ‘had an indefeasible right to it’, but instead he had bought it privately, which conferred no legal protection.

Nor was Stevens the owner; after all he had just found ‘Tiger’ in a pub. Which left Leeds in possession. The magistrate did say that the complainant (Larmuth) had a right to ask Stevens for the £10 (since the dog was not his, but Larmuth’s, to sell).

Confused? Me too!

All that is clear here is that the dog that was once Prince, then Tiger was to spend (hopefully) its remaining days as Norman, and it went home with George Leeds, who had the summons against him dismissed.

[from The Morning Post, Thursday, June 01, 1876]