John Kelly's Boots

[perrymason]

Hi All,

These witness statements from the Old Bailey website provide a bit of insight into the business of Joseph Jones, Pawnbroker.

August 1880—
JOSEPH JONES, JUN. I am employed by Joseph Jones, of 31, Church Street, Spitalfields, pawnbroker—I produce a signet ring pledged on the 29th June with me by the prisoner, Richard Wood, of 47, Lansdown Road.

March 1884—
JOSEPH JONES. I am a pawnbroker, of 31, Church Street, Spitalfields—I produce a pair of girl's boots pledged on the 17th January by E. Lea for George Smith, 6, Fore Street.

December 1887—
JOSEPH JONES. I am a pawnbroker, of 31, Church Street, Spitalfields—I produce an overcoat pledged with me on 5th December, at 2 p.m., by Kotcher—he was alone—this (produced) is the ticket. (Pawned for 10s. in the name of Charles Smith, 14, Sun Street.) I made the usual inquiries of him as to whether it was his own property, and he said "Yes," but he was short of money.

November 1888—
JOSEPH JONES. I am a pawnbroker at 31, Church Street, Spitalfields—I produce a shawl pawned with me on 23rd October, it was wrapped in this piece of table-cloth—this is the duplicate—I do not recognise the girl—she gave the name of Ann Seed, 1, vine Court.

February 1889
JOSEPH JONES. I am a pawnbroker, of 31, Church Street, Spitalfields—on 7th January, at 8.15 a.m., the prisoner brought me these boots to pawn, but being odd ones I refused them.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

I wonder about the one I marked bold above, Ms Seed of Vine, did it pique your curiosity at all? Pawning a shawl with winter almost at the door must have been very desperate.

All the best.

[Dave O]

Hi Simon,

That is some great information about pawntickets you've posted, best that I have seen--many thanks for putting that up. I am particularly interested in what that suggests about the Burrell ticket for the shirt as a possible motivation for Kate's staying out after being released from jail (speculation, I know). I'm not sure what the source is for a dating of August 31, but if it's correct, we would be looking at a Sept 30/Oct 1 deadline for redemption?

If it is of interest, here is an article I found awhile back that was written by Sterling Heilig in 1896, about the drinking habits of some of London's women that made me think about Kate. It also has a bit about women pawning and redeeming clothes for alcohol amid some decidedly Victorian domestic values from Wynne Baxter. Some good illustrations too, but I don't know how to pull them out of the article.

Philadelphia Inquirer
May 31, 1896

DRINKING WOMEN OF LONDON

FROM GRAVE TO GAY

LONDON, May 11, 1896.

UNDOUBTEDLY the women of England are good hard drinkers throughout, but it is among the lower middle classes of London that you must look for the habit in its full perfection. Last year 9450 women were taken into custody on the one charge of “drunk and disorderly.” Magistrates’ clerks, missionaries and others whose daily duty obliges them to frequent the metropolitan police courts, say that the trouble is increasing. Mr. Wynne Baxter, the well-known Coroner, has just been testifying on the subject.

“Generally speaking, the question of drunkenness enters into half the inquests I hold. My usual question is, ‘Was the deceased worse for drink?’ and the reply, given in an unconcerned tone, is: ‘Oh, she had a drop,’ as if it were the proper thing to do. I believe there are countless numbers of hard-working men who would have good homes if they only had good wives; but the women are never at home to meet them or have anything ready for them after their day’s work. The husband goes quietly to bed, while his wife is still out of doors drinking with her friends. Monday is essentially a day for drinking with the women. Many men are unaware that their wives take their husband’s Sunday clothes on Monday morning to the pawn shop, pledge them and spend the money in drink through the week. On Saturday, when the man brings home his money, the clothes are taken out again.”

___

The charge sheets at most London police courts are always heaviest on Mondays, the proportion of women being ludicrously large. It is common to see thirty women charged at a single court in one day. At each metropolitan police court the Church of England Temperance Society maintains a missionary, whose duties concern the reclamation of women addicted to drink. In one of its annual reports the London Police Court mission, as the organization is called, presented the following statement:

“At the North London Police Court in twelve months 345 women were charged with simple drunkenness and 447 more with being drunk and disorderly. Of 2554 women appearing at Clerkenwell (a much poorer district) 95 per cent. were the victims of drink.” One of the missionaries said: “One woman, aged 89, and twelve over 80 years of age were charged with drunkenness. The youngest drunken case was that of a girl 15 years of age. There have been as many as five girls in one day charged with being drunk who were only 17 years of age. In one day forty-seven women have passed the bar charged with drunkenness.”

__

“I have been dealing with a large number of drunken women in my district,” says another missionary. “One class is composed of low women, but there are many of what may be called the lower order of working people. We often have the wives of respectable mechanics and of men employed in the city. It is easiest to handle the younger women, of whom we have a number from seventeen to twenty years of age. I think drinking is increasing among young married women from eighteen to twenty-four—some of them having very good husbands. We have a number of young girls. One girl of fifteen was found one morning in the street, senseless. She had been drinking with organ-grinders. The mother was in court and was terribly put about.

__

“As to dealing with these girls and women, the London magistrates are puzzled what to do. They say there is no use sending them to prison or reformatory homes, because it only hardens them. One magistrate will impose a fine of half a crown (50 cents) for the first offense, whilst another, sitting on the same bench, will let the girl go with a caution. Circumstances alter cases, and on the second offense the fine may be made five shillings. A woman who has been arrested several times may be imprisoned for several days, and the more incorrigible she becomes the severer is the punishment, until the maximum of one month is reached.”

__

It is here that the record-breakers come in, astonishing females of the type of the unapproachable Jane Cakebread, the pets of the reporters and the joy of the reading public. Jane Cakebread, an old, old woman, has passed her 800th sentence for drunkenness. And the others, remarkable as they are, can but follow her afar off.

One woman, Annie B-----, has upwards of 400 convictions against her, but as her husband, a small landlord, has paid nearly $1000 in the shape of fines on her behalf, she must have been taken to the police court more than 600 times. Several women have spent nearly the whole of their lives going in and coming out of prison. Margaret M---- was first arrested at the age of sixteen; when the last magistrate last saw her she was fifty-one. Annie R---- has never been a month out of jail since she was fifteen, and she was sixty-three when she made the remark. Margaret S---- had only one week’s liberty during twelve months, though all her sentences were short ones! Bridget M---- appeared no fewer than thirty-six times before the same bench of magistrates in two years, and one police court has seen Annie P---- eighty-four times!

__

Half the cases at Westminster Police Court are drunken women. One woman said she had been at a bar two hours drinking, and that when her money was gone some one else “stood her a drink.” She blamed her trouble on that particular drink. Another woman said she went into a public house after she had drunk in several others, and when she got there she found a drunken woman buying drinks for loafers. She remonstrated with this woman, on which the loafers threw her into the street and she was arrested.

Here is another case. Four girls, the oldest of whom is 16, go into a public house and are served with ale. From there they adjourn to the street, and in turn buy three small bottles of rum, which they consume in the open air. After that they go to another public house and have two drinks of rum apiece! Then they take the air again and another small bottle of rum, and ten minutes afterwards they are found helplessly intoxicated in the middle of the road.

__

“Dancing clubs” are responsible for much of the drinking among young girls. “Some time ago,” says a missionary, “I was stationed at a mission at Clerkenwell, in the centre of these dens, where children supposed to be over 16 but really only 14 years of age, by paying the sum of two pence can spend the evening in an underground room and everyone can be supplied with liquor. When they came from this heated room to the street you can imagine the effect of the change of air on them.” He adds: “Will not the law step in and prevent the sale of intoxicants to these children in the dancing clubs?” The answer is—No, the British law is so tender of the personal liberty of the subject that nothing will be changed and everything will continue to go on as in the past.

__

At the northern end of Holloway road there is a lively highway branching to the right, with eight large and thriving taverns within the space of a short quarter of a mile. We thought we would go in and out of them to see the sights. It was not slumming. The neighborhood is respectable, even “desirable’ in the language of the housing agents. It was 9 o’clock in the evening when we called for the first lemon-squash and got a glass of “four-ale.” They were too busy to mix drinks. In our compartment there were nine women, or fifteen if you count two baby-girls in arms and four little misses brought in by their mammas. One was being treated. The mother, quite a decent body with a silk mantle and kid gloves, called for a half-quartern of Irish warm, and, swallowing three parts of it, handed the glass to the child with a “Here you are, Martha,” as though it were so much water. Three women were talking about their husbands. “That’s all he brought me home, as I’m a living woman! fourteen bob and five of us to keep! Oh, lor’! oh, dear! Well, drink up. I’ll be fourpence to your tuppence this time, Mrs. Walters.”

__

A saloon is a “pub,” so-called because it is not public. Instead of a long room with a long bar, the space is cut up into compartments, resembling stalls in a stable. Where the trough would be is the bar. The beer is pumped from various kegs under the bar, as wanted, by means of a system of levers, resembling the brakes of a locomotive engine. By means of continually pulling on these, bar-maids get a good muscle, and a reliable thirst. The bar-maids all drink; and this is what one of them said, because we were a cheerful, cosy family part, all complaining of bad luck:

“My father began life as a draper, and made a little money. Then he took a little public house, and unfortunately lost it through the cup. When I was 14 I went to take a situation in a public house. I have been in the trade six or seven years. I began to drink because I was so tired in the morning. I felt the need of spirits before breakfast. The hours were late, and I had to get up early. We were allowed to have anything to drink at our lunch and dinner time, and sometimes in the evening before going to bed. As a rule, brandy is what we begin on. I never knew a barmaid who did not drink it.”

__

The talk turned to the subject of women frequenting the bars. It was agreed they had as much right to do so as men. The presence of the barmaids makes it cosy and homelike for the women drinkers. None of them are new women. Their language is proper and their views are conservative. It is the business of a woman to be a wife, and it is the business of a husband to bring home money Saturday night. The pub is their exchange where they meet to compare takings and air their grievances. It is not a place of debauch. It is an adjunct to the home.

__

It was quite a domestic circle. Some were sitting down and some were standing up. There were only four men of us; and the ladies’ tongues waxed eloquent. Some lubricated with four-ale, some with Scotch cold or Irish warm, and some with gin. The theme was the villainy of husbands.

“He comes home bowsy every night, and I’m left without a brown to buy a bloater! I’m that worrit that my ‘art sinks and the spasm is that bad I ‘ave to take a drop of something. Heaven knows I’ve been a true wife to him, and he beat me last night for popping his Sunday trousers!”

There is not enough money to go round. The husband drinks up too much of his pay. The wife drinks up too much of the remainder. There is a struggle between them, each blaming the other. Scarcity of money leads to the system of “clubbing.” By this plan of “chipping in” sociably together in the house of one of them, women are able to keep the drinks going through the week till Saturday night again. They will meet together morning and afternoons. When one is out of money another will have it. When one has pawned her shawl another will pawn the tubs. The woman who introduces this system is capable in a short time of corrupting a whole neighborhood, and once it is in operation there is no escape for a poor, respectable woman. Her neighbors persecute her if she does not join them. They annoy her, worry her and boycott her. They set their children to beat her children. They serenade her and throw dirt in her doorway. They make life miserable for her until she joins the company.

We went in and out three others of these pubs of the Holloway road district and saw enough to come to the belief that the drinking habits of the London poor are pretty much of a muchness as far as the fair sex is concerned. It is not debauchery, but simple soaking.

STERLING HEILIG.

Cheers,
Dave

[claire]

That's marvellous, Dave...thanks for sharing that!

This struck me, as a note to prospective parents...

One woman, Annie B-----, has upwards of 400 convictions against her, but as her husband, a small landlord, has paid nearly $1000 in the shape of fines on her behalf, she must have been taken to the police court more than 600 times. Several women have spent nearly the whole of their lives going in and coming out of prison. Margaret M---- was first arrested at the age of sixteen; when the last magistrate last saw her she was fifty-one. Annie R---- has never been a month out of jail since she was fifteen, and she was sixty-three when she made the remark. Margaret S---- had only one week’s liberty during twelve months, though all her sentences were short ones! Bridget M---- appeared no fewer than thirty-six times before the same bench of magistrates in two years, and one police court has seen Annie P---- eighty-four times!

...don't name your daughter Annie or Margaret...