Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 2 July 1904
The Conisboro’ Geese Case.
A Miner’s Earnings.
Samuel Pepler, a miner, of Conisboro’, was summoned for cruelly ill-treating geese, at Conisboro’, on May 30th.
This case had been adjourned for a fortnight in order to give the defendant’s father an opportunity to pay the costs and administer corporal punishment upon the defendant.
In answer to the Chairman, the boy’s father said that he had not paid anything towards the costs, which were £1 11s.
The Chairman: “Are you going to pay anything?”
The father: “I have nothing.”
The Chairman: “Do you want your boy to go to prison?”
The father: “I think that it would be as well; he would be kept in order better. We have tried all we can to alter him.”
The Chairman: “If you cannot control a boy of that size, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
The father: “I cannot attend to him when I am at work.”
The Chairman: “What are you?”
The father: “A miner, and only earning 18s. or 19s. a week.”
The Chairman: “How many days do you work a week?”
The father: “Four or five.”
The Chairman: “And only earning 18s. a week?”
The father: “Yes.”
The Chairman: “I don’t believe it; not a word of it.”
The father: “Well, you can apply to the colliery offices at Cadeby, if you like.”
The Chairman: “You are now working five days a week?”
The father: “Sometimes—last week I got 8s. 6d. a shift, and a 2s. 6d. fine to pay out of it.”
The Chairman: “The case will be adjourned for a fortnight, and the police will consider whether to take proceedings against you.”
The father: “You can send me if you like. It perhaps will be as well for what I am working for; it will be as well, every bit.”