Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Tuesday 19 December 1899
Neglect at Conisborough.
Yesterday, at Doncaster, boy named John Smith, aged 8, of New Conisborough, was charged with stealing 8s 8d. and a purse, and his mother, Eliza Smith, was charged with receiving the same.
A girl named Sarah Elizabeth Lanes, aged six, had been shopping, and was returning home, when the boy Smith snatched the purse and ran away. The police apprehended him, but had previously been to his home three times, and his mother declared that she not know where he was.
The boy said he had given the purse his mother, and eventually she produced two purses—one being the stolen purse, containing 7s. 3d.
The boy admitted that he had spent 1s on tripe.
The magistrates thought it was a serious case against the mother, and sent her to prison for a month The boy was ordered to receive six strokes with the birch rod.