Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Tuesday 23 May 1899
Swinton Fowl Stealing Case.
Yesterday, at the Rotherham West Hiding Police Court, before Major Verelst, Ald. F. Mason (Mayor of Rotherham), Mr. E. W. Hodgkinson. and Mr. W. M. Jones, two miners named Thomas Walker, New Denaby, and Christopher Noble, Sparrow Barracks, Mexborough, were charged with having stolen five fowls from the fowl-house of Wm Arundel, collier, of Swinton, during the night of the 13th inst.
The prosecutor discovered that his fowl-house, which situate in an allotment garden, had been broken into on the morning of the 14th, and that there were suspicious clog marks leading in the direction of the highway.
The police were acquainted with the facts, and Sergeant Balls made an investigation. In a yard near to prisoner Noble’s house found the heads, wings, and legs of three fowls, and prosecutor was able identify thorn. Near to Walkers house the heads and legs of two fowls, and some wet feathers were picked up. Noble denied all knowledge of the robbery, and Walker said he had not been away from home after eight o’clock at night, and had not seen Noble since “settling time’* on Saturday.
Sergeant Balls took possession of Walker’s clogs, and found that they exactly corresponded with the marks near the prosecutor’s fowl-house. In the chimney of Noble’s house on Sunday the gizzards of two fowls were discovered.
Prisoners were committed for trial. Noble is well known to the police.