We possibly think that the youth of today are a lot worse than when we were younger and you may be right, however this court case from 100 years ago this month at Eccles Children’s Court shows some of these young cherubs in a different light.
Mrs Agnes Sloane 24, who lived in Winifred Street, Winton came home at 10.45am and on her return found that the house had been entered and several valuable items were missing.
In a drawer in the front bedroom were a watch and chain, silver matchbox and £5 in cash, all had been stolen.
Detective Bentham from Eccles made house to house enquiries and was told by a seven year old girl, Mary Wilmott that she saw two young boys climb over the backyard wall and identified them to him.
They were two brothers aged nine, the other twelve who were related to Mrs Sloane.
The intrepid Detective searched the backyard of the house where the two suspected felons lived and found in the outside toilet the missing watch and chain.
He waited until the boys came back later in the night, and questioned them, they denied all knowledge of the watch and chain.
Upon searching them he found £1, nine shillings and sixpence, quite a large sum for a young boy to be carrying around with him.
Further questioning revealed that they had given their mother one shilling which they said they had found at the Worsley Golf Links.
This still left a considerable amount of money outstanding.
Detective Bentham charged the boys with the theft of the property from the house in Winton.
The brothers appeared at Eccles Children’s Court were they pleaded guilty but insisted that a mysterious older boy had made them do it against their will.
The Magistrate was having none of this and ordered that both boys be given the birch.
This would involve the boys being taken to the local police station and in front of their parents would be forced to bend over and flogged with a birch, the number of strokes depending on how many the Magistrate had ordered.
It is not recorded how many strokes the young lads were given, usually the older you were, the more strokes that you got, so presumably the nine year old boy got less than his older brother and that they learned the hard way that crime doesn’t pay.
