When crimes are reported in newspapers like the Monmouthshire Merlin, they range from the short and sweet…
…to detailed reports that reveal information about the streets and pubs that the crimes were committed. Some run into many hundreds of words detailing comments from the prosecution and the defence.
Then there are little gems like the one published in the Monmouthshire Merlin on 7th March, 1840 where a Baneswell resident called Dickey Taylor was in front of the magistrate for singing in the street.
The article is published verbatim which includes a portrayal of how Dickey may have spoken. Either that or the author is stereotyping a lower class person.
A Bone to Pick with a Bone-Picker
Dickey Taylor, a miserable, lean, and idiotic-looking elf with the vacant stare of a maniac, and the tattered appearance of a thoroughbred vagrant, was placed at the bar, charged with singing, and gathering crowds in the streets. The case having been stated, he was asked what he had to say for himself. Recovering as from a lethargy, the poor fellow gazed listlessly on the court for a moment, and then, as if suddenly recollecting the question, he turned his lustre-lacking eyes upon the magistrate, and muttered, with a voice almost unearthly…
Dickey: “Why I lives in Bane’s Well, and han’t done nuffin.“
Magistrate: “Have you a father living?”
Dickey: “Ees sur; he lives up to Pontypool, and han’t got no work.
Magistrate: “What were you doing in the streets?
Dickey: “I were signing hymns and psalms, sur; wot is not wicked, cause it ’twor, I wouldn’t do it, sur. Feyther is too poor to ‘sport me, and I used to go a-bone-picking up there; but I picked ’em all up, sur, and I thought ’twor better to come down here and sing a bit, not starve.”
Magistrate: “You had better go to Pontypool again, to see if you can get more bone-picking work.”
Dickey: “Ees, sur, by George! I wull, for I can’t get ‘nuffin at all here, and I almost starvin’.”
Magistrate: “Have you been before the magistrates more than once?”
Dickey: “Why, sur, I was once; but ‘twor a deuced of a shame that! for we’re all sistern and brethren; and what for should one of us do wicked things to another? I won’t stop here another moment, if you‘ll let me go;
but I won’t go till I got my box and tuppence-ha’penny, wot the p’liceman tuk from me last Saturday.
I ‘spose ‘tis spent, for I seen them there p’licemen tossing it about to one another, till Mr Hopkins cotched it, and put it away, as if ‘twarnt nuffin! ‘Tis a good thing,” said he with a long-drawn sigh, “that I be so patient. Patience is a wartue wot wery few people is blest wi’!”
The Court ordered the articles to be restored to him, and he was immediately to leave the town.
Dickey: “Ees, sur; good mornin’ sur; I wull!” said he; and out bolted, amidst loud roars of laughter, the straight-haired, “Good-for-nothing, mischief-making monkey!”
— Monmouthshire Merlin, Saturday 7th March, 1840
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