willing to pay for it out of their own pockets or purses. In any case, the proposition was carried, and the Church even with the stigma of being a rogue and a robber was again triumphant.
Magisterial Dictum
Inspector Campbell having complained to the Bench that gentlemen frequently bathed in front of Beach cottages without drawers that were provided for them, Mr. Brisco said the police had no business to be spying about, and it would serve them right to give them a good ducking. Taking advantage of this magisterial dictum, four gentlemen; so-called, jeered the inspector, a few nights later, when they were taken into custody for being drunk, using oaths and other bad language, ringing door-bells and breaking lamps. Their names were Lumsden, Bent, Rust and Barton. When at the station they were so turbulent that the Inspector could not enter the Sergt’s report. One of them read aloud the Bye-laws on the wall, while others kicked the door with such violence that the police and the gaoler had to take their boots off. They threw half-crowns out of the window, as they said for someone to go for their servants. These gentlemen, though ably defended by Mr. Langham, were fined 20s. each, and costs 8/6. The Watch Committee, afterwards (July 19th) passed a vote of commendation to Sergt. Ginner and P.C. Brazier for their apprehension of these gentlemen roughs in their midnight orgies. Rightly did Mr. James Smith say, as one of the speakers at the St. Leonards Mechanics’ Institution soiree that there were vulgar rich as well as vulgar poor, whilst among both would be found men of large and comprehensive ideas. Even poverty, he averred need not disqualify a man from being a gentleman, whilst riches alone could not make one. Such an axiom was manifested in the conduct of the four moneyed-rowdies above described. But that also among the working classes are to be found men of a debased type has been sufficiently shown in foregoing paragraphs anent the railway labourers. Nor have the Hastings fishermen always been free from debasing and censurable conduct. An instance of this is conveyed in a letter addressed to the Mayor, G. Scrivens, Esq., as follows:—
”British Consulate, Havre, June 28, 1850.
Sir,—The fishing smack, Richard Cobden, George Boreham, master, belonging to your port, was brought into Havre by a French brig on the 22nd instant for dredging oysters during the season prohibited by the fishing convention of 1846 between England and France. After a detention of two or three days, the crew would have been allowed to depart, the ulterior measures against them being left to the discretion of their Government at home; but while in a drunken state they attacked a French seaman and violently assaulted a gendarme -
