Pictures and Problems from London Police CourtsHolmes, Thomas
History
Pictures and Problems from London Police Courts
Holmes, Thomas
Crime -- England -- London; Poor -- England -- London
‘At North London, Jane Cakebread, sixty-seven, was brought up on
remand, before Mr. Paul Taylor, to answer the charge of being drunk
and disorderly in Stoke Newington on the evening of the 20th instant.
The appearance of the accused last week marked the two hundred and
eightieth occasion on which she has been charged with drunkenness.
Every effort to reclaim her has failed, and during the last few years,
Mr. T. Holmes, the police court missionary, has constantly asserted
that she was insane. Nevertheless, no doctors could be induced to agree
upon the point, and the woman has been treated as an habitual drunkard.
Last week a remand was ordered, for the state of the prisoner’s mind to
be again inquired into, and the following report was now handed to the
magistrate: “H.M. Prison, Holloway, January 27, 1896. Registered No.
17,706, Jane Cakebread, is well known to me. I have always considered
her to be of impaired intellect. Her mental condition has, however,
so much deteriorated of late that I am of opinion that she is now
not responsible for her actions, and that she should be sent to an
asylum.--GEO. E. WALKER, Medical Officer.” Mr. Paul Taylor
said, in the face of this certificate, he should order an officer to
conduct the woman to the Hackney Workhouse. The gaolers endeavoured
to remove the prisoner from the dock, but she clung to the rails and
refused to go. “What have I got?” she screamed. “I did not hear. I will
know!” Sergeant Baker, the gaoler, said he would tell her all about
it outside. The prisoner was induced to go to the gaoler’s office,
but as she left the court she screamed: “Tell Mr. Holmes to mind my
box.” Directly she heard that she was going to the workhouse, she
cried and said she would not go. Mr. Holmes told her that it would be
better for her to go quietly, and she replied: “Yes, you want to get my
property--my £17,000--but you will not. I have got my proper senses,
though they say I have not.” Ultimately, after a struggle, during which
she tried to bite the gaoler, she was secured on the police ambulance,
and taken to the Hackney Workhouse.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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