This short tale from the Dundee Courier is about a typical Dundee criminal incident- involving drink, and theiving. In fact, the victim was so drunk he didn’t even realise he’d been robbed at first!
Dundee Courier, Sat 5th October 1878
Nymphs Fighting Over the Spoil.
Jane Brown and Catherine Chalmers or Morrison were placed at the bar on a charge of having, on the 27th of August last, stolen from the custody of James Middleton, baker, Mid Wynd, a watch and chain while in Lyon’s Close, Blackness Road. The charge against Brown was aggravated by her having been three times previously convicted of theft. Both the accused pleaded not guilty. From the evidence, it appeared that Middleton got the worse of drink on the night in question. He recollected being in the neighbourhood of Blackness Road, and when he came to himself was in Lyon’s Close and found that his watch and chain had been abstracted from his person.
A witness named Charles Boyle deponed that the prisoners came to his house between one and two o’clock on the morning of the 27th of August, and they began to quarrel about a watch and chain which they had in their possession. There was a link of the chain broken, which they got him to put to rights. He identified the watch and chain shown in Court as those saw in the possession of the prisoners. In the house of Mrs Kennedy in Baltic Street, Inspector Lamb found the chain, where it had been left by the prisoner Brown. After hearing the evidence, the Sheriff summed up, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty against the prisoners. The Sheriff then passed sentence of twenty months’ imprisonment on Brown, and nine months’ imprisonment on Chalmers.
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