Reminiscences of Rotherham
by G. Gummer, J.P.
« « prevMEANNESS
There are many men who are only generous when publicity is given to their gifts. I remember an alderman who gave liberally in public, while in private life he would cut a poor cabby’s tip in half. That is meanness. On the other hand, careful men are often wrongly accused of meanness. For instance, I once requested a prominent official of the Corporation, a man in receipt of a handsome salary, to take my luggage to the station. We were in London on Corporation business, and staying at the Hotel Victoria. in Northumberland Avenue. Later, I asked him what I owed for the tips he had paid on my behalf on leaving the hotel, and was told he had given the head porter a threepenny bit. I would have liked to have seen the face of that gorgeous gold-braided individual, whose emoluments were said to reach £1000 per year, when he received this handsome acknowledgement of his lordly services. This was not meanness on the part of my friend the official; it was merely ignorance of what was usual under such circumstances.LOCAL OPTION
I remember a Sunday morning meeting in College Yard which provided a lot of fun for the usual Sabbath Day crowd. This was convened by the Trade for the purpose of condemning the local Option Bill then before Parliament. Although supported by a large attendance of their friends, the convenors found they were not to bare it all their own way, as the Mayor (Ald. Kelsey), Messrs. George Eskholme, Matthew Schoales, Christopher Benson. and other supporters of the Temperance movement were noticed in the audience. A dray formed the platform, from which a gentleman from London, whose name I forget, moved the resolution in a speech noisily received. Before this was put to the meeting, Mlr. Matthew Schoales claimed the right to move an amendment, and to do so ascended the platform, but he could not got a hearing. Mr. George Eskholme then endeavoured to speak, but the audience would have none of it. Tom Hesketh, a working man, tried his hand, only to meet the same fate. Tired of these attempts, the crowd got mischievous. and seizing the shafts of the dray, rushed away with it towards College street. The position of the gentlemen standing on the platform, in addition to being unsafe, appeared ridiculous. Their protests to the men drawing the dray being unheeded, they all decided to sit down in order to preserve their equilibrium. During the dray’s progress on College street the scene was indescribable. Shouts of laughter, approval and disapproval, intermingling with the rushing of the crowd, constituted an extraordinary scene and tumult. Loud cries for the overturning of the dray were raised. Fortunately. at this juncture the police put in an appearance and saved the occupants from an ignominious position. The dray was then turned round and sent away to its owner. Further meetings on local option followed, at which large crowds attended, the Trade on all these occasions taking care to be well represented At one of these a theatrical artiste made an excellent chairman, and kept the audience in good humour. his chief supporters were Mr. Charles Youle, a well- known character, and Mr, Albert Leggoe, a local publican and town couneillor. The Temperance party were not behindhand; they brought down Mr. Gregson, agent of the Temperance League, and Mr. John Delaney,a prominent teetotaller from Sheffield. Disorderly scenes were frequent, the swaying of the crowd often being dangerous to the temporary platform in use. So noisy were the meetings that no decisions could possibly be arrived at. next »
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