Eastern Morning News, Hull, Yorkshire, 16 September 1911

Birch for the Boys.

An Evening Out with a Pony and Cart.

An extraordinary story was told in the Grimsby Children’s Court yesterday, when two twelve-year-old boys, Horace Cox and Michael Brannan, were charged with stealing a cycle lamp.

The lads broke into a stable and stole some harness, then they went to Old Clee village and got a pony from a field. Taking a cart from a shed, they yoked the animal up and went for a drive. It became dusk, and as they wanted a lamp for the cart they pulled up outside an inn, and as a cyclist had left his machine standing outside they took his lamp and drove off with it. After it had served their purpose they sold it for sixpence.

The Stipendiary said that it was a boys’ offence, and he should award a boys’ punishment — six strokes with the birch.