Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

On Saturday, several informations were filed in the Excise Court against barbers and chandler’s shop keepers for selling spirits without a licence. It appears that barbers, in low neighbourhoods, are in the habit of charging three-pence for shaving their customers on Sunday morning, and giving them a glass of gin or rum into the bargain. On Sunday morning last the excise officers, after waiting some short time in the shops, proposed to have the spirits without the clean shave, which was acceded to, and the above informations were filed in consequence. The penalty is from £50 to £100 at the discretion of the commissioners of excise.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Comment

I wonder whether this isn’t also or mainly about Sunday trading. Henry Schroeder has an intriguing little item, apparently coincident in time and space, which I haven’t managed to trace to the original press report:

Several barbers being summoned before the magistrates, for shaving on Sunday, the bench held that the scraping of chins was a “work of necessity before nine o’clock, A.M., but not afterwards” (Schroeder 1852).

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Original

On Saturday, several informations were filed in the Excise Court against barbers and chandler’s shop keepers for selling spirits without a licence. It appears that barbers, in low neighbourhoods, are in the habit of charging three-pence for shaving their customers on Sunday morning, and giving them a glass of gin or rum into the bargain. On Sunday morning last the excise officers, after waiting some short time in the shops, proposed to have the spirits without the clean shave, which was acceded to, and the above informations were filed in consequence. The penalty is from £50 to £100 at the discretion of the commissioners of excise.

107 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Alcohol (drug) (59) ·
• Barber (1) ·
• Gin (5) ·
• HM Excise (3) ·
• 📌Leeds (235) ·
• Licensing Act (2) ·
• Rum (5) ·
• Sunday shopping (1) ·

All tags.

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