The carters of Cellardyke were a wild bunch, often up before the local court, and Walter Myles was no exception. From the "Cellardyke Echo", the local Facebook page with extracts from old Anstruther newspapers:
"The Magistrates of Pittenweem held a Burgh Court on Tuesday, when a young Cellardyke carter, Walter Myles, was placed at the bar under the following circumstances:—It appears that on the previous day Myles and a cronie had been drinking in ” Willie Heugh’s public,” when, instead of calling in the other gill, he had gone to the spirit cellar and run off a bottle with which to continue the spree. The trick was complete, but at the moment, and when the coast was all but cleared, the landlord himself stood like a barricade in the doorway, from which the poor carter only emerged in the custody of the constable. On being asked to plead to the indictment, “I was sae drunk,” said he, “that I ken naething about it.” Eventually, however, he admitted the charge of theft, when, after the Bench consulted together, Provost Henderson said that it was the recognised rule to punish theft with imprisonment, but the Magistrates had been induced to make an exception in the present case for the sake of the culprit’s father, to whom he made a feeling allusion, which was evidently not lost on the better part of the unhappy panel, who was then sentenced to pay a fine of 15s, or twenty days in jail, His friend and brother whip from Anstruther, David Parker, was next at the bar charged with a breach of the peace by cursing and swearing and causing a tumult at the lock-up door, which, however, had been summarily ended by the constable thrusting him into a vacant cell as soon as he had disposed of the other culprit. Parker also pleaded guilty, and after a pointed reprimand was fined in the sum of 7s 6d, with the alternative of eight days in jail. The fines were paid."
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Topic: Innes family of St Monance (Read 7419 times)