A Sink of Atrocity: Crime in 19th-Century Dundee (28 page)

‘We’ve got the money!’ McGuire said, and they walked away, leaving Mrs Anderson still lying on the ground. Realising they were both a little drunk, Mrs Anderson dragged herself up and bravely followed toward Birkhill. Twice they turned and ordered her to go back where she was going, and Mrs Anderson did so, until she met a local farmer, George Turnbull, driving a cart along the road. Mud-stained, confused and with a badly bruised face and aching ribs, she poured out her story.

In a manner that seemed natural to the people around Dundee, George Turnbull did not hesitate to help. As soon as he heard Mrs Anderson’s story, he whipped up his horse and searched for the thieves. A young girl called Susan Milne told him they had just passed her. Turnbull found them at the New Gate, walking toward Birkhill, but as he approached they hauled themselves over a hedge and ran into a wood. Turnbull followed, demanding to know why they had attacked Mrs Anderson. Morrison admitted they had asked for money, but claimed Mrs Anderson had not given them any, but Turnbull angrily repudiated that, and asked what they had done with it. As McGuire handed over six shillings, Morrison swore at her, saying by giving up the money they had shown themselves guilty. Obviously a man of some resolution, Turnbull hauled both the women to the local policeman, Constable Charles Jarren of Birkhill Feus.

Eventually limping home, Mrs Anderson sent her servant to tell the police what had happened, but by that time George Turnbull had virtually wrapped everything up. Constable Jarren called Mrs Anderson to the police station, which doubled as his house. When she arrived McGuire and Morrison were already there, and together with Jane Jarren, the policeman’s wife, Mrs Anderson searched them. When Mrs Jarren found two of her rings and more money, Constable Jarren charged Morrison and McGuire with the assault, although Morrison gave her name as Sarah Connor. When Constable McArthur found Mrs Anderson’s purse discarded beside a hedge, there was little further to say. Both girls, eighteen-year-old Morrison and sixteen-year-old McGuire, appeared at the Dundee Spring Circuit Court and were given eight months in prison.

Dundee has often been called a woman’s town, partly because of the huge part women played in the jute industry. Unfortunately, it was also a town where women could be at least equal to men in the field of crime. In some ways, Lord Cockburn’s statements were correct.

In February 1834 the Dundee Police Commission issued the following statement:

There is hardly a crime committed or a riot perpetrated but what may be referred to the intemperate use of ardent spirits and that mostly in the night-time.

That statement, from a very responsible body of men with vast experience of conditions in Dundee, must count for a great deal. Yet the Police Commission was not the first to make that damning claim. As early as 1824, when illicit distilling was a major problem in Scotland, the
Advertiser
claimed that ‘cheap whisky’ was to blame for much of Dundee’s crime. There is no doubt that Dundee had a large number of drinking places. For example, in September 1843 the
Advertiser
claimed there were 500 licensed premises in the town and ten years later there were 555, which was an estimated one pub for every 144 people, plus an unknown number of shebeens, the unlicensed drinking houses that sold raw whisky straight from the glens. In May 1854 the Public House Act regulated drinking hours and closed spirit shops on Sundays, which had an immediate effect on Dundee’s behaviour. In areas such as the Overgate the number of drunks dropped, and crime figures fell considerably. In the twenty-four Sundays between 15th May and 24th October 1853 there were 414 people arrested for drunkenness or disorderly conduct in Dundee. In the corresponding period in 1854, there were only 201, a drop of over fifty per cent in the single year following the Act.

Crime statistics, in common with all others, can only tell part of the story. A casual glance at the statistics for Dundee for any year in the high Victorian period would see scores or perhaps hundreds of people committed to prison. This figure would automatically draw a mental picture of a city filled with desperate criminals, a place to avoid. However a slightly more detailed examination would reveal a different reality. Although Dundee had its share of murders and culpable homicides, assaults and daring robberies, the majority of the crimes were minor, and often committed by a small number of repeat offenders. One of these incorrigibles was a woman named Margaret Gow, who appeared before the courts on an astounding 260 occasions in a life ruined by drink. In the modern world she would be recognised as an alcoholic and be offered as much help and guidance as possible. In the Victorian age, alcoholism was not recognised as a disease, but considered a character failing, and Gow spent much of her life within the stark confines of Dundee jail.

The daughter of a journeyman tailor and theatre owner known as Fizzie Gow, she must have had a decent upbringing. Her first few dozen offences barely merited a brief mention alongside other petty offenders. It was in July 1856 that Gow began to be noted, when Sheriff Henderson awarded her six months for assault. Five years and many prison visits later, Margaret Gow, or Mag Gow as she was familiarly known, made her first major milestone.

On 28th May 1861, Margaret Gow made her ninety-ninth appearance at the Police Court, charged with disorderly conduct at the Fish Market. After pleading guilty, she said she regretted her actions and if their Honours let her off this time she would never demean herself again. Surprisingly, when dealing with a woman with such a disreputable record, the clerk of court spoke up for her. Saying that she was an industrious woman, he added the Fish Market was a bad place for her and she should keep away from it. As Gow was a fish cadger and lived in Fish Street a few yards from the market where she worked, that might have been difficult, but she promised to leave Dundee for her father’s house in Errol. The Bailie took her at her word and, after delivering an admonition, dismissed her.

To give Gow her due, she must have tried to be good as it was nearly four months before she was back in court on a charge of disorderly conduct in Whitehall Close.

Bailie Ower faced her and accused,‘Margaret, you’ve been here a hundred times.’

But Gow was always ready to defend herself with a mixture of good humour and surprised indignation that she should be so harshly treated.

‘I’ve done very little,’ she said, ‘to be here a hundred times.’

When Bailie Ower reminded her of her pledge to leave Dundee and live in the country, Gow replied that she had been living in Errol but she came in to pay respects to a friend who had died. The Bailie asked what pledge she would give Mr Mackay, the Procurator Fiscal and Superintendent of Police, to be let off again.

‘I can’t say what pledge I would give,’ Gow replied, ‘for I’ve said so much already.’

It was an honest reply and once again she was set free, after she promised to behave herself.

Despite the Baillie’s forbearance, only two nights later a police constable found Mag Gow in Whitehall Close, shouting loudly and kicking at house doors. Next morning she was once again before Bailie Ower.

‘It’s awfu that I cannae get past that close without being disturbed,’ Gow complained, until the Bailie wondered what she was doing there at one o’clock in the morning. Gow explained, very politely, that she had been looking for somebody; Whitehall Close was full of cheepers – illegal drinking dens – and she thought he would be in one.

‘You have been taking too much drink of late,’ the Bailie told her, and sentenced her to twenty-one days in jail.

By April 1862 Gow’s score was up to 104 when she was given another forty days for disorderly conduct. It was on this occasion that the
Courier
branded her an incorrigible, which was probably no less than the truth, although she seemed always to have an excuse for her actions. By mid-July her score was 107 appearances, with a dribble of a few shilling fines here and a few weeks in jail there. As her name and fame spread, Gow became a target of interest and mischief from the rootless, shifting youths who infested the streets of Dundee.

As Gow’s drunken stagger from the streets to the courts to the jail and out to the pubs continued, even the tolerance of the Dundee bailies was stretched beyond tolerance. In January 1866 the police picked up the drink-sodden quartet of Helen Ramsay, Thomas Halley, Nicholas Lamb and Margaret Gow. The record of the women was unimpressive: it was Helen Ramsay’s 143rd appearance at court and Gow’s 146th between them they had been in the Police Court twenty-one times that year alone. Bailie Hay told them exactly what he thought. He said that they ignored any advice from the court, they had no self-respect and they lowered the character of the town and increased the crime statistics. With surprising insight into what was more likely a medical condition rather than criminal intent, the Bailie said there should be some other remedy for their type of case. He closed by fining them 2/6 each or taking two days in jail.

The Bailies’ rebuke was as useless as the constant jail sentences. In May of that year Gow was poured into a wheelbarrow and trundled to the police office, and next day she got another seven days or a five-shilling fine. It was her 151st appearance in court. She was out for a few days and then found drunk on the street. When she told the Bailie she had declared herself teetotal he suspected her sanity and adjourned the case until she was examined by two doctors. The doctors declared her sane so the bailie gave her a week and the golden advice to turn a new leaf.

As always, Gow gave a polite reply, promised to behave and within weeks was back, as dishevelled and repentant as ever. When Bailie Foggie showed mercy and allowed her to walk free so long as she kept away from the drink in future, Gow agreed, saying she would keep him up-to-date with her life if they met on the street. Bailie Ritchie asked for the same promise in January 1867, and Gow was reported as saying, ‘A’ richt, Bailie. Thank you.’ Less than a week later she stood before Bailie Greig.

‘Well Margaret,’ the Bailie said, ‘this is most extraordinary conduct – do you hear me?’

‘I hear it,’ Margaret replied.

‘It is a pity to see you here so often,’ Bailie Greig said, and gave her another seven days.

But there was no humour and little pathos when Gow appeared before the Procurator Fiscal in June 1867 and was handed a hefty twelve months for assault. Perhaps it was hoped that such a long dry spell would cure Gow of her love affair with alcohol, but she was only out for a few weeks when she was found drunk in Hilltown and made her 180th court appearance. In September that year she was charged with being drunk and disorderly in the Scouringburn. In November the Overgate had to endure her drunken presence and in December she chose to bless the West Port with her antics and faced a new bailie in the morning.

‘Hello, Mr Nicoll,’ Gow greeted him like a friend, ‘I never saw you here afore.’

When it was pointed out that this was her 187th appearance Gow laughed it off. ‘Oh that’s no very muckle yet.’ She explained that she was walking down the West Port and the police arrested her because there was a gaggle of children around her. ‘Mister Nicoll has kent me a’ my days,’ she added, perhaps a little tongue in cheek, ‘and he never saw me the waur of drink.’

Bailie Nicoll did not agree. ‘I really hope we have seen the last of you here,’ he said. ‘I think you would be better under the care of the jailer altogether.’

And that was another seven days in jail for Margaret Gow. Her appearances before the courts continued, with an admonition followed by a few days in jail, and Gow constantly protesting repentance and promising to behave. Her total increased: 188 in January 1869, 190 at the beginning of February and 191 a fortnight later.

This time Gow was accused of fighting with Jane McDonald and she had a black eye to prove it. The three police who had arrested the pair claimed they were creating a great disturbance in Shore Terrace but Gow disagreed, saying she was ‘always very agreeable and happy with Mrs McDonald’. The Bailie sentenced McDonald to ten days and, saying he wished he had the power to send Gow somewhere she would be taken care of, awarded her sixty days.

‘Well, that’s no’ fair, sir,’ Gow said.

No sooner was she released than she was back again, this time for assaulting Ann Barber and her son Robert in an Overgate close. With the case handed to the Procurator Fiscal, Gow had to wait until the Dundee Sheriff Criminal Court met in October to state her case, and for once she was as much victim as perpetrator. For some time now her notoriety had attracted crowds of young boys who teased her both while she worked at selling her fish and when she refreshed herself in one of Dundee’s many public houses.

On this occasion Gow had tried to escape her tormentors by running to Crichton’s Close in the Overgate. However the boys followed her, calling her names and showering her with horse dung as she sat on a step. According to young Robert Barber, she was muttering to herself but when he came close she twisted his nose and punched and kicked him, whereupon he ran crying upstairs for help. His mother rushed to avenge him, shouted Gow had ‘better not strike a bairn belonging to me’, and ran for the police.

The arrival of the constables encouraged Gow to more violence and as Ann Barbour searched for witnesses to her son’s assault, Gow seized her hair and punched her on the eye.

By this time in her career, Gow had collected nine convictions for assault and as usual she pleaded not guilty. The defence concentrated on the group of young boys who had harassed her, claiming that they had been thrusting horse dung into her mouth and ‘smashing her with their bonnets’. Robert Barber was possibly one of the group. Her defence, Mr Paul, called a surprise character witness in Bailie Stewart, who stated that Gow’s father was a very respectable man. He also said that Margaret Gow was ‘addicted to taking a dram now and then’ and added the boys ‘attack her even when she is sober’. Even more interestingly, Bailie Stewart had personally tried to have Gow put into a home where she would have regular work, decent food and would be free from the temptation of the public houses. Finally he mentioned that Mr McQueen, the Governor of Dundee Gaol, thought her a willing and obedient worker.