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106 Old Memories of East-Bourne. [Chap. IX.
own with a broken leg which my father was invited to assist in mending. His business passed to his son, and now flourishes in the hands of his grandson. I went to the shop as recently as January 1910 to purchase one of the " cheap Liberal loaves " which the Liberal Party said were on sale, but for some reason, which the shopman could not explain, the purchase-money was \d. more than had been charged to me elsewhere by a Tory baker 2 years previously.
The Parish Constable of 1851 was one Joe Carter who, under his official name, was dressed as a Beadle with cocked hat and cloak, but eventually he was advanced to the ordinary costume of the Policeman of the period, starting with a chimney-pot hat at his top and so downwards to his boots. Carter was kept on in office, I think, during the term of his natural life, but it soon became necessary, as the town grew, for representatives of the Chief Constable of the County at Lewes to enter into possession. For their use residential quarters, and a couple of cells, were built in Grove Road adjacent to the Vestry Room which was used as a Police Court up till the opening of the Town Hall. The following figures regarding the present (1910) Police Force may be presented as a contrast to the times of Joe Carter and the one County Constable at Pevensey :—
1 Chief Constable, 10 Sergeants,
5 Inspectors, 60 Constables,
making a total of 77 men.
During the Fenian scare of 1867 Special Constables were sworn in at East-Bourne in consequence of a Notice from the Home Office that a Fenian landing at East-Bourne had been heard of as in contemplation but nothing happened. I served as a " Special" on that occasion at Bromley in Kent for 3 months.
Law and Police from the standpoint of the newspaper reporter have through the years which I can remember always made a very poor show so far as incidents connected with East-Bourne are concerned. The most important local law-suit was one between the Gilbert |
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