A story next from 1896, some 127 years ago, sufficiently far back in history to put some surnames to.
On Saturday 7th March 1896, a rummy took place at Baird’s Rows (Craighead Rows), just off Glasgow Road, Blantyre. Being quite drunk, Charles Monaghan, a miner illegally entered the house of Thomas Mullen and began to sing loudly and dance.
Thomas, also a miner had been in bed, got out and quickly saw somebody was in his house causing a disturbance. He asked Charles to leave at once. But Charles Monaghan refused to leave and did not take kindly at being told what to do. Things “hotted up” fairly quickly.
Charles was repeatedly asked to leave but refused to. Charles Monaghan then grabbed one of Thomas’s plates and struck him on the head with it. Thomas surprised at being hit bent down, picked up the fragment of the plate and struck Charles back. However, the cut plate cut Charles face in three places, which was severe enough for the rammy to end and the doctor being called. Dr Wilson had to put in stitches. Seeing what had happened, police were also fetched who seeing the face of Charles Monaghan determined injury had been caused by Thomas Mullen.
Now here’s the part which I thought made this story worth being told. In court on the following Monday, Thomas Mullen, (who had been innocently sleeping in his own house and some may say defending himself) was sentenced to 3 weeks imprisonment. Monaghan having caused no injury got off ‘scot free!’
This seems like a typical Blantyre situation, I imagine this may have been a common occurrence, i.e. drunk men going into the wrong house, those house rows all looked the same and in a drunken stupor the man would have been irrational and for the judge to send the home owner to prison one could postulate that the judge also thought it a common drunken mistake and that the situation could have been handled differently without the violence that caused such an injury.