July 13 (From York Press)

July 13

12:00pm Friday 13th July 2012 in Way we were

100 years ago

At the Ouse and Derwent Petty Sessions, held at York Castle, two York youths named Ben Arthur, painter’s labourer, and Walter Copley, glassworks labourer, were summoned for an alleged breach of the Fisheries By-laws in force in the Yorkshire Fisheries District.

The prosecutor said that the by-laws had been made five years before and prohibited fishing with any instrument except with rod and line.

Charles Young Moses, water bailiff, said that on June 23 he saw the defendants fishing with two lines in the Ouse.

He spoke to them, and they replied that they did not know that such fishing was prohibited, adding that other people did it.

Notices had been posted in the neighbourhood for two years. The defendants admitted the offence and pleaded ignorance of the law.

They were each fined 1s and costs (4s in all), and warned that if they came again for a similar offence they would be more severely dealt with.

50 years ago

Britain had scored a “first” with a two-way transatlantic telephone call using the Telstar satellite link.

British technicians at Goonhilly (Cornwall) had first broken into two-way voice conversation with United States technicians at Andover (Maine) at about midnight BST the previous day.

Officials of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which built Telstar, said technicians got back and forth to one another successfully.

Twelve circuits were tested. A GPO spokesman in London said the test was very satisfactory, and that it suggested that telephone speech circuits of first-class quality would be possible via satellites.

The first official transatlantic telephone call by Telstar would be made at midnight BST tonight when Mr Eugene McNeeley, president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, called up M Marette, French Communications Minister, in Paris.

25 years ago

The idea of on-the-spot fines for litter louts was an attractive one. People who dropped rubbish about our streets were selfish and inconsiderate.

They spoiled the environment for the rest of us. Anything which would teach them a little self-discipline was worth considering. There were problems, of course. Enforcing the proposed by-laws would not be easy.

What, after all, did a council officer do to a truculent litter lout who refused to pay up? “Call a policeman” was the probable answer, for York’s chief environmental health officer made it plain that police help would be needed in enforcing on-the-spot fines.

But how long would it take for the law to appear; who detained the culprit in the meantime – and was this not taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut?

Yet litter, particularly in a busy tourist city like York, was a major problem. Surely any realistic and practical way of tackling it deserved our backing?