(before Mr T. H. Chubb and Alderman Fullaway).
Abel Gray, labourer, of Corston, was summoned by Frederick Clark, a pensioner, charged with assaulting him. Complainant was engaged at the Three Cups Inn, Malmesbury, as waiter on the club anniversary day, and in the afternoon he had orders to clear the clubroom of a lot of boys who were there. He went into the clubroom and found six or seven boys, and ordered them off. The defendant’s brother was among them, and the defendant invited him to stay. A man named Stephen Miles said that if one went all ought to go. The defendant then pulled off his jacket to fight Miles. Complainant tried to pacify him, when the defendant hit the complainant a very severe blow under the eye, cutting it open and blacking it very badly. Witnesses were called on both sides. The bench remarked that it was a most unjustifiable assault. It was one of the evils of public-house clubs, that men saved their money for the well meant purposes of a benefit society and then on these days squandered it in drinking. Defendant, against whom there were two previous convictions, would be fined £1.