History of Dover

James Buckley, a tall raw boned Irish vagrant, wearing a tight fitting shooting jacket and an old foraging cap, and looking a very interesting type of the “old soldier” was brought up before the Bench for the fourth time charged with begging and using obscene language at the Kings Head Hotel, Clarence Place. The prisoner had previously been committed in the name of Berkley. Edward Killick said the defendant entered the hotel about 7 o’clock on Saturday evening demanding “nine pence for a nights lodging.”

Witness refused to entertain the application and told the defendant to walk out of the house when he commenced using very obscene and abusive language which he maintained for about 10 minutes during which he remained in the hall of the hotel at the expiration of that he was given into custody. The defendant in reply to the charge denied that he had ever asked the waiter for anything. He went to the hotel because he had met with a military gentlemen who had taken compassion on him as an old and disabled soldier and had told him to come to him at the King’s Head for the price of a dinner and a bed and his fare to Folkestone, the roads being bad at this time of the year as to make walking without shoes very uncomfortable. Before he could tell the waiter what he wanted however he was pushed away from the door and treated like a dog.

It appeared in reply to questions from the magistrates that the defendant provided with a new pair of shoes on quitting the gaol, where he had left behind his old ones. According to the defendant’s own account his old shoes had been “taken away from him” and a pair given to him in which he could not walk (his feet coming on to swell after he left the gaol.) and so he sold them. The Mayor said the prisoner was evidently an incorrigible vagabond. He had already been committed two or three times for a short term of imprisonment but as these punishments appeared to have no effect on him he would now be kept to hard labour for a month.

As the prisoner was leaving the dock Mr. Latham informed him that he would doubtless find his old shoes still in the gaol, they appeared to be better adapted for walking than the new ones. He hoped he would make use of them and walk off as soon as they were given. (Laughter) (1859).