25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 21, 1973

THOUSANDS of people made the traditional trek up to Rivington yesterday. However, the threat of rain did keep numbers down on previous years, and police reported one of the quietest Good Fridays on record. Rival gangs of youths, including a large contingent of Hell's Angels, gathered in the area, but there were no incidents.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 21, 1948

SIR Wilson Jameson, Chief Medical Officer to the Ministry of Health, said today that the general death rate for the first three months of the year was the provisional figure of 12.3 per thousand head of population. This compared with a death rate of over 17 in the same period last year. Sir Wilson said that last summer's infantile paralysis epidemic was the biggest epidemic in our history. On the subject of diptheria, he said: 'It is a disgrace to the parents of Britain that every other day, on the average, a child is strangled with diptheria. If a child is strangled by what is called an insane killer there is a public outcry, but these children died when there was no need.'

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 22, 1873

THIS morning a humorous incident occurred at the Register Office, Bolton. A Welshman, residing at Farnworth, desiring to enter the blissful state of matrimony, arrived at the Register Office in good time this morning in company with his 'sweet', also of Farnworth. Leaving his bride for a moment, the parties of the contract having no desire to make a great stir as some folks do, Taffy went into an adjoining works to cast about, not for a well-tanned hide, but for a man to stand best man for himself and his damsel, and he made the application in the following laconic style to the foreman:- 'I wish you to lend me a man for half-an-hour to assist me in a little business at the private wedding office, and I'll pay him.' As may be expected so strange a request was readily granted, the foreman calling out to one of his young men, 'Here, Jim, there's a nice job for thee. Go and run this man into the matrimonial noose.' Jim jumped at the job, and in a few minutes afterwards was witness to the contract of marriage being duly signed, sealed and delivered. The bride all blushes, the husband all smiles, and the best man all jollity, were preparing to leave the building with the idea that the law was cheap, when their Paradise was suddenly changed into a Sahara desert by a demand being made upon Taffy for 7s 6d merely to pay for red tape, etc. Fumbling in his many pockets, Taffy managed to draw forth from their recesses his worldly store of 6s 9d, or 9d short of the required fee. The icy minister being inexorable in demanding the full amount, nothing remained but that the newly-made wife should be left in pawn until her loving spouse obtained the desired 9d. Casting about the town, he obtained the sum at length, and with it redeemed his wife; but alas! for the 'best man', he had to let his pay stand over, and very likely only to be recovered by an action before his Honour in the County Court. It is however thought, like a gallant young gentleman that he is, that he will forego his claim, and that he realises the greatest of pleasure in having 'run in' Taffy into the haven of happiness of the 'United States', if only the 'Cape of Good Hope' is kept fixedly in view.

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