25 YEARS AGO From the Evening News, April 5, 1976

JIM Callaghan is to be the next Prime Minister. He received 176 votes to Michael Foot's 137 in the election. Mr Harold Wilson stepped down today with a firm resolve never to return to head another Government.

A POLICE chief warned today that Britain could easily become as violent as America before the end of the century. Mr Lawrence Byford, Chief Constable of Lincolnshire, said crimes of violence were doubling every seven years, and vandalism doubling every two years. Reasons for violence included lack of discipline at home, school, and in public life, he said.

50 YEARS AGO From the Evening News, April 4, 1951

A MILLION gallons of liquid poison is being dumped into the River Croal every day and the fishermen of Bolton are being driven further and further away from the town for a quiet day's fishing, Ald. Peter Lowe told members of Bolton Town Council today. The Englishman is losing his right to sit by a clean stream and fish, he said. A private analysis of some of the liquid that goes from Hacken Sewage Works into the Croal indicates that no fish could possibly live in it for more than two minutes.

BOLTON'S Civic Restaurant on Victoria Square is to close, the Town Council decided today by 41 votes to 29.

125 YEARS AGO From the Evening News, April 5, 1876

SIR,- Some three years ago a meeting was held in the Little Bolton Town Hall in favour of the abolition of the income tax. Several of our Bolton notables held forth on that occasion. The tax was abominable, iniquitous, &c., and I think I am right when I say that not only were local big guns at the meeting, Tories, but that they also imported a Conservative from Hull to assist them in the abolition of this cruel impost. When in 1874 Mr Gladstone promised to abolish this tax the Conservatives must surely have felt that there prayers were about to be speedily answered. Owing to a Conservative reaction Mr Gladstone had not the opportunity to carry out his promise; the Conservative Government have spent the money he intended for that purpose, and have now announced an addition to the income tax. I now ask where are these local Conservatives who talked so wildly at the Town Hall, and to what party do they now belong? I am expecting to see some placards calling a meeting to petition against the proposal of the Government, but I am rather afraid my expectations will be seriously disappointed. W.C.