100 Years Ago:

Needing the birch. Edward George Williams, aged 11, of 5 Court, Quay Street, Worcester, was charged at the city police court with begging. PC Evans said he overheard the boy ask two ladies to give him a copper to buy a cake.

The boy had frequented the street outside Messrs. Georges' for the last two years, but he always ran away. Inspector Whellor of the NSPCC said that four years ago he served the mother with a warning not to let the boy beg.

The mother said she tried to bring up her boy respectably and always gave him enough to eat. The bench bound over the boy and the mother to be of good behaviour, though the chairman said it would be better for the mother to birch the boy than the police.

* The Ketch Inn, Bath Road, Worcester ,was sold by auction at the Star Hotel to Sir J Holder's Brewery Company of Birmingham for £2,400.

150 Years Ago:

(See picture)Highway robbery. A servant girl, living at the Mug House Inn, Hylton Street sic, Worcester, was robbed of a purse containing half-a-sovereign and a shilling on the road near Hallow by a strange man on Monday evening last.

The girl had been visiting her friends at Holt. The villain seized her by the waist and demanded what money she had in her possession. Fearing the consequence of refusal, she screamed loudly when the ruffian abstracted her purse and ran off in the direction of Hallow. The police have not yet succeeded in detecting the offender.

* Grand Concert. The concert last night at the Music Hall (Public Hall) in aid of the fund for repairing the primitive little church at Spetchley was attended by a most numerous and fashionable company and, as had been anticipated, proved a musical treat of no ordinary character. The accomplished vocalists and an instrumental quartet entertained for more than three hours with a very varied programme.

200 Years Ago:

IN common life we every day observe the irreparable damage that beauty sustains by the loss of a tooth.

The oratory of the pulpit and the Bar and, above all, the art of pleasing in conversation and social life are matters in which no-one can excel whose loss of teeth or rotten stumps and hollow cheeks destroy articulation and the happy expression of countenance and whose laugh, instead of painting joy and merriment, expresses only defect.

However, an opportunity now offers for the relief of such cases. Mr Jones, dentist from London, respectfully announces to the nobility and the gentry of Worcester and its vicinity that he has just arrived in his apartments at Mr Williams's at No.11 Broad Street where he hopes to receive the honour of their commands.

Irregularities of teeth are removed, hollow teeth are filled with gold or silver, teeth are scaled and cleaned, and artificial teeth are set with the utmost care.

250 Years Ago:

Last week no less than three persons (each on a different day) were drowned in our river at Worcester by bathing. From the frequency of such accidents of late, it is hoped all parents and masters will for the future restrain, as much as possible, their children and servants from the dangerous practice of bathing in common rivers.

* Great Malvern - At Dugard's Assembly Room on Wednesday next will be performed a vocal entertainment, The Triumph of Vertue to begin precisely at 11o'clock in the forenoon. Tickets at two shillings and sixpence each to be had at Hooper's Coffee House, at Mr Bradley's in High Street, Worcester, at the Hop-pole Hotel in Foregate Street, at the Bell Hotel in Broad Street and at the Place of Performance.

A ball will be held in the afternoon after the concert. Coffee and tea at eight pence per person. A card assembly is held every Monday.