Theft of Mud

polor

I've just taken advantage of FMPs free access and found that my 3 x gt. grandfather was brought before the Petty Sessions at Ballyhaunis in 1872 to answer the following charge:

'The defendant did enter in and upon the complainant's land at Cartron in said county in the month of July 1872 and did dig and carry away a portion of clay or mud off said land.'

Why would anyone be taken to court for taking a spadeful of mud? He would have been aged approximately 77 at the time.

Jellybaby1

Probably for trespass rather than the taking of mud. Don't we find some bewildering things in the archives! Why would he have wanted that particular mud in the first place?

pedroeibar1

It probably was not a first offence or indeed a spadeful. I’d guess it was a warning to a repeat offender. It could have been topsoil for his garden or clay for a cottage floor (clay, hammered flat, was frequently used as flooring in poorer cottages.)

Estate rules were very strict. There are stories of tenants being ‘fined’ for taken fallen leaves for use as bedding for animals, for taking twigs for ‘firing’ or even a piece of driftwood. Equally there are stories of tenants going to law against each other over an animal straying into a neighbour’s pasture. If you have just a couple of acres the damage a cow or a goat or a few geese can do or eat in a short while is often serious.

There is an old Spanish proverb that roughly translates as “The Jew ruins himself at Passover, the Moor at his weddings and the Christian at his lawsuits!”