Digest of stories from The Luton News: Thursday, July 26th, 1917.

Six people described as "sugar hogs" were convicted at the Borough Police Court yesterday for making false statements when applying to acquire sugar other than for the domestic preserving of fruit on or about June 11th, 1917. Each faced two charges under the Defence of the Realm regulations and face penalties of a £100 fine or six months imprisonment, or both.

Applicants for sugar were required to fill in a form detailing how much fruit they proposed to make into jam and sign a declaration that the sugar would not be used for any purpose other than indicated and involving fruit grown by themselves.

Outlining the regulations concerning the sale of sugar for jam-making, Town Clerk Mr William Smith said the cases before the court were only a first instalment and he understood that a large number of other cases would be dealt with. The six cases before the court involved 4¾ cwt of sugar.

Sugar hogs/sugar thieves, he said, were being wilfully selfish, altogether untruthful and guilt of of what was really the crime of obtaining by false pretences goods which were necessary for other people. It was necessary after nearly three years of war that anybody should realise their duty to their neighbour.

In the case of an Ashton Road grocer, he had asked for 250 lb of sugar from a wholesaler for fruit said to have been grown on an allotment. The jam would have been sold but for a visit by an inspector.

Other defendants admitted they made jam from fruit supplied by friends rather than home-drown fruit. In the case of a women who asked for 70 lbs of sugar, she admitted her only fruit tree was one gooseberry bush, and a High Town man admitted her had only one pear tree.

In most case it was alleged that the jam was made for sale rather than personal consumption. Each defendant was fine 20 shillings on each of two summonses, a total of 40s.

• Two men - bricklayer Thomas Ford, of 27 Edward Street, and labourer Albert Barton, of 18 Henry Street - fell 12ft to the ground yesterday afternoon when brackets holding scaffolding to a brick wall became loosened and the scaffolding collapsed. Mr Ford was found unconscious on the path and was taken to the Bute Hospital, where it was found he had sustained a fracture of the left ankle. Mr Barton escaped with bruising and was able to proceed home. The men had been pointing the front wall of a cottage in Queen Street.

• A curious accident occurred on Sunday evening at the Central Mission, High Town, when a six-year-old girl named Rene Ivory, whose home is at 4 High Street, was found to have pushed he head between the iron railings outside the Mission and was quite unable to get it back. From Mr Rodell, engineer, of Midland Road, a saw was obtained, and Arthur Day, of 25 Arthur Street, quickly sawed through the rail., which was wrenched aside sufficiently for the withdrawal of the child's head.

• The funeral took place at the Church Cemetery on Wednesday afternoon of Mr George Clarke, who passed away on Saturday evening at the age of 64. He had been a platelayer with the Midland Railway Co for upwards of 35 years and lived at 64 Ivy Road, Luton.

• One of the most interesting Society events was that which took place on Friday when Major Harold Augustus Wernher, second son of the late Sir Julius Wernher and Lady Wernher, of Luton Hoo, was married to the Countess Anastasia (Zia) de Torby, elder daughter of the Grand Duke Michael Michailovich of Russia and the Countess de Torby. The wedding was attended by the King and Queen and other members of the Royal Family at St James's Palace. Some pictures of the couple at Bath House, the Wernher family home in London, were taken by Luton photographer Frederick Thurston.

• Last Saturday the brass workers of Messrs G. Kent Ltd, Biscot Road, had their annual outing. At 9 o'clock in the morning about 104 workers from the foundry left Luton in brakes and arrived at Biggleswade about noon. After lunch they played cricket and went round the town, and others went boating. Early in the evening they left Biggleswade and arrived hom in the early hours of Sunday morning.

• After bearing the pastoral burden of the old Parish Church for several weeks without assistance, the Vicar (the Rev A. E. Chapman) has now secured a welcome colleague in the person of the Rev David Harries Williams, who took part in the services at the church for the first time on Sunday. Mr Williams, a Welshman, has been engaged for some time in the diocese of St Asaph as curate-in-charge of Nannerch, near Mold, North Wales.

• Miss Nellie Amelia Hammett, fourth daughter of Mr and Mrs David Hammett, of 18 Hitchin Road, Luton, was married at High Town Primitive Methodist Church last Wednesday to Pte Arthur Edgar French, only son of Mr and Mrs Arthur French, of Chapel Street, Luton. A gift from the bride to her new husband was a life-saving shrapnel jacket. [He survived the war.]

• Sunday was Railwayman's Day in Luton when the local branch of the N.U.R. (National Union of Railwaymen) arranged a church parade from East Ward Recreation Ground to St Mary's Parish Church to raise funds for widows and orphans and also the Bute Hospital. An evening procession started from West Ward Recreation Ground, Dallow Road, to The Moor, where a meeting was held. Total proceeds during the day amounted to £56 2s 1½d.

• The Luton Borough Tribunal had by no means an enviable task on Monday night. They dealt only with men holding exemptions. Of 15 men before the Tribunal no fewer than 13 were engaged in the straw trade, and six of those were entitled to claim on the ground of one-man businesses. The whole of the six received exemption, and out of the full 15 the Tribunal allowed Military Representative Lieut Gardner only three.

• Mr and Mrs Donne, of 274 Dunstable Road, Luton, have to mourn the death of their son, Rifleman Leonard Donne, which occurred while he was a prisoner of war in Germany, from wounds on April 23rd. He was employed by Commercial Cars Ltd before joining the King's Royal Rifles in November 1916.

• The death took place suddenly on Friday evening of Pte Arthur William Purser, of the Beds Regiment, a Toddington man on leave after 12 months in hospital. He had been severely wounded by an explosive bullet in the jaw on the Somme on July 1st, 1916, and whilst at supper on Friday evening, he left the table while evidently suffocating. Neighbours rushed to his assistance but, although a doctor quickly arrived, life was extinct.