Three different reports
August 1892
BOBBETT'S BACON AND
EGGS. Mrs. Arthur Bobbett, the younger, was summoned to the Westminster
Police-court yesterday, for willfully damaging some crockery belonging to Robert
Allplush coffee-house keeper, defendant
admitted the damage, and explained that her Husband would persist in taking his
meals at the coffee-shop, though she prepared his food at his home, situate
immediately opposite. She had dinner ready for him but he went to the
complainants for eggs and bacon. When had sat down, she entered, and swept the
lot off the table, The Magistrate ordered her to pay the damage and costs,
amounting to twenty-six shillings and sixpence.
Through the energetic action of Mrs. Arthur Bobbett, wife of a distinguished middle-weight boxer
and cab proprietor, a curious question of domestic ethics was discussed before
the magistrate at Westminster, the lady in question being the defendant, and Mr Robert Allplush,
coffee-house keeper, the complainant. Is a man compelled under the rules of
household felicity to ruin his digestion by eating his wife’s cookery, which he
does not like? And has a wife the right to demolish the dishes which another
cook prepares exactly to his taste? There are limits to the digestive
capabilities even of a middleweight boxer and if he prefers a ham-and-egg tea,
with bread and butter, to a banquet prepared for him by the partner of his joys
and sorrows, he is entitled to enjoy it in peace; for thank heaven ours is
still a free country. Mrs Bobbett does not think so, and when her husband disdained
the turtle her own hands had made, and sat himself down to the ham-and-egg tea
already mentioned, the irate lady bounced into the coffee shop and swept the
dishes, the teapot and the cups to the floor. The only defence Mrs Bobbett set
up was that she did not like her husband’s
preference for a coffee-shop cuisine when she rather prided herself on
her own, but she steadfastly declined to pay for the damaged ware, even
although Mr Allplush allowed the matter to stand over until he thought her
temper had gone down. Mr De Rutzen, after hearing the whole story, ordered her
to pay 26s.6d as damages and costs. But if Mr Bobbett has, after all, to
disburse the amounts represented by his wife’s tantrums it may in the long run
be cheaper to accept the domestic cookery and run the risk.
Mrs. Arthur Bobbett, the younger, was charged on a
summons, before Mr. De Rutzen, with wilfully damaging tho property of Robert Allplush,
a coffeehouse keeper. Mr. E. D. Rymer, who appeared for the Complainant, said
that Mrs. Bobbett, for some reason best known to herself, resented her husband
taking his meals away from home. On the
evening of the 6th inst. Mr. Bobbett had just sat down
in the coffee-shop to substantial fare in the shape of ham and eggs, tea, and
bread-and-butter, when Defendant bounced into tho shop, overturned the lot, and
smashed the crockery. Prosecutor, an elderly man, bore out the opening
statement of the solicitor, and stated that he waited a few days till he
thought Mrs. Bobbett’s temper might have cooled before asking her to pay the damage.
She was very insolent, and refused to do so. The Defendant said she could not
deny that she did sweep the crockery off the table in the coffee-shop. Although
she lived almost opposite, her husband would take his food in the shop. He sent
there for his breakfast, and on the day in question she had had his dinner
ready for hours, yet he walked in there for eggs and bacon. She could not
understand his preference for coffee-shop food, and felt very much annoyed at
him. Mr. De Rutzen ordered her to pay a fine, damage and costs amounting to
26s. 6d.
At least five newspapers reported on this, I can't seem to find a Robert Allplush on Find my Past!
