Boy, 10, killed in brewery truck tragedy in 1923, and Irish tobacco is a drag
Echoes of Our Past 2023
AN inquest was held at the North Infirmary into the death of Denis Cummins, 10, of Skye’s Lane, Cork city, the Echo reported 100 years ago today, on Saturday, June 23, 1923.
The previous evening, he and his cousin Edward Cummins, 13, were sitting at the corner of Wolfe Tone Street playing ‘gobs’ (a game where you put five stones - or ‘gobs’ - on the back of your hand, flicked them up, and tried to catch them). when a Guinness motor lorry reversed after finishing a delivery to Murphy’s. Edward said they did not think it was going to back up the new road, but it did.
Evidence was heard that as the trucks was passing, one of the gobs rolled on to the road. the deceased put his hand out and it got caught in the spokes of the back wheel and the vehicle struck his head. Deceased did not move after that.
A woman stood him up, but his head was falling from one side to the other.
However, Jennie Smith, of 98 Wolfe Tone Street, was standing at her door and said she saw the boy get off the footpath and go to swing off the back of the lorry. As it was rounding the corner he let go and fell and it struck him. Witness shouted to the driver to stop and he did so.
Other witnesses variously said the lorry was going slow; it was going at a fair pace - about as fast as a trotting horse and car; lot of children were about. One woman took other children out of the path of the lorry.
The jury found death was caused by an accident and the driver, John Joseph Higgins, took reasonable precautions.
Arrangements are progressing for President Cosgrave’s visit to Cork on July 8, during which he will make a public address.
Cummain na Gaedhal branches throughout city and county will send representatives and, in view of the forthcoming elections, the President’s speech should prove of great importance to the people of the south of Ireland.
The text of the Public Safety (Emergency Powers) Bill was made available last night. It is a lengthy document containing 17 clauses relating to appeal courts, the death penalty, use of the birch, seizure of cattle, possession of stolen property and suspect bank balances.
On Use of the Birch: Every male person convicted of robbery under arms shall, in addition to other prescribed punishments, be sentenced to be once privately whipped.
In other cases, strokes shall not exceed 50; the Court to specify the number in advance and the instrument to be used.
No whipping shall take place after the expiration of six months from passing of sentence. Whippings to be inflicted prior to commencement of any period of penal servitude received.
Any hopes entertained for the Irish tobacco industry will not be strengthened by the latest gloomy report. Only part of the 1919 crop has thus far been disposed of and none of the 1920 or 1921 crop.
More than 100,000 lbs are still in the hands of the experimenters as the continued preference of the public for the imperial crop has ruined the market for an Irish one.
The experimenters are holding on to it in the hope some- thing may be done to relieve Irish growers from impossible competition with the cheap coloured labour of India and Africa.
But the government’s attitude increasingly appears to be that existing market conditions render it an unsound economic proposition to subsidise the industry.
This is regrettable but many pressing problems and burdens weigh on the government’s shoulders and it cannot be expected to plant money into an experimental undertaking in which hopes of success are extremely doubtful.
Beginning today, perplexed U.S. federal officials have to deal with liquor on board incoming vessels in accordance with Prohibition legislation.
The captain of the Baltic is understood to have obtained a permit for medicinal liquor but customs officers this morning at New York are seizing the rest of what is on board.
Passengers on the Berengaria lined the ship’s rails at midnight last night and, with bowed heads, lowered a bottle of champagne into the sea wrapped in crepe and inscribed “To the Three Mile Limit”.
The Reliance arrived “bone dry” after throwing scant remaining stocks overboard, while passengers on the Lapland succeeded in emptying the bar before the three-mile limit was reached.
