AT Bromsgrove Petty Sessions, George Evans, of High Street,wascharged with riding a bicycle without a light in the Birmingham Road. Defendant admitted that he had no lamp onthemachine,butsaid thathe had been sent for urgently to kill a pig which was ill and he rode the bicycle to get there quickly. Defendant was ordered to pay the costs of 6s.

à THE annual batch of hop-picking school attendance cases was brought before Bromsgrove magistrates with no heavy penalties administered.

It was said that parents were often left in profit after paying the fines, but the majority of offenders were largely drawn from the poorest of parents and their annual excursions to the hop fields were required to enable poor families to win through the approaching winter.

The suggestion was made that Bromsgrove stood alone in initiating these prosecutions.