Cambridge Daily News 27 Apr 1889: Walter Humphrey upsetting bicycle with handcart

A CAUTION TO BOYS. — Before Colonel Wale and other magistrates, at the Cambridge Division Petty Sessions, this afternoon, a lad of the age of 13 years, named Walter Humphrey, living at Trumpington, was summoned for wilfully upsetting a bicycle, ridden by James Smith, by running into it with a handcart, at Trumpington, on April 8th. — Mr. J. Ellison prosecuted. — It appeared from the evidence of prosecutor that he was riding a bicycle from Cambridge to Trumpington about a quarter to nine o’clock p.m., on the day in question. It was a moonlight night, and he had a bright lamp burning. Just before he got into Trumpington he saw the defendant pushing a handcart on the opposite side of the road. He was then about 80 yards from him. He sounded the bell, but when he got within a few yards of him he deliberately pushed the cart across the road, and it caught the side of his machine. He was thrown over the handles and cut very much about the face, and the machine was injured. The defence was that the occurrence was an accident. — The chairman said the bench thought the case was one that should be dismissed on the payment of costs. There was no doubt that the conduct of such little boys was a source of great danger to bicyclists. He must remind the defendant that he might have been charged with manslaughter if the rider had been killed.