Amy Gill
- Frequenting, skinning and ringing the changes
- Women were most commonly charged with assault and drunkenness and often fined or served short terms. A fine of ten shillings or the alternative of seven days' gaol was the average. With this representing about a week's wage many more women than one might suspect were imprisoned, albeit for a very short stretch.
Some cases were more serious. A most callous assault on a shopkeeper in Birmingham had no alternative of a fine. 20-year-old Amy Gill was sent down for two months for attacking a woman who had caught her shoplifting. Along with two accomplices she pulled two good handfuls of hair from the head of her accuser and was said to have used the vilest language ever heard in Birmingham.
Another common charge against women was prostitution. Ladies of the night would target drunken men and lifted more than their skirts, with the wallets and watches of punters the most common targets.
Other common female offences, no longer a problem in today's society, included: frequenting - loitering with intent; skinning - stealing clothes from a child's back, and ringing the changes - falsely claiming to have handed over a coin of higher denomination than was really the case. Stealing clothes from clotheslines was the last resort of several old women whose job prospects were minimal.
