BOLTON Conservative Counc Robert Horrocks today lost the final round of his slander action against Labour Ald. Peter Lowe over remarks made at a council meeting over four years ago. The house of Lords held that Mr Lowe was entitled to the defence of qualified privilege if, as was conceded, he believed the truth of his remarks. Mr Horrocks was ordered to pay Mr Lowe's costs.

50 YEARS AGO

IN the friendliest possible way, the battle of the Roses was renewed last night at the annual dinner of the Society of Yorkshiremen in Bolton. The first blow for Yorkshire was struck by the Rev. E.W.E. Broadbent, vicar of the Saviour's, who, after mentioning Bolton's assets. criticized two things. There was, he said, too much rain, and improvement would only come when Bolton received permission to move the Pennine Range. The second drawback was the smoky atmosphere.

For the home side, the Mayor (Ald Hampson) reminded the Society that but for Bolton's climate some of them might not have been earning the money they were earning.

The friendship between the two counties having been firmly cemented, most of the remaining speakers told Yorkshire jokes.

WHEN a woman has a hen to drive into a coop, she takes hold of her hoops with both hands, shakes them quietly towards the delinquent, and says: 'Show, there'. The hen takes one look at the object, to convince herself that its a woman, and then stalks majestically into the coop in perfect disgust at the sex. A man don't do it that way. He goes out of doors and says, 'It is singularly nobody in this house can drive a hen but myself.' And picking up a stick of wood, hurls it at the offending biped, and observes, 'Get in there, you thief.' The hen immediately loses her reason and dashes to the opposite side of the yard. The man chases, all the other hens come out of the coop to take a hand in the debate, and the man says every hen on the place shall be sold in the morning, and puts on his things and goes down the street, and the woman dons her hoops, and has every one of those hens housed and contented in two minutes.

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