Isle of Wight Observer August 25 1860
The Ferry Company has now a steam horseboat plying between Ryde and Portsmouth. She is open aft but decked-in forward, and steams, we should think, about five miles an hour; she however lies under one very great defect, and that is she will not, to speak in nautical phraseology, answer her helm, or at any rate will not alter her course until the helm is either hard up or down. This defect is occasioned by the extreme smallness of the rudder, nor can a larger one be substituted without sundry inconveniences of unshipping &c, the small one being placed to avoid such trouble upon lowering the moveable stern to embark or disembark horses, carriages, &c.
Sunday Thieving
Some dishonest person or persons have made it a practice the last two or three Sundays to scale the garden wall of C Payne, Esq, of Uplands, and steal therefrom plums. A reward of £2 10s has been offered for the detection of the thieves, but as yet without success. If they this time escape the rigors of the law on such offences, may it be a warning to them and others, for although the crime be not of great magnitude in the eyes of the law, it should be abandoned if only for the reasons laid down by an ancient divine, “that sin persevered in is sin multiplied with interest”.
