Description:A newspaper cutting from the "Mercury" June 1906.This sketch is taken from the G.H. Osborne Newscuttings collection. A short article in the Handsworth Herald describes the incident as follows:
"On Monday evening a horse attached to a cab standing on a rank near the Crown and Cushion, Perry Barr, took fright at a passing motor, and bolted at full speed along the Birchfield Road, to Six Ways,Aston, where a police constable tried ineffectually to stop its mad career. Without slackening pace the animal dashed down High Street and Park Lane to Aston Cross, where large crowds generally assemble, and amid the shouts of men and the screaming of women continued its journey up Park Road. Half-way up the hill a young man named Charles Longden, of Clifton Road, Aston, and employed as a billiard marker at the Golden Cross Hotel, noticing the reins were all in order, pluckily mounted the box and succeded in arresting the animal's further progress. It was then ascertained that the horse and cab belonged to Mr. Collyer, of Birchfield Road, and in the abscence of the driver they were taken to the police station by police-constable Marks, whence a telephone message was sent to the owner. The most extra-ordinary thing of all was that no one was hurt, although the animal passed along many crowded thoroughfares, notably Park Lane and Aston Cross".