The pearl divers of the black River Irk

In the grey dawn, he saw them. From beneath the slimy waters a head bobbed up — and then another

Criminals in Victorian Manchester would steal anything they could lay their filthy hands on and the pages of the city’s old court records are full of unusual thefts.

Philip Southern, a well known “rough” from Ancoats, got a grocer named James Murphy badly drunk in a pub one day and then slipped outside and stole his donkey and cart.

The confused donkey wa…