PASSERS-BY dived for cover when three horses pulling a farm wagon ran amok in Oxford.

With the horses “furiously making their way up New Road”, the incident, at 9am one morning in 1878, caused “some amount of alarm”, according to the Oxford Chronicle and Berks and Bucks Gazette.

The paper reported: “The fright of the horses was caused by an engine passing over the bridge near Osney and emitting a shrill whistle – an action surely to be reprehended.

“The horses and wagon made their way at full speed up the incline, throwing the waggoner on to the bank near Mr Porter’s cab office, cutting his temple severely.”

A boy riding in the wagon escaped with shock.

The leading horse broke away and was detained in the canal yard, where Nuffield College now stands, and the other horses were stopped outside County Hall.

The story was told in the paper’s edition for May 18, 1878, a copy of which was found with other newspapers under carpets during a house clearance in Oxford.

This wasn’t the only incident which caused alarm that week.

Horspath farmer Michael Surman woke one night to hear his cattle being attacked by a mad dog.

The dog, which was later found to have rabies, was eventually cornered by the “courageous” Mr Surman and killed.

At that time, urgent repairs to Magdalen Bridge were under way so that it could stand the weight of traffic coming to the forthcoming agricultural show.

Other news stories included a case at the County Petty Sessions, in which the Great Western Railway accused staff at Radley College of allowing a pupil to travel on a train with an infectious disease.

When the pupil reached London’s Paddington station, he was feeling unwell and was taken to a doctor who diagnosed scarlet fever.

The defendants argued that they did not know the pupil was so ill and the case was dismissed.

In another case, two men were fined a shilling each or faced seven days’ hard labour in default for causing a nuisance by playing pitch and toss at Passey’s Yard in St Thomas’s.

Meanwhile, the committee running the Oxford House of Refuge, in Floyds Row, off St Aldate’s, appealed to the public for increased subscriptions.

A large number of the 68 young women who had checked into the house in the past two years had been “rescued from a life of misery and shame”.

The paper said: “The committee are receiving constant applications for admission which they cannot refuse, but very scanty means are put at their disposal.”

Spare a thought, too, to the gentleman driving round Blenheim Park in a pony trap.

The paper reported: “A hare got up and startled the pony, which ran up a bank, upset the trap and broke the occupant’s legs.”