Woman appeared in court for 90th time at 43

Number 24 on the register was Margaret Devannah, who was only 16 years of age.

After she was found guilty of “behaving while drunk in a riotous or disorderly manner”, Bailie Doig said it was “the most lamentable case that had come before the court. She was little more than a child”.

She was fined £2 with the alternative of 30 days in prison.

In 1933, at the age of 43, she appeared before the Police Court in Dundee for the 90th time, charged with being drunk and incapable.

She died in the poor house, aged 46.

Number one was Harriet Croll, 44, a mill worker from Fife living in Brown Street, Dundee.

She is described as pock-pitted, with a wart under her left eye and the little finger of her right hand being deformed at the first joint.

She too had a string of criminal convictions.

However, she was also a victim, suffering an assault in 1890 by a John Brown, who was convicted of “having brutally kicked and ill-used” her.

Despite her chaotic life Harriet lived to a reasonable age, for the time, of 70.

A particularly shocking entry on the register was for Adelina Scott, 26, who, in May 1905, received her latest conviction of being “Drunk while having charge of her daughter Georgina, aged 10 months”.

Men on the list of miscreants include 21-year-old John Reynolds who, among his distinguishing marks, had tattoos of a yacht, crown and bracelet on his right arm and a heart, Union Jack and crossed flags on his left arm.

In 1905 he was sentenced to a £2 fine or 30 days in prison.

Bailie Martin said of John Reynolds “he had been giving himself up to the drink, but something would require to be done to make him an abstainer”.