A Burglar Caught by a Skeleton & Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press (11 page)

Sold His Wife for a Shilling

In Upper Heiduk, in Silesia, a working man recently, so a German paper reports, sold his wife for a term of two years to an acquaintance for a shilling. The wife lived with her new partner in harmony, when one day, the lawful husband thinking he had surrendered her too cheaply, called upon the man and demanded a further sum of 15s. The lady, he said, had a set of beautiful teeth. He had forgotten that, and he considered 15s a small sum under the circumstances.

The ‘man in possession’ demurred, and the husband sought the aid of the law. The authorities, it appears, pronounced that as he had contracted himself out of his legal rights for two years, and for a 1s, he was not entitled to any further amount.

The Worcestershire Chronicle
, May 17, 1890

Glass Eye as a Plea for Divorce

A judge in Ohio has given a decision of peculiar interest to young women. A man sued for divorce on the ground that his wife had a glass eye which she skilfully concealed during courtship by the use of glasses.

The judge refused to grant a divorce, holding that it is not necessary for a woman during her courtship to inform the intended husband of any device or attachment used to improve the work of nature in the construction of the face, form, or figure.

He holds that a glass eye is no more fraudulent than false teeth or hair.

The Leeds Times
, April 1, 1899

Her Husband Tickling Her Feet

On Thursday last week, a very serious charge was preferred against a man named Michael Puckridge, who resides at Winbush, a small village in Northumberland. The circumstances, as detailed before the board of guardians, are of a harrowing nature.

It appears that Puckridge has lived very unhappily with his wife, whose life he has threatened on more than one occasion. Most probably he had long contemplated the wicked design which he carried out but too successfully about a fortnight since.

Mrs Puckridge, who is an interesting looking young woman, has for a long time past suffered from varicose veins in the legs. Her husband told her that he possessed an infallible remedy for this ailment.

She was induced by her tormentor to allow herself to be tied to a plank, which he placed across two chairs. When the poor woman was bound and helpless, Puckridge deliberately and persistently tickled the soles of her feet with a feather.

For a long time he continued to operate upon his unhappy victim, who was rendered frantic by the process. Eventually she swooned, whereupon her husband released her. It soon became but too manifest that the light of reason had fled.

Mrs Puckridge was taken to the workhouse, where she was placed with the insane patients. A little girl who lived in the house, niece of the ill-used woman, spoke to one or two of the neighbours, saying her aunt had been tied to a plank, and that her uncle, so she believed, had cruelly ill-treated her.

An inquiry was instituted, and there is every reason to believe that Mrs Puckridge had been driven out of her mind in the way already described. But the result of the investigation is not yet known.

The Illustrated Police News
, December 11, 1869

The Beardless Man

A St Louis woman waked up the other night and putting out her hand touched the smooth face of an unknown man. She jumped out of bed and screamed for help.

Her brother, who slept in the next room, entered, and not finding any matches, seized the intruder by the hair of the head, pummelled him soundly, expressing at the same time in the most vigorous terms, his opinion of a scoundrel who would be guilty of such an act. Then he dragged him into the middle of the room, thumped him, kicked him, and threw him out of the window into the yard below.

The neighbours, aroused by the noise, came in, and a light was procured. Nothing had been taken, and attention was directed to the miserable object who lay groaning in the yard.

It would, says the
St Louis Republican
, be useless to describe that face, with its nose spread all over the middle of it, one eye bulging out and the other closed up, both covered like an indigo bag, an open mouth, and a row of twisted teeth, much less to recognise it: but as the excitement slowly subsided and cool reason began to reign, a thought suddenly struck the wife that made her turn pale with horror. ‘Why it can’t be – it must be – yes, it is John! He has been to the barber’s!’

It was true, he had. He was her husband, and on his way home in the evening, feeling his long and heavy beard oppressive in the heat, he had it shorn. His wife was asleep when he crawled into bed, and he soon fell into a comfortable nap, from which he was rudely awakened to the experience above recorded.

She is now making the best poultices and chicken soup for him she knows how.

Supplement to the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser
, November 11, 1882

A Remarkable Story.

Children Confined to a Room for Eighteen Years.

A Leeds contemporary says: A Cleckheaton correspondent who has visited a village less than six miles from York, has been told a strange story, and saw children who had been confined to one room for eighteen years without the knowledge of the villagers.

About twenty-four years ago a woman went to reside in the village with two babies and a girl. The neighbours considered the woman eccentric, and shunned the house. Imagine their surprise when, after the woman’s death, they found in a private room two persons – the children of eighteen years before.

They talked rationally, and admitted never having left the room. They had to be taken about the village in a mail cart, and are said to receive the best of everything from the daughters of a millionaire. It is not known who the parents are.

The Yorkshire Gazette
, June 10, 1899

Child Buying!

Last Monday a cab proprietor who resides in Belgrave Gate, and whose name begins with a T, happened by some mischance to be in a ‘merry mood.’

Not being blessed with any children in his connubial state, as he was passing along Mansfield Street he took a fancy to a child that a woman whom he met was leading, and asked her ‘what would she take for the darling?’

The woman replied a sovereign; on which the eager cab-man said ‘Done!’ and thought he had made a cheap and capital bargain.

The sovereign was readily paid, and the child transferred to the purchaser, who carried off his prize in high spirits to his home, in the blissful anticipation that his ‘better half’ would give the ‘young stranger’ welcome greeting.

But alas! his spouse was obdurate, and would not allow the young interloper house room at any price.

He then took the child back to its parents and wanted to get rid of the contract; but they would neither return him his money nor take back the child, telling him he had bought the child and must keep it.

He at last got rid of his ‘little responsibility’ by giving the parents 5s to take the child back.

The Leicestershire Mercury
, April 17, 1847

A Corpse in a House for 20 Years