A Burglar Caught by a Skeleton & Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press (46 page)

The day John Hetherington put on his new hat and went for a walk, he caused something of a stir. Children screamed, women fainted, and a boy on an errand was knocked over by the excitable crowd and broke his arm.

The hullaballoo in the centre of London in January 1797 was sparked by nothing more than the sight of Hetherington’s silk top hat, ‘such a tall and shiny construction on his head that it must have terrified nervous people’, said a witness. It was a riotous debut for a design that would become emblematic of sober authority in the century to follow.

After the fops, fribbles and popinjays of earlier eras, fashion in the Victorian age was characteristically muted. Like the straight-laced offspring of hippy parents, the Victorians were rather ashamed of the plunging necklines, elaborate wigs and general stylistic antics of previous, more daring generations.

Modesty became the guiding principle. Modesty and dignity. And if there was room for some gross discomfort too, so much the better. Corsets were worn swoon-inducingly tight. Skirts were the width of a supersized hula-hoop. A lady’s daily dress was built up in stages, in the style of a Russian doll.

As for men, they weren’t dressed properly until they looked like they had been freshly dipped in a solution of starch. The sole nod to frippery came in facial hair; the unrulier the better, from dundreary whiskers to beards of a length and bushiness to rival a desert-island castaway.

But if the Victorian era was no equal for the punky excess of the eighteenth century, it did at least boast one craze daft enough to match any other conjured up in the entire history of fashion.

It began with an outbreak of rheumatic fever that left the fondly-regarded Princess Alexandra lame. As she was a trend-setter, fashion-conscious women in the capital were soon to be seen affecting a hobble.

They called it the Alexandra Limp, and it spread quickly across the country. ‘It is as painful as it is idiotic and ludicrous’, wrote an Edinburgh journalist, after spotting three dedicated followers of fashion clump down Princes Street. ‘I heard that a fashionable Edinburgh shoemaker, one who carries the royal arms over his shop front, actually made and vended the boots necessary to produce the deformity, and exhibited them in his window, one with a high heel and one without.’

A Word for Crinoline

Some time ago a young lady walking in the country was suddenly attacked by a large and ferocious dog, so that her fate seemed inevitable.

But being amply provided with a crinoline, she soon had recourse to the usual expedient of stooping down, so as to allow the lower portion of her dress to collect around her; and the crinoline, by its enormous stiffness, kept off all the attacks of the animal until assistance arrived.

The Dundee Advertiser
, September 11, 1863

Saved by Her Corset

A tailor shot at Mrs Dove, the wife of his employer, at Faversham, last evening, with a revolver. The bullet struck the region of the heart, but was stopped by the corset steel. The man is in custody.

The Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette
, September 25, 1900

Crinoline Accidents

In one case, crinoline has been the means of saving life. At Bristol, the other day, a woman either jumped or fell into the Float at the Stone Bridge, and it was some time before any person came to her assistance. She remained on the surface of the water, however, during that period, by means of her crinoline. She was eventually rescued with grappling irons. Two men who saw her in the water plunged in to save her, but being unable to swim, they narrowly escaped drowning.

We are glad to hear Lady Mildmay is pronounced in a convalescent state, though still, as well as Sir Henry Mildmay, suffering much from the violent kicks of the horse who was frightened by her Ladyship’s crinoline, when she went up to the horse-box in the stable. The fearful accident happened at Heckfield Park, Hampshire, the seat of her Ladyship’s father, Viscount Elmsley.

Near Carlisle, a party of young people were crowding round beehives, when, in stooping in the vicinity of these, one of the girls’ crinolines hooked over the top of the hive, and when the poor girl, ignorant of the fact, walked away, down came the hive, of course.

The whole corps d’armee instantly set upon their unwitting assailant, who, to escape their notice, was obliged to run for it, and eventually to take refuge in a pool of water. She was badly stung.

The Hereford Times
, October 5, 1861

The Danger of Jute Chignons

It is reported that a woman died recently in Indianapolis from the effects of the ravages of jute worms, which had entered her scalp from the jute chignon which she had worn for a number of years.

The Dundee Courier and Argus
, March 15, 1872

Inkslinging Extraordinary

‘Jack the Inkslinger’ has been creating an amount of consternation in New York, only second to that of ‘Jack the Ripper’ in London.

His aim has been to destroy the most beautiful dresses to be seen in the promenades, by throwing violet-coloured ink over them; and so many have been completely destroyed that big rewards have been offered for his capture.

According to the
New York Tribune
, the police believe they have captured him. Their prisoner is John Connors, a tall, lank, beardless Irishman, about 35 years old. He is said to have a roving eye, the expression of which indicates a diseased mind. His wife and four children live in the tenement house No. 443, West Fifty-Second Street. The family came from Ireland.

Connors has been employed every day for some time changing the harness on the car horses, and has finished his work about 10.30pm. On Friday night, Policeman Stafford saw Connors following two women in a suspicious manner at Ninth Avenue and Fifty-Ninth Street. Connors kept close behind them until they turned into a side street. Then he stood for a moment as if uncertain whether to follow them any further or not.

Stafford went up to him and asked him what was the matter. Connors said, ‘Nothing.’ As he was moving away, Stafford noticed that he put one hand into his coat pocket. The policeman caught the hand and found in it a bottle of violet ink. That was sufficient to cause the arrest of the man.

At the police station more evidence of guilt was found. In one pocket were three bowls of clay pipes. The bowls were stained with violet ink, and one bowl held a small quantity of the fluid. Part of another bowl, which had been broken, was found in one of the prisoner’s waistcoat pockets, and two of the pockets were stained with ink on the inside. There was ink on the prisoner’s fingers also.

Connors denied that he had thrown ink on women’s dresses. He said that he had found his little boy playing with the ink and bowls and had taken them away from him.

His actions led the police to believe that he was partly, at least, insane. His wife and children were questioned and they denied that they had ever seen the ink or the bowls.

Mrs Connors said her husband had been acting strangely and probably was not in his right mind.

The Citizen
, Gloucester, July 1, 1890

Actress in Male Attire.

Attempt to Enlist as a Soldier

An extraordinary story was told at the Marlborough Street Police Court, London, today. Harriet Muir, aged 28, described as an actress, staying at Anderton’s Hotel, was charged with being in male attire. She appeared in the dock in the clothes in which she was arrested – dark striped trousers, pilot jacket, and wore her hair short.

It appeared that she presented herself yesterday afternoon at St George’s Barracks for enlistment as a soldier, and her sex being suspected, she was at once taken before the doctor, and her sex ascertained.

Mr Arthur Newton, for the defence, said the accused ran away about four years ago from her home at Christchurch, New Zealand, where her father was a sheep farmer. She had since maintained herself respectably on the stage, and had been acting at Bristol but finding herself out of employment came up to London last Sunday, and put up at Anderton’s Hotel.