A Burglar Caught by a Skeleton & Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press (35 page)

On returning to her home on Friday evening, the household and other articles commenced moving about in all directions in the most mysterious manner. This continued during the night. Six panes of glass were broken in the room, and outside the greatest disorder prevailed, and on the side of the house were strewn broken bricks, crockery, glass, stones, &c., which could not be accounted for in any way.

One woman was struck with a stone 150 yards off; another, who was in the house, received a wound on the arm from a knife passing her; and an Ulster belonging to the girl had every button torn from it in the room.

A number of the Shropshire constabulary visited the premises on Saturday to investigate the extraordinary circumstances, but were unable to solve the mystery. The girl was made to do some household work, but nothing unusual was observable. Dr Corke, of Baschurch, was called in on Saturday and made a close examination of the girl, but was unable to obtain much information from her.

He stated that she was in a very excitable and nervous state, but was not a designing girl. The matter is causing the greatest excitement throughout the whole neighbourhood; much superstition prevails in the village.

The Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette
, November 13, 1883

Mother Shipton’s Prophecies

A very singular cause of death was revealed at an inquest held on the body of a child of 10 years, named Kate Weedon, who resided with her parents at Hoxton.

It appeared that the girl had read the well-known prophecies of Mother Shipton, and had consequently become very much alarmed, the more especially as the present year was quickly drawing to a close. She very frequently cried and talked about the world coming to an end in 1881.

On returning from school on the 17th inst., she was weeping bitterly and speaking of Mother Shipton. Her mother told her it was all nonsense, but this had not the least effect upon her, and when she went to bed at half-past 10 she was still crying and wringing her hands, saying she knew the end of the world would come in the night.

At about half-past 3 on the following morning the mother was awakened by hearing her cry, and on going to her bedroom found the child in a fit.

A doctor was immediately sent for, but his services were of no avail, and the child died two hours later. Medical evidence was to the effect that death was due to convulsions and shock to the system, brought on by fright. A verdict was returned accordingly.

The Taunton Courier
, November 30, 1881

CRIME and PUNISHMENT

Preface

You’d think it far-fetched if it happened in a farce. On a winter’s evening in 1874, two burglars crept in to a doctor’s surgery in search of loot. While one searched the darkened office with his lantern, his accomplice opened a cupboard, felt blindly inside and promptly got his hand trapped in something painful.

Cue kerfuffle. The man with the lamp swung round, throwing light on an unusual predicament: the thief’s fingers were caught in the coil-sprung jaw of a skeleton. Spooked by the sight, he tumbled backwards, pulling the bones upon him and generating enough clatter to rouse the doctor.

This preposterous scene played out first in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and then shortly afterwards across the pages of a tickled British press, which used crime stories as a kind of journalistic grouting.

Take the
York Herald
, one of the papers to carry the wired report of the hapless exploits of the Greensburg Two. The eight pages of that day’s edition brought news of a man kicked to death by drunks; a master mariner who murdered his wife; a violent mugging; a random assault on a passenger at a railway station; a cunning break-in; the theft of weapons from a barracks; and the killing of an insurance agent.

An easily-alarmed reader of the
Herald
might fold the paper and think about bolting the door on the world outside. Yet none of these crimes happened in York itself or the surrounding towns. All the neighbourhood ne’er-do-wells had to offer in response was a pinched umbrella, some nicked boots and a couple of smashed windows.

Like the sworn testimony of an incorrigible liar, Victorian crime statistics should be treated with a certain amount of caution, but it’s generally agreed that rates of theft and violence slumped through the second half of the nineteenth century. Yet reality isn’t necessarily the same as perception. And for that, newspapers must shoulder a good deal of the blame.

An example. On a July night in 1862, Hugh Pilkington, the MP for Blackburn, was leaving Parliament when he was set upon by two men who knocked him to the ground, choked him and pinched his watch. So began the great garrotting panic of 1862.

Garrotting was a Victorian brand of mugging, with the stylistic tweak of partial strangulation. Even though the actual number of assaults was negligible, the press and public were soon seeing these dastardly types wherever they looked. There’s a story of a man walking home in the fog who feared he was being followed by a garrotter, and decided the best form of defence was attack. The innocent chap behind, who’d been merely walking the same way, told the police he’d been garrotted.

Londoners were frightened out of their wits, reported the
Gloucestershire Chronicle
later that year. ‘They are afraid to walk the streets after dark and the journals which are supposed to lead public opinion follow it by blowing the flame of general fear.’

The
Chronicle
pointed out the garrotting scare was proving a useful alibi for the louche. ‘Does a gent appear at the counting-house in the morning with a terrible headache and a pair of black eyes? He has not been drunk overnight but has been garrotted. Does anybody stay out all night and return in a state of bodily or mental dilapidation? He has not been astray, but has been lying insensible at a hospital, the victim of another outrage of those garrotters. The result of all this is that a large number of amiable and Christian people have come to the conclusion that there really ought to be a good deal more hanging.’

Two years on, a new title hit the newspaper stands: the sensation-hungry
Illustrated Police News
. This journalistic equivalent of a penny dreadful arrived too late for the garrotting panic, but was in pole position for the defining crimes of this or any other age, and it exploited the opportunity ruthlessly. By common consent Jack the Ripper killed five times.
The Illustrated Police News
put him on the front page 184 times.

In between, it titillated and terrified the public with macabre sketches, lurid headlines and a weekly diet of murder and misery served up with unabashed enthusiasm.

If that
York Herald
reader felt a twinge of unease, the average subscriber to the
Illustrated Police News
must have toyed with the idea of stocking up on tinned goods and retiring to a safe room with a blunderbuss and a box of ammunition.

Snake Charmer and Bearded Lady.