A Burglar Caught by a Skeleton & Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press

by Clay, Jeremy

  The employer took the deceased’s son into his service in a similar capacity, and now the news has come to hand that the son has himself been kicked to death by the foal of the mare that kicked his father to death.

  The Citizen, Gloucester, March 29, 1895

  Death Under Remarkable Circumstances

  A man named Robert Hill met with a shocking death under peculiar circumstances at Rochester on Wednesday night. He was a night man under the Corporation and a year ago was principal witness as to the death of a fellow-workman, who drank carbolic acid in mistake for cold tea while at work, and died in consequence.

  Notwithstanding this warning, Hill himself on Thursday morning swallowed a dose of the acid in mistake for whiskey, and died in great agony. He was a married man and about 35 years old.

  The York Herald, September 28, 1889

  The Extraordinary Fog.

  Three Men Killed Near Glasgow

  Information reached Glasgow last evening that during the fog yesterday morning while Patrick Murtha, 26, and James Leary, 37, were laying fog signals on the Helensburgh branch of the North British Railway they were overtaken by a train from Helensburgh and cut to pieces.

  Shortly afterwards their remains were found by Patrick Reilly, surfaceman, who returned to Maryhill to give information of the occurrence. He afterwards walked back along the line, and on stepping out of the way of a mineral train was killed by a passenger train.

  The Aberdeen Journal, January 14, 1888

  An Incredible Piece of Luck

  It would be difficult to find in the pages of fiction anything to equal the following prosaic fact, which has just happened in Scotland.

  A Captain Heathcote rents a moor from year to year. Last year while out shooting he lost a diamond ring. This year he was reminded of it by the anniversary of his loss, and sitting by the fire and taking up a piece of peat to put on, he had scarcely uttered the words, ‘It is a year today since I lost my diamond ring,’ than his companion was surprised to hear the words quickly followed by ‘And here it is.’

  The peat had been cut from the very moor where the loss had occurred, and hence its recovery. No other account of extraordinary recovery of diamonds could equal that, unless, perhaps, that of a lady who dropped a diamond into a pond and found it some months after on the leaf of a water-lily which had borne it upwards in its growth.

  The Evening Telegraph, Dundee, September 8, 1894

  Singular Coincidence

  A woman named Ellen Hoyle walked into the canal at Shipley during fog, on Wednesday. She had given evidence the same day at an inquest on Frank Seed, labourer, who was drowned under similar circumstances.

  The Shields Daily Gazette and Shipping Telegraph, February 27, 1891

  Vicar and Church Struck by Lightning

  The Rev. F.W. Keene, vicar of Misson, near Bawtry, was struck by lightning eleven weeks ago, and so seriously injured that it was feared he would not recover.

  However, the rev. gentleman sufficiently improved to enable him to leave home for a short time for the re-establishment of his health. This was happily effected to a great extent, and it was hoped that he would have been able to resume his duties on Sunday, while his home-coming was to have been celebrated by bell-ringing and other rejoicings.

  Unfortunately lightning again played an important and an unpleasant part in the proceedings, for, on the previous day, the church was struck during a storm and set on fire, and the greater portion of it destroyed. Instead of Mr Keene being welcomed by a merry peal from his church bells, he found the edifice an utter wreck.

  The Citizen, Gloucester, September 26, 1893

  A Singular Coincidence

  To the editor of the Cheshire Observer.

  Sir,

  The following coincidence appears to me to be worth recording. Last Sunday morning Samuel Whitehead, a Willaston labourer, whose wife is an inmate of the Upton Asylum, was about to start to Upton for the purpose of seeing her, when he received a letter addressed ‘S. Whitehead, Willaston,’ informing him that his wife had completely recovered, and that her clothing must be sent at once to the relieving officer. The poor fellow was overjoyed, and on Monday morning sent off her clothing as desired to the relieving officer at Bebington. There, however, he learned to his bitter disappointment that it was the wife of another S. Whitehead, of Willaston, near Crewe, who was referred to, and that his own wife was no better.

  Your, &c,

  Sympathizee.

  The Cheshire Observer, May 30, 1885

  Coincidence Extraordinary

  A singular coincidence of events has recently occurred at Ely, where a Mr Thomas Ellis finding his last hour was approaching sent a message to that effect to his friend Mr John Kester, who was also in declining health, and the reply was ‘Tell my old friend I shall not be long after him.’

  Within one hour both were dead. They were born on the same day and hour, and died on the same day and hour, aged seventy-five.

  The Grantham Journal, January 30, 1869

  Romance of a Warship

  A telegram from Montreal describes a romantic incident of the Tourmaline’s stay. Among the visitors to the ship was a pretty young girl who met a gallant blue jacket by the name of Charles Moore.

  In comparing experiences while he was shewing her about the ship, they made the interesting discovery that they were brother and sister. They are orphans, and were placed in an asylum in London in their early childhood.

  Eleven years ago she was sent to Canada by an immigration society, and the boy was placed on a training ship. They lost all knowledge of each other until the discovery made by their meeting.

  An unfortunate termination to the romance was caused by Moore’s anxiety to see more of his sister. He begged for leave, but was refused, and when he jumped over-board to swim ashore was brought back and placed in irons.

  The Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, October 3, 1891

  Calamity at Washington.

  400 Killed and Injured.

  A shocking catastrophe, which constituted also a very remarkable coincidence, occurred at Washington yesterday morning. While the funeral of the late Edwin Booth was taking place in New York, Ford’s Theatre, in which, 28 years ago, the great actor’s brother, John Wilkes Booth, shot President Lincoln, collapsed, burying in its ruins all who were at the time within its precincts.

  The tragedy enacted in the theatre more than a quarter of a century ago was a memory which had over-shadowed the life of the popular actor since, and it is nothing short of a startling coincidence that at the very moment his remains were being borne from a New York church, amid crowds of sorrowing friends and admirers, the building which had been associated with so sombre a reminiscence in his career should have disappeared with serious attendant consequences.

  The Lincolnshire Echo, June 10, 1893

  A Fisherman’s Luck

  On Friday afternoon, shortly after four o’clock, a butcher named Burrows, in the employ of Mr William Harris, of West Smithfield, was fishing in the Grand Surrey Canal when he came upon a very remarkable discovery.

  Upon pulling his fishing line out of the water, he found hanging on to the hook a lady’s fancy leather hand-bag, which upon being opened was found to contain 39 gold wedding and keeper rings, and £23 in gold and silver. The bag was very old, and judging from its rotten condition, had evidently been under water some considerable time.

  The Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, July 18, 1892

  Where the Gold Spoon Went To

  A curious story is told by Lady Middleton of how one of Queen Victoria’s smallest gold spoons was lost and found. A lady attended a State Ball in a dress the skirt of which was arranged in perpendicular pleats in front, stitched across at intervals, and, unknown to her, a gold teaspoon got lodged at supper in one of these receptacles.

  Of course, there was one missing after the ball, and it caused great perturbation to the official in charge of the gold plate. The next spring the lady who had been the in
nocent cause of the loss went to a Drawing Room in the identical dress she had worn at the State Ball, and as she bent low before Her Majesty the pleats of her skirt expanded, and the gold spoon fell at the Queen’s feet!

  The Evening Telegraph, Dundee, August 12, 1897

  Treasure Trove

  Paris, Thursday: An old and dilapidated safe was bought at a public auction here yesterday for a few francs. On opening it the purchaser discovered a secret drawer, in which a sum of 3,000 francs in bank notes was concealed. By law the money becomes the property of the purchaser, and cannot be claimed by the vendor of the safe.

  The Evening Telegraph, Dundee, August 25, 1898

  An Awkward Change of Name

  There are in France two brothers with the surname of Assassin, who recently obtained the necessary permission from the high functionary called the Keeper of the Seals to change their name to one less offensive. After mature reflection, they decided to change their name to Berge.

  Now that it is too late to alter it, they have discovered, to their intense annoyance, that their new name happens, by a singular coincidence, to be that of the chief assistant to M. Deibler, the public executioner, who will, in all probability, succeed to M. Deibler’s gruesome business.

  The Devon and Exeter Daily Gazette, October 18, 1895

  Extraordinary Coincidences

  One of the most singular coincidences ever recorded has just taken place at a village named Martin’s Valley, in Pennsylvania, where three brothers of the name of Truby, all following different trades, met with accidental deaths between 11 o’clock on the night of Friday, August 14, and 11 o’clock on the following morning.

  The first killed was John, aged 34, who was a signalman on the railway. He was running to alter a switch, when he fell over something on the line, and broke his neck.

  Jason Truby, aged 36, worked in a slate quarry four miles from the village. The recent rains had filled several deep cavities in the quarry with water. Early on Saturday morning Jason went to work. A narrow hemlock board had been laid across one of the pits full of water, and he was walking over it when it tipped with him and threw him into the water. His head came in contact with the edge of the stones, stunning him, and he was drowned before aid could reach him.

  Wyman Truby, 38 years old, was a miller. He worked near his mother’s house. About half-past ten o’clock on Saturday morning he was at work in the mill, when the flooring of a grain bin in the room above him gave way, and he was buried beneath hundreds of bushels of wheat. A boy who was in the mill ran out and gave the alarm, and several men hurried in and made efforts to extricate Truby; but the work could not be done in time. When he was taken out he had been dead some time.

  The brothers died in ignorance of each other’s death, and the messengers sent to inform their mother, a widow, met at her house. The succession of cruel blows so overwhelmed her that she is not expected to live.

  The Edinburgh Evening News, September 2, 1885

  SPORT, HOBBIES

  and PASTIMES

  Preface

  If things had turned out a little differently, the list of sports that Britain gave to the world might have needed a single, significant revision. Scrub out football; replace it with egg hat.

  The beautiful game was an ugly duckling at the start of the nineteenth century. ‘It seems to have fallen into disrepute and is but little practised’, wrote Joseph Strutt in The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England in 1801. Four decades on, the Boy’s Treasury of Sports, Pastimes and Recreations could refer to football as a once-popular old English game.

  But egg hat, said the Boy’s Treasury – now there was a sport. A game of skill, speed and agility that involved a ball, some hats and a taste for casual violence.

  The rules were pleasingly simple. You put down your hats and a player threw a ball into one. There was some general darting about. A winner was declared, then everyone gathered round in a mood of post-match bonhomie and pelted the loser with balls at close range.

  In his 1869 book The Business of Pleasure, the author Edmund Hodgson Yates reflected fondly on the ‘stinging cuts’ inflicted by the game in his childhood, and it’s not hard to see why it appealed to the early Victorians, as it combined athleticism, the open air, a will to win and a blithe disregard for the lot of the loser.

  As it turned out, egg hat went the way of earlier British pastimes like bear-baiting and chucking sticks at cockerels. Yet for all the games that didn’t last the course, the 1800s were a staggeringly productive era.

  Inspired by the doctrine of muscular Christianity, which held that manliness was next to Godliness, the Victorians embraced sport, laying the foundations for the professional set-ups we know today. They standardised games that once varied like accents across the country. They formalised rules. They set up leagues, built stadiums and made professionals and celebrities of players.

  They even revived the Roman tradition of match-day aggro. Punch-ups and pitch invasions became increasingly common at the football. There were brawls at the rugby and the racing too. A wrestling match in Plymouth in 1879 ended with hundreds of fans smashing the venue’s seats. Even the genteel world of cricket wasn’t entirely immune. A match between Surrey and Nottinghamshire at the Oval in 1887 was marred by spectators surging on to the field, where they fought a battle plucked from the imagination of Enid Blyton. Or as The Graphic put it: ‘engaged in a Homeric strife among themselves with ginger-beer bottles and pieces of turf.’

  Singular Match at Cricket.

  Arms Versus Legs

  A match, which, for its novel character, attracted an immense number of spectators, was played last week in the cricket-ground of the Railway Tavern, at Reading.

  The players on one side consisted of eleven with only one arm each, while, on the other side, each had but one leg – saving a wooden one. One of the umpires had lost both his arms, and the other had ‘not a leg to stand upon.’ A referee was also selected who had neither arms nor legs.

  At the commencement of the play the ‘odds’ were in favour of the one-arms; notwithstanding the single-legs had many backers. During the first innings, in consequence of the soft nature of the ground from the late rains, no less than three legs were broken; but these were soon ‘set’ without the aid of a medical man, a neighbouring carpenter skilfully performing the ‘operation.’

  At the termination of the game the score stood thus: The single-legs, first innings, 25; second innings, 46; total, 71. The one-arms, first innings, 50; second innings, 60; total, 110. The players dined between the innings at the Railway Tavern.

  The Leicester Chronicle, July 19, 1845

  A Football as a Detective

  Recently, at a match in the North of England, a curious incident happened. A player gave the ball so strong a kick that it went through the net of the opponents’ goal, and struck a spectator in the face. The injured man fell down, and was carried to the pavilion.

  As he was recovering very slowly the doctor who attended him searched his pockets to find out his name and to enable him to inform the injured man’s friends.

  Instead of the doctor finding out any name and address, however, he found over a dozen gold watches, one of which belonged to his daughter. Naturally his suspicions were aroused, and he communicated with the police.

  When the man recovered he was marched off to the police-station, where it was discovered he was a well-known thief, who had successfully baffled the police for some time. But for the football’s blow he wouldn’t have been discovered.

  The Leeds Times, January 7, 1899

  A Strange Adventure

  A curious canoe adventure is reported from Frankfurt. Some members of the boat club in that city resolved to row to Mayence by night. They started at 12 o’clock, and pulled away vigorously all night, enjoying the pull exceedingly.

  At sunrise it was discovered to their great chagrin that the anchor had not been weighed, and that they had remained at the same spot where they had taken leave of their friends, by w
hom they are now known as ‘the explorers.’

  The Evening News, Portsmouth, November 4, 1882

  Extraordinary Termination to a Foot Race

  Two athletes, named Radcliffe and McDowell, ran a race at Belfast on Saturday. The course was strange to them and they did not know that Price’s Dock intervened between the starting-point and winning-post.

  Accordingly, when in the full heat of the race, they came to the dock, and, unable to stop, fell over into the water. They were rescued by the harbour police in an exhausted state.

  Supplement to the Northampton Mercury, February 13, 1886

  Extraordinary Scene at a Football Match

  At a football match, played at Worksop on Saturday, between Beighton and Worksop, the ball was kicked over the hedge into the garden adjoining the football field, and was promptly seized by the wife of the owner of the garden and locked up in an outhouse.

  The players, being without a ball, were unable to proceed with the game – another ball having been seized by the same party just before the match commenced and taken to the police station.

  One of the players and a spectator went to the proprietor of the garden and his wife and asked for the ball, which was refused, whereupon the two decided to help themselves and accordingly made for the door of the outhouse.

  The proprietor of the garden picked up his garden fork and ran at one of them with it, but the latter seeing his danger caught the gardener by the neck, twisted him round, and took the fork from him.

  Meanwhile the gardener’s wife had not been idle. She armed herself with the swill bucket and battered it about the head of the player who had ventured to seek the ball. This roused the ire of the spectators, who rushed in scores over the hedge into the garden, but seeing the player coming from the garden with the ball under his arm, they retired, otherwise the proprietors of the garden might have fared badly.