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

by Clay, Jeremy

  The woman seems to have interpreted this into persistent wizard malignity, beat him over the head with a stick, and then plunged him in the stream again, beating his head on the stones.

  Her assistant in the good work, Stammers, seems by this time to have been alarmed, and the wretched dumb man, who was even then ill of a lung disease, was allowed to crawl home.

  Utterly bewildered and miserable, he crept on to his bed, dressed as he was in his dripping clothes, and next day was found dying of acute inflammation of the lungs. He was conveyed to the Union Infirmary, and so died, ignorant, of course, to the last of the possibility of having given offence. A more horrible case of cruelty never was recorded.

  The coroner’s jury, nevertheless, could not come to a decision. They argued for two hours – about Stammers’ guilt only, says the local reporter, but that must be an error – and were at length discharged without a verdict, and the case referred to the Hedingham bench of magistrates.

  They will probably do justice, for the belief in black magic, as we have said, now annoys the upper class; but all the incidents, the belief in the supernatural power of an old dumb Frenchman over his acquaintance, the lavish offering to propitiate his malice, the trust in a compulsory kiss, the savage and protracted cruelty displayed to a wizard to whom the assailant was still offering sacrifice, and the jury too puzzled to know if a death of the kind involved manslaughter, make up a picture which may, perhaps, lower for an hour the tone of our habitual paeans over English humanity and civilisation. What could Africans do worse to propitiate a fetish?

  The Dundee Advertiser, September 25, 1863

  Singular Superstition

  At Willenhall, yesterday, two young men, brothers, named Green, were charged with assaulting an elderly woman named Roberts. The elder brother admitted striking the woman on the nose, and said he did to draw her blood, she having threatened to bewitch him.

  His mother died lately, and he believed the complainant had killed her by witchcraft. The magistrates characterised the assault as cowardly, and fined the prisoners 40s and costs, or two months.

  The Edinburgh Evening News, June 4, 1878

  The Earthquake Prophecy

  The prophesised earthquake, which was to have come off on Wednesday last, and have demolished St Paul’s Cathedral, and the neighbourhood for miles around, disappointed the credulous Irish in the regions of St Giles’s.

  The Standard says that the scene witnessed in the neighbourhoods of St Giles’s and Seven Dials during the whole of the day was perhaps the most singular that has presented itself for many years.

  Many of the Irish resident in those localities have left for the shores of the Emerald Isle, but by far the larger number, unblessed by the world’s goods, have been compelled to remain where they are, and to anticipate the fearful event which was to engulf them in the bowels of the earth.

  The frantic cries, the incessant appeals to Heaven for deliverance, the invocations to the Virgin and saints for mediation, the heart-rending supplications for assistance, heard on every side during the day, sufficiently evidenced the power with which this popular delusion had seized the minds of those superstitious people.

  Towards the close of the day a large number of them determined not to remain in London during the night, and with what few things they possessed took their departure for what they considered more favoured spots. Some violent contests arose between the believers and the sceptics – contests which in not a few cases were productive of serious results.

  The poor Irish, however, are not the only persons who have been credulous in this matter: many persons, from whom better things might have been expected, were amongst the number who left London to avoid the threatened catastrophe.

  To the Gravesend steam-boat companies the ‘earthquake’ proved a source of immense gain; and the same may be said with regard to the various railways. Long before the hour appointed for the starting of steam-boats from London Bridge Wharf, Hungerford Market, and other places, the shore was thronged by crowds of decently-attired people of both sexes, and, in many instances whole families were to be seen with an amount of eatables and drinkables which would have led one to suppose that they were going a six weeks’ voyage.

  About eleven o’clock the Planet came alongside the London Bridge Wharf, and the rush to get on board of her was tremendous, and in a few minutes there was scarcely standing room on board. The trains on the various railways were, throughout the whole of Tuesday and Wednesday morning, unusually busy in conveying passengers without the prescribed limits of the metropolitan disaster.

  To those who had not the means of taking trips to Gravesend or by railway, other places which were supposed to be exempted from the influence of the ‘rude commotion’ about to take place, were resorted to. From an early hour in the morning, the humbler classes from the east end of the metropolis, sought refuge in the fields beyond the purlieus of Stepney.

  On the north, Hampstead and Highgate were favoured with a visit from large bodies of the respectable inhabitants of St Giles’s and Primrose Hill also was selected as a famous spot for viewing the demolition of the leviathan city.

  The darkness of the day and the thickness of the atmosphere, however, prevented it being seen.

  The Westmorland Gazette and Kendal Advertiser, March 26, 1842

  A Dangerous Witch

  A lady residing near Blois, in France, has just fallen a victim to her avarice and belief in supernatural agencies combined, and has paid dearly enough for her folly to induce her, one would think, to renounce intercourse with wise women in future.

  She possessed a considerable fortune but wanted to increase her riches, and for this purpose consulted a sorceress. The latter went to her residence, conferred with some invisible assistants, by whose advice the lady was told to place all her money in a certain drawer, not to open it for a given time, or the charm would be broken, and before retiring to rest to throw a marvellous white powder into the fire. If these conditions were carried out, the fortune, she was told, would be doubled.

  They were carried out, but the result was a distinct deception for the credulous believer in the supernatural. Whilst she abstained from opening the drawer the sorceress emptied it at leisure, and when she threw the white powder into the fire a terrible explosion ensued, she was severely injured, and the house set fire to.

  It is satisfactory to know that this dangerous witch has been taken into custody.

  The Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, August 14, 1884

  A Curious Superstition

  At Brazcka, in Bosnia, an old superstition has come to life again which resembles the fables of Jewish ritual murders. In Bosnia the people have believed at all times that a bridge could not be firm and lasting unless a human being was walled up in it. Thus there is a legend connected with the handsome Roman bridge at Mostar, which says that the fine arch across the Narenta could not be finished until the architect walled up in it a bridal pair.

  Now that a solid bridge is being built across the Save at Brazcka, this superstition is revived. It is rumoured everywhere that gipsies are stealing children to sell them to the contractors, who wall one up in each pillar.

  The Yorkshire Evening Post, August 12, 1893

  Singular Superstition: Laying a Ghost

  A Newhaven despatch to a New York paper says: In the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Birmingham, early on the morning of the 18th ult., four middle-aged women and two men, the latter armed with spades and picks, entered by the side gate and halted in front of a newly-made grave.

  The men set to work, while the women wept, and opened the grave and hauled a coffin up. The lid was taken off, and the remains of a beautiful young girl were revealed. She was the daughter of one of the women, and the mother shrieked loudly when she saw the corpse.

  The men stood aside and the four women bent over the coffin, and deft fingers went rapidly through the dead girl’s hair and shroud, and all the pins that could be found on the remains were removed. Then a needle
and thread were procured, and the shroud and hair sewn back into their places. The lid was then screwed back on the coffin, and the remains were again lowered into the grave, which was at once filled up.

  It was learned that the women were of a very superstitious nature, and that they believed that if a corpse is buried with the shroud pinned up, instead of sewed, the soul will be confined to the grave for eternity, and the persons guilty of the mistake will be haunted till death by the ghost of the victim.

  A mistake was made in this case, and one of the women claims that she had seen the ghost for two or three nights successively, and she could stand it no longer; so she got the other women together, and between them they hired the men to disinter the body. The ghost has not been seen since.

  The Manchester Evening News, March 10, 1886

  Extraordinary Superstition.

  Burning Jews’ Bones for Typhus

  In Galicia a trial has just taken place which reveals extraordinary ignorance and gross superstition among the peasantry of that province. It was discovered at Rzeszow some time ago, says a Vienna correspondent, that several Jewish graves had been broken open, and that the bodies of two children were missing.

  The police made inquiries, and found out that in a neighbouring village, where typhus fever had broken out, a so-called ‘miracle doctor’ had prescribed, as a cure, the burning of the bones of a Jew in the patient’s room. When the house of this man was searched, human flesh and bones and a child’s skull were found.

  The patient had died, notwithstanding the burning of the bones, and the widow of the deceased described how the ‘miracle doctor’ had set about his cure. He had told her that there were two kinds of typhus. One, the Catholic typhus, could be cured by prayer and exhortation; the other, the Jewish typhus, could only be got rid of by the means described.

  He brought the bones himself, with water from a well from which no man had ever drunk, and burnt the bones on a charcoal fire, nearly smothering them all with the terrible fumes.

  Then while the room was full of smoke he mumbled some strange words, and hunted round the table, pretending to catch the typhus, which he then put into the water-bottle, and made all present partake of its contents. The ‘doctor’ was sentenced to five months’ imprisonment.

  The Citizen, Gloucester, July 26, 1890

  Singular Superstition

  Dalziel’s Agency, dating from Sarnia (Ontario), Nov. 11, states: The members of a religious sect known as ‘Israelites’ are preparing to migrate to England, being possessed with the idea that the world will shortly come to an end, and that England is the proper place to be in when that event happens.

  The York Herald, November 14, 1891

  Strange Superstition

  An extraordinary case of superstition is reported from Sherborne, in Dorsetshire. In Cold Harbour, on Friday last, an old woman, named Sarah Smith, aged eighty-three, was violently attacked by a next-door neighbour, in order that the latter might ‘draw blood,’ on the ground that she had bewitched her neighbour’s daughter, a confirmed invalid.

  The old woman, who is well known as a quiet, inoffensive person, was in her garden when she was attacked, and the blood was ‘drawn’ by a darning-needle being driven several times into her hands and arms.

  The Liverpool Echo, September 30, 1884

  Shocking Superstition

  An Irish paper reports a case of gross superstition disclosed at a trial at the recent Loughgall (County Antrim) Petty Sessions.

  A man named Hagan was summoned by his wife, Sarah Hagan, for gross ill-treatment, the cause of which was the loss of a talisman which Hagan believed enabled him to become invisible at certain times and places.

  This mysterious power is communicated by the possession of ‘a dead man’s finger.’ It certainly must have once been part of a very bad man, for its possessor seems to have used it for very bad purposes, his wife having sworn that he kept it because by means of it he could enter any man’s dwelling, go behind his counter, and rob his drawers without being observed or detected. This was her evidence, but she could not say if the finger had ever been so employed.

  No doubt to a thief such a relic would be valuable. Hagan regarded it in that light; it endowed him with a charmed existence, and, because his wife could not account for it, he gave her a most unmerciful beating, and threatened to take her life. The truth appears to be that the poor woman became alarmed at the conduct of her husband in carrying about the finger, and she buried it in a neighbour’s field and forgot the place of interment.

  No excuse could satisfy Hagan. He should have the finger and nothing but the finger; so that the poor woman, failing to discover it, felt the power of his fingers in a very unmanly way. The Bench ordered him to find bail to keep the peace for 12 months.

  The Taunton Courier, September 23, 1863

  A Wonderful Story.

  Extraordinary Proceedings

  A Shrewsbury correspondent has sent to the Standard reports of extraordinary occurrences which took place last week at the village of Weston Fullenfield. A servant named Emma Davies, living with Mr Hampson, a farmer, was discharged, that gentleman and his wife feeling anything but comfortable at her presence.

  On Thursday week the girl went to assist Mrs Jones, a neighbour, to wash the household linen, but had not long been engaged in this occupation when the bucket in which she was washing jumped about the house, throwing water and clothes in all directions.

  The family Bible and other books placed on a side table did the same, narrowly escaping the flames. On attempting to pick them up a boot flew over the girl’s head, striking the mantelpiece.

  Later on, when both women went out to place the clothes on the hedge for drying, those that the girl placed jumped over into the road. Mrs Jones, getting alarmed, ordered the girl home.

  On arriving there, her presence induced a lump of coal to leap from the fire across the room to a table; and the flowerpots in the window also behaved in an extraordinary manner.

  The girl shortly afterwards went out to fetch her father, but before proceeding far she became very ill and fell down in the road. She was conveyed back to her home and a physician called in.

  On Saturday afternoon, the correspondent visited the village, and, he says, found sufficient evidence to confirm every detail of the remarkable event. The girl, who is in her thirteenth year, resides in the village with her parents.

  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.