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

by Clay, Jeremy

A most singular trial has taken place at Madrid. A soldier was cited last week before the police court for having stolen a gold cup of considerable value which had been placed as a votive offering on one of the numerous altars dedicated in that city to the Virgin.

  The soldier at once explained that he and his family being in great distress he had appealed to the Holy Mother for assistance, and that while engaged in prayer and contemplation of the four millions’ worth of jewels displayed on her brocaded petticoat, she stooped, and with a charming smile, handed him the golden cup.

  This explanation was received by the court in profound silence, and the case handed over to the ecclesiastical commission, to whom it at once occurred that, however inconvenient the admission of the miracle might be, it would be highly impolitic to dispute its possibility.

  They therefore gave the cup to the soldier, at the same time solemnly warning him for the future against similar favours from images of any kind, and impressing him with the conviction that the Virgin required profound silence from him as a proof of his gratitude.

  Supplement to the Nottinghamshire Guardian, September 9, 1864

  A Chelsea Girl Breaks the Record

  A fat and blushing girl from Chelsea has broken the record at Marlborough Street. Her complaint was rum and coffee, and her actions showed how fearfully strong that Chelsea coffee is.

  When the Clerk of the Court yesterday asked the honour of an introduction, she said her name was ‘the same as it was before’: but he could not remember it, and it had slipped from everybody’s memory and it continues in a state of slip.

  It ought to be preserved, however, because the recording angel of the law had all these memoranda against her:

  1. She got drunk.

  2. She got ever so much drunker.

  3. She got fired out of a restaurant near the Haymarket.

  4. She reached for the constable’s eye with her shoe, which she had in her hand, and the constable’s eye is all wrong.

  5. She threw herself on the pavement and had to be taken in with the official van.

  6. She hit the constable again, and knocked his helmet an illegal distance.

  7. She rolled all over the street and part of her clothes came off.

  8. In riding to the station, she yelled, and she yelled, and she yelled.

  9. She drew pictures on the walls of her cell with a button-hook.

  10. They were bad pictures, and the damage to the walls is 2s 6d.

  This was a large order for the book-keepers of justice to figure out, but they made the whole bill £1 2s 6d.

  The Dundee Courier and Argus, September 20, 1889

  The Falmouth Riot

  Seven soldiers of the Royal Artillery stationed at Pendennis Castle were charged at the Falmouth Police Court yesterday with assaulting the police while in the execution of their duty. From the evidence of the Superintendent and other police officers it appeared that Chudleigh, one of the soldiers, was taken into custody for fighting, and that his six comrades, after procuring swords from the barracks, proceeded to the police station, and by means of threats, obtained Chudleigh’s liberation. They afterwards paraded the streets, flourishing their swords, and behaving otherwise in a riotous manner. At the conclusion of the evidence, five of the prisoners – viz., Beaney, Callahan, Connor, McInverney, and Seaham – were sent to prison for six months. Chudleigh was committed for three months, and Barker, who did not get possession of his sword, for one month.

  The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, January 17, 1879

  The Romance of Crime

  A strange story comes from Constantinople. A few nights ago – so runs the version of the affair given in a German paper – three robbers, armed to the teeth, broke into the house of a Prussian living in Constantinople.

  Threatening to forthwith murder him if he resisted they compelled the owner to submit to being bound, and then demanded from him his valuables and money. The Prussian at once gave up his gold watch and some £4 of Turkish money which he had in his pockets; but this small booty did not satisfy the robbers.

  Again they threatened death, and finally obliged the bound and helpless man to tell them where they could find the key of his business safe. This safe happened to be in a room on the third floor, at the top of the house, and thither the three robbers, having obtained possession of the key, hastened, leaving the owner bound, and threatening to return and shoot him if he called for assistance.

  But as they went up stairs, his wife, who had been watching what was taking place from another room, slipped quietly in and cut the bonds of her husband. Arming themselves with revolvers, the pair crept quietly up the stairs, came upon the robbers absorbed in dividing among themselves the contents of the safe, and without a word shot down two of them.

  The other threw down his weapons and begged for mercy. Turning the tables upon him, the Prussian bound his late assailant fast, and leaving his wife to watch over him with a loaded revolver in her hand, hastened to the nearest zaptieh station.

  There he found the officer in charge absent, and on enquiring for a sub-officer was told that both of the latter were also away. Thereupon the Prussian asked four of the men to accompany him to his house and take the bound burglar into custody.

  Arrived in the room where the two men had been shot the zaptiehs looked at the two corpses, looked at the prisoner and recognised in the former the two sub-officers and in the latter the officer of their own guard.

  The Ipswich Journal, and Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire Advertiser, May 4, 1880

  A ‘Glass Eye’ Impostor

  At Westminster Police Court, on Friday, a middle-aged, shabbily-dressed man, known by a number of names, including those of McKenzie and Paybourne, in which he has been recently charged, was placed in the dock, on remand, before Mr Sheil, charged with obtaining charitable contributions by fraud.

  The prisoner, who has called himself a pianoforte maker, has lost the sight of his right eye. According to the evidence of Coltman, Chief Constable of the Mendicity Society, the prisoner turned his infirmity to account by going to noblemen and charitable people all over the country, to whom he made appeals for assistance to obtain a new glass eye.

  He usually represented that he had broken one he had obtained from a charitable institution, though at the time he had four or five glass eyes, which had been procured for him at different times, in his waistcoat pocket.

  On the 11th inst. he called on Lord St Oswald, at 11, Grosvenor Place, but his lordship at once recognised him, having heard the glass eye story before when the prisoner called on him at his country seat in Yorkshire, and got a sovereign from him.

  Lord St Oswald gave him into custody, after listening to his tale. Mr Sheil sentenced him to three months’ hard labour, and said the next imposition would mean 12 months.

  Berrow’s Worcester Journal, July 25, 1896

  Desperate Attack on a Hull Policeman.

  Strange Case of Somnambulism.

  At the Hull Police Court on Monday, Herman Laman, a German, who appeared in the dock with his head in bandages and his clothes bespattered with blood, was brought before Mr Travis, stipendiary magistrate, charged with being a suspected person, and also with assaulting Police Constable Wright.

  From the officer’s statement it appeared that the prisoner is a native of a small village in Westphalia, and arrived at Hull on Sunday afternoon, in company with other emigrants, en route for New York. At eleven o’clock the same night, Amos Moss, emigrant agent and boarding-house keeper, residing in Grimsby Lane, Hull, reported to the police that Laman was missing, and he requested assistance in seeking him, as he could not speak a word of English, and giving an amount of money in his possession, he (Moss) felt anxious concerning him.

  A search was instituted and subsequently Police Constable Wright discovered him sitting on the roof of a house in Barker’s Entry, off Grimsby Lane. It was raining very hard at the time, and he (witness) called to him, but received no answer. With the assistance of Police Constable
Porter, Wright obtained a ladder, and ascending to the roof, he requested the prisoner to come down. Instead of answering him the man shot at him with a revolver, but fortunately missed him.

  The officer repeated his request, and the prisoner shot at him again. This time the bullet struck Wright on the metal part of his belt, and glanced off harmless. Finding that further parley was useless, witness hurled a brick that happened to be lying with others on the roof and hit him on the head, inflicting a serious wound.

  He then got upon the roof, and advanced to the prisoner, who shot at him a third time. Witness gave him more bricks (laughter) and part of a chimney pot (renewed laughter), and after Laman had fired five shots, none of which hit him, he managed to knock the weapon out of his hand.

  Determined not to be conquered, prisoner also had recourse to the bricks, and a ‘pitched battle’ was fought with bricks and tiles on the roof at two o’clock in the morning. Ultimately the German, finding he was getting the worst of it, tore up some tiles and let himself through the roof of a house occupied by a Mr Beecroft, and concealed himself between the ceiling and the roof.

  Other policemen having arrived on the scene, the party got into the house, and after making a large hole through the ceiling they succeeded in capturing the prisoner, who was weak with loss of blood from the wounds on his head.

  He was secured by ropes, lowered from a window, and conveyed to the police-station in a handcart. Dr Kitching’s assistant dressed six severe wounds on the man’s head at the station house. Wright was but little hurt.

  The prisoner, who is a powerful-looking fellow, stated through Dr Jacobsen, the interpreter, that he was about to emigrate, and it was usual for emigrants to carry revolvers.

  He was a somnambulist, and did not know how he got on the roof. When the officer came up to him he thought that robbers were after the money he had about him, and he fired his revolver. Mr Travis expressed his doubt as to the prisoner’s sanity, and remanded him.

  The Leicester Chronicle and Leicestershire Mercury, September 8, 1877

  Parisine

  Ordinary items of local news appear in the French papers under the special rubric of ‘Faits Divers.’ Many of these faits divers are simple canards, but a gem is to be found among them now and then. Take the following, for instance:

  ‘Yesterday a rather funny adventure caused a considerable crowd to collect in front of the Louvre. A butterman from Isigny, after having settled his business at the Halles, took a stroll through the city with a Parisian friend who had undertaken to show him the sights.

  ‘All went well till a bizarre incident occurred to trouble the harmony existing between the two friends. Each of them had with him a black wolf-dog, and the two animals, I mean the quadrupeds, were so exactly alike, that their owners on separating could not agree on the identity of their respective property. An altercation ensued and the police had to interfere.

  ‘The disputants were taken before the police commissary. That worthy magistrate, somewhat perplexed by the event, ordered both dogs to be strangled for having been allowed to go about the street without a muzzle. This contemporary judgment of Solomon was applauded by the crowd.’

  The Manchester Evening News, May 13, 1884

  The Clifton Bridge Sensation

  In the presence of a crowded court, the trial took place before Justice Wills, at the Bristol Assizes, on Tuesday, of Charles Albert Browne (36), grocer, Longmore Street, Birmingham, for attempting to drown his two children, Ruby (12) and Elsie (3), by throwing them from Clifton Suspension Bridge into the river Avon in the early hours of the morning of September 18th.

  Public interest was specially manifested in the case from the fact that only once previously has anyone gone over the bridge into the water, a distance of over 250 feet, without being killed instantly, and the escape of the little girls is probably attributable to the same cause as in that instance – a strong wind inflating their clothes and regulating their descent.

  Some time before the judge arrived a large crowd assembled in front of the Guildhall, and when his Lordship took his seat in court all the available room was occupied, a large proportion of the spectators being ladies.

  The elder of the two girls was in the caretaker’s room in the building in charge of her mother and a nurse from the Infirmary. During the Assizes she had been observed in the corridors of the court or in the privileged gallery above the bench, and apparently she has recovered from the shock sustained. Mr Douglas Metcalfe conducted the prosecution, and the defence was entrusted to Messrs. Fred E. Weatherly and Thornton Lawes.

  The prisoner appeared quite self-possessed, and sat with his hands lightly clasped together during the counsel’s opening. He apparently listened with interest to the story of the events in which he was a prominent figure, and occasionally he raised his eyes to the bench or gallery, and scanned the faces of the spectators.

  After the evidence, the jury consulted for a few minutes, and then, in answer to the Clerk of Assize, said they found the prisoner guilty of the charge against him, but he was insane at the time, and not responsible for his actions.

  The judge thereupon ordered him to be detained in the prison till her Majesty’s pleasure was known.

  The Tamworth Herald, December 5, 1896

  Curious Law Case in France

  A very curious case has just come before the juge de paix of Neuilly. Some time ago, Madame Pluyette, a widow lady of 50, but who still attaches much importance to personal appearance, had the misfortune, in playing with a lap-dog, to receive from it so severe a wound in one of her eyes that it came out of the socket.

  Having heard much of artificial eyes, and being recommended to apply to an expert manufacturer in this way, named Tamisier, she gave an order for a glass eye, for which M. Tamisier charged her 100 francs.

  Refusing to pay this charge, the manufacturer summoned her before the juge de paix. Madame Pluyette having appeared holding the glass eye in her hand, the juge de paix asked her why she refused to pay the bill which M. Tamisier had sent in?

  ‘For a very good reason,’ replied the defendant. ‘I can see no more with it than I could before.’

  ‘What!’ said the juge de paix, ‘did you really imagine that you would be able to see with a glass eye?’ ‘Did I think so?’ retorted the angry dame, ‘certainly I did. Will you be so good as to tell me what eyes are for, but to see with? I ordered the eye for use, and, until M. Tamisier makes me one with which I can see, I will not pay him a sou.

  ‘I wear a wig, which is quite as useful as natural hair. I have three false teeth, which answer as well as those which I have lost, and why should I pay for an eye which is of no use?’

  The juge de paix endeavoured to convince Madame Pluyette that glass eyes were for others to look at, and not for the wearers to look from them; but, finding all appeals to her reason of no avail, he condemned her to pay the plaintiff the amount of his demand.

  When the defendant heard the decision, she became furious with anger, and, after dashing her glass eye on the floor, she rushed out of court amid the laughter of the crowd.

  The Leicester Journal, October 9, 1846

  A Murderer Hunted Down by a Woman

  A remarkable arrest has been effected at Oklahoma by a girl. In November last two men named James Heath and Walter Hargood quarrelled over a young woman, and in the course of the dispute, Hargood shot his rival.

  Heath’s sister, intent on bringing her brother’s murderer to justice, donned male attire, and otherwise disguised herself, and after much hardship, succeeded in tracking Hargood to this vicinity, where she gave information to the police. Hargood was at once arrested.

  The Yorkshire Evening Post, April 25, 1892

  A Wife Beater

  An inhabitant of a village near Coleford recently beat his wife and threatened mischief to his child. A neighbour, overhearing the strife, rushed in and took from him a knife with which he vowed he would wreak further vengeance.

  Another person started for the polic
e, but protection was nearer at hand. The news having spread, about forty women waited on the wife-beater. As soon as he saw this display of ‘reserve forces’ he bolted upstairs, but was soon compelled to come down.

  Then, in a manner unmentionable to ears polite, these Amazonian women administered the punishment so familiar to English boys, and in no respect less severe or mortifying in its character.

  They next carried their victim to the millpond hard by, with the intention of immersing him. He begged hard for mercy, and was at length let off with a few buckets of water thrown over him. After this he solemnly fell on his knees and promised that he would never molest his wife again, and was then allowed to depart ‘a sadder and wiser man.’

  The Citizen, Gloucester, August 16, 1878

  WAGERS

  Preface

  On July 17, 1856, a terrible train crash claimed the lives of 60 passengers in Pennsylvania. In Madrid the same day, a bloody battle between the National Guard and Royal troops left bodies strewn in the streets. And in St James’s Street, London, Mr F. Cavendish bet Mr H. Brownrigg that he wouldn’t kill the fly that was bothering him before he went to bed.

  The bluebottle met its match. We know that thanks to the scuffed-up, defaced old betting book at White’s gentlemen’s club. ‘Recd, HB’, it says, beneath the record of the wager.

  When they weren’t dining lavishly or dozing flatulently in armchairs, they liked a flutter at White’s. Actually, that’s an understatement. Once, when a passer-by was brought in having collapsed in the street outside, the assorted aristocrats laid odds on whether he’d live or die. On another occasion, Lord Cobham bet a Mr Nugent that he could spit in Lord Bristol’s hat without repercussions. Lord Alvanley, an inveterate gambler who came into a fortune and applied himself to getting rid of it as speedily as possible, reputedly bet on a race between two rain drops down the club’s window. The stake? £3,000, roughly 300 times the annual earnings of a general servant.