A JAW TO WAG, EXETER, 1871.

On 1st May 1871 there was a lively meeting held at the Temperance Hall in Exeter to support The Permissive Bill that was passing through Parliament.   Many working men were in the audience and several of them spoke from the platform.   Their concern was with the Licencing Bill which looked fair to restrict the Sunday hours that a man could spend in drinking beer in a public house:

"A young fellow named DARKING, said to be a lumper, then got up on to the platform amid laughter and confusion.  He informed the meeting that he was not cast into a wood 'to be brought up in the state us is in now,....I have got a tongue within my jaws to wag and Mr. Jones ha'nt got no more than I have.  Us have jaws given us to wag.  We ban't ignorant, but I wasn't sent to College to learn my knowledge.  

"Gentlemen and ladies,  what's the  question us has come here about this evening?  That's it.  I believe 'tis the little bit 'bout public-house shutting up on Sundays....There's deception in those who wear black clothes - (hear, hear).  You can say hear hear or not, just as you like, it's no odds to me, 'cause I got to work for my living.  But these gentlemen on the platform gets their living by being paid for it, and different to what I does - (A VOICE -  Have a drop of beer,, Darkey?)  Yes I could drink a glass if I had it.  Let the gentlemen shut up their cellars and clubs on Sundays on Northernhay.  'Tis deception.  If they gets drunk they haves a cab to take 'em home, but we poor fellars got to go through the streets.'"

The Western Times (2nd May 1871) has done its best to capture the speech of the working man and we can clearly hear the voice of young Darking after a century and a half.  He protested that he was not ignorant;  he had not been cast into a wood.  This phrase is odd and sounds like it might stem from some fireside legend or folk-memory of idiot children raised by beasts.    Those who wear black clothes are first and foremost the ministers of religion..  A lumper worked  lading and unlading ships.

 

CROSSING-SWEEPERS, EXETER, 1850.

 "Two youths, named LEE and FULFORD, were charged with being on Saturday at the bottom of Paris-street, the former with a broom with which he swept the crossing, and then they each begged of the individuals, who availed themselves of this clean part to cross on, something to remunerate them for their troubles, but at the same time using impertinent language to those who did not reward them.

"The Superintendent informed the Bench that he had had many complaints made of him of late of the insolence of these boys.

"The Bench ordered Fulford to be locked up for six hours,  and the other was dismissed with a reprimand."

What these boys, they would have been very little boys, were doing was surely a public-service, a bit like being a lolipop-lady.  These days they might have found themselves in the running for an M.B.E.

Clearly the Magistrates at Exeter Guildhall did not see it like that.  It would have been the impertinent language that they leveled at those respectable citizens who failed to pay for their swept-clean passage across the filthy road  that caused them to be charged.  I should like to know just what the boys said.

I notice these days that the mendicants of Exeter , with a few exceptions, are wonderfully polite to people, like me, who do not give them money.  The much muttered "Have a good day!" being the depressing mantra that they address to our, the meanies', retreating backs. 

Source:  The Exeter Flying Post, 10th January, 1850.

IMPURE EFFLUVIA, EXETER, 1833.

From a letter to the Editor of The Western Times, Saturday 19th January 1833:

 "It will probably be, Mr. Editor, within your recollection, that I have already, on a former occasion, called your attention to the existence of a nuisance,....I allude to the fact of a great number of pigs belonging to the London Inn, being kept immediately adjoining the foot-path in Longbrooke-street, contrary to an act in existence, as also to the general practice of the judicial body, when the poor man (from an endevour to add to his scanty maintenance) chances to become the offender, by keeping a pig, not in the public thoroughfare....but perhaps in some unfrequented part of the city yet not so entirely obscure as to evade the vigilance of their officials, as the police reports weekly demonstrate; yet those very individuals, with a singular discrimination, (or owing to some strange defect of vision, arising most probably from that prevalent disease which we of the faculty term 'aurum foliaceum, ' cannot discover nuisances so palpably evident.

"Really, Mr. Editor, this is too bad, that the stern measure of Justice should be meted out to the poor man, and not to the rich;  again let me reiterate the good old motto, "Fiat Justitia ruat coelum."

"Mr. Editor,  yours truly,

"A SURGEON.

"P.S. The stench arising from the weekly removal of the manure on which they herd, is so revolting to the senses, that I have learnt...from the inhabitants of Hill's Court, that during these periods they are necessitated to take a considerable circuit in going to and from their houses in order to avoid an effluvia than which, for impurity, nothing can possibly exceed." 

I suppose the modern equivalent might be the waste-bins which are herding around every corner of the city.  The poor man is obliged by Exeter City Council to hide his bins except  on the day when they are to be collected but the rich man, for which read the fast-food outlet, leaves his bins lying about the streets of Exeter.   The poor man is obliged to  not overfill his bins whereas the  'commercial' waste-bins gape and spew rubbish from Fridays to Mondays and no official sanctions this.  I don't know that any aurum is involved but I shouldn't be at all surprised.   True, the measure of Justice isn't as stern as it used to be, indeed  all too few of the many wise, city bye-laws seem to be enforced.

I think I would prefer pigs to burger bags or plastic (or biodegradeable) coffee-cups.  The pig just happens to be my all-favourite animal.

Let Justice be done though the heavens fall!

bit.ly/40M2w0g

KIDDLEY WINKS, ALPHINGTON, 1833.

At the Castle of Exeter:  "John Rugg, of Ide, complained of Mr. J. Way, a respectable farmer, of Alphington, for an assault, arising from the following circumstance....He was employed by Mr. Way, to hoe a field of turnips which Mr. Way stated to be eight acres, he was to have four shillings an acre and a gallon of cider per acre for his labour.

"In the course of the performance of the work, Rugg discovered, or was informed, that the field was nine acres, of which fact he informed Mr.Way,  but, however contented himself to complete the job as if it was only eight acres, as he stated.

"On the Saturday after the work was finished, and wages paid, Rugg being at Alphington, and having refreshed himself in one of the "Kiddley Winks" in that village, he invited a pot companion, called Shobrook....to call with him at Mr.Way's and drink the 'ninth gallon' of cider for the turnip hoeing.

"Shobrook waited otside Mr.Way's door and Rugg went in and demanded the cider, in very improper and abusive language.  Mr. Way would not give him the cider, and ordered him to leave the house, when he refused to go.  Mr. Way then used force to get him out, and in doing so, or from Rugg's own conduct, he having been a 'little sprung,' he got his clothes badly torn, and his face and head considerably bruised, which made them bleed profusely.  He was confirmed in the latter by Shobbrook; and Mr. Way called witnesses to prove Rugg's improper behaviour in the house.

"But the Bench were unanimous in opinion that Mr, Way had used more force than was necessary, and therefore convicted him of the assault, and fined him 20s. to cover costs, 7s.6d. of which they allowed Rugg for lost time, and 2s.6d. to Shobbrook." 

Good for the unanimous Bench, I think, not to find for the respectable Farmer Way but for the improperly behaving turnip-hoer, Rugg.

The jolly expression being a little sprung  which I am taking to mean being a little tipsy (bur which, I learn from the internet, now has another meaning)  doesn't appear in my Oxford Dictionary of Slang.  

But I chiefly blogged this for the sake of Kiddley Winks which is a sweet and early usage for the newly created (1830) beer-houses which were licenced to sell beer only, but where a wink in the taproom might favour you with smuggled brandy. 

Source: The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette,  2nd November, 1833.

A NOBLE BIRD, STARCROSS?, 1844

"On Monday as Messrs. Hutchings and Frost were walking over their grounds, their attention was attracted by a screeching noise proceeding from the Kenn Brook, where they soon found that a fine heron had entangled its legs in some night lines, by which it was held at bay;  on their approach, the noble bird, arose with an effort, carrying the line and two heavy stones attached to it, to a tree in the immediate neighbourhood, where it got bound fast.  The two gentlemen now endevoured to free the bird, which with the assistance of a labourer they eventually managed, not without much difficulty and trouble, as the bird showed fight, and it proved no easy matter to release it from its accidental trap.  After obtaining its freedom, it winged its way towards Powderham Park."

This is just the kind of story that it is a joy to find  -  delightfully inconsequential,  for mankind at least - and with a happy end.   Two Victorian gentlemen strolling  across their own grounds, beside the Kenn brook, now called the Staplake brook (?), on a sunny (?) day in late May, 1844,, (I would guess where is now the Starcross golf-course) to find a  screeching heron tangled in some night lines. Do they shoot it and send it to Exeter to be stuffed?  No, no, no!  They put themselves to the trouble of rescuing the noble bird despite it being one that showed fight, and with that wicked bill too.   And the story gets in the paper!

Those were the days!,: when  gentlemen could always find a nameless labourer to lend them a hand!

Source: The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 1st June 1844.

THE SKULKING SPECTRE, EXETER, 1829.

 From The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette,  10th January 1829: 

“A few evenings since, as a servant girl was passing through the burying ground opposite the Hospital,  in charge of two children, some mischievous fellow attempted to frighten them by playing ‘the Ghost,' for which purpose he had covered himself with a sheet, and when they had arrived opposite a grave stone, behind which he had secreted himself, he started forth exclaiming, “I am a spirit rising from a tomb.”

“Fortunately the girl possessed more nerve than generally falls to the lot of females in her line, she replied, ‘Then lie down again;’ and, bidding the children not to be alarmed, proceeded on her way without further noticing the skulking spectre.

“We regret that the fellow was not effectually laid, by an oak stick well applied by some manly arm.  It is no doubt in the recollection of many of our readers, that about eight years ago a young woman of the parish of the Holy Trinity was frightened by the thoughtless folly of a youth who also arrayed himself in a white covering;  the unfortunate victim has been ever since in a state of idiotcy - a lamentable spectacle to her friends and an expense to the public ! !”

Wrapping up in sheets and jumping out from behind gravestones to frighten servant girls seems to have gone out of fashion. It is just as well; one would not want too much public money being shelled out to females in a state of idiotcy (this was a correct form of the word at the time.)

The reporter's expressed wish for a well-applied manly arm to lay out 'the Ghost' with an oak stick seems somewhat harsh. After all, the mischievous fellow probably had a mum waiting for him.

BROOMSTICKS AND PRAYER BOOKS, 1822.

 When John Chapman, a young (27) labourer working at Bude, took a shotgun and chased along the Holsworthy road after his unfaithful wife Sarah, who was running off with a man called William Robinson,  James Oxenham, who was one of the witnesses at Chapman's trial for murder at Exeter Crown Court,  said he did not try to stop him for he appeared "in that wist way" that he was afraid to try it.  Oxenham also said that "within a minute or two after the act (Chapman had shot his wife in the back and killed her on the spot) "prisoner appeared in a very wist state, and someone said to him, 'John, your wife is dead;' on which he asked - 'Is she? who killed her?"  

Up-country newspaper reports did not use the word wist.  They either gave it as wished or translated it to 'in dreadful distress of mind' or some such.  I did not know the word wist but I like it.  I'd like it to be related to witches and witchcraft. 

Chapman had found his wife with her arms about her latest lover at the public house of a man called Bunce.  William Lloyd, another witness, said 'there had been a sham wedding that morning .....between Robinson and Mrs.Chapman over a broom.'   In his written evidence to the Court, Chapman confirmed this in that 'he found her, in the midst of a number of men who were celebrating a sham wedding between her and Robinson.  A man had a prayer book, and there was a broom upon the floor.'

It seems crazy that  people still bothered with prayer books and broomsticks as though they believed these gave some sort of legitimacy to their shenanigans

The Exeter jury took the view that Chapman didn't know the gun was loaded.  Chapman was found guilty, but of manslaughter, and sentenced to serve a year in Exeter's prison.

  Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 8th August 1822.