THE WISE WOMAN OF MILL STREET, EXETER, 1850.

 

“Last Tuesday sennight a company of the lower kind of people, working men, their womenfolk and paupers of this city gathered in Fore Street to give ear to a crazy harangue from the so-called wise woman of Mill Street, Jenny Vinnicombe. She addressed a mob of perhaps two or three hundred people. A few respectable citizens were also drawn to listen to her prognostications. What she had to say was as dismal and as unworthy of belief as we have come to expect from this visionary.

“' I see this city,” she squawked, waving her bony fingers towards heaven, 'far distant from now. I see the House of God surrounded by mud.  I see a drunken man shouting out filthy words in Peter's churchyard. He holds a bottle in each hand. He is not alone. There are many of them there,,- ,foul-mouthed women too.  Alas! these monstrous beings now rule the city streets.   I see three of them carousing  beneath the very porch of the Guildhall.'” (at this, a gasp of horror from the crowd) “'others squat in the dust opposite the city market supplicating alms from passers by. It is a city without watchmen or constables. ( A cheer from the less reputable auditors).

"The market is a market no longer. I see only gluttons feeding like there were no morrow. The streets are full of noise and vulgarity. Norney, our treasured pleasure ground  has lost its groves and its charm.  The  green turf  is browned and, the walks are everywhere blocked or locked.  Childish scribblers have daubed the castle walls and the seats, and whatever can be desecrated.  Wherever the eye lights is shabbiness and neglect. (a groan from the fragrant multitude)  I see the gates of the people's Castle Yard made fast against them, the castle of  Rougemont lost to them for ever.  (yet another groan.)   I see ....'

“But we have reported quite enough of the wanderings of this crazed old beldame. She kept up her silly rant until Policemen Guppy and Bray tired of her  nonsense and marched her away to spend time in the back grate where she still awaits the opportunity to harangue His Worshipful the Mayor and the Magistrates."

Well,  this wise woman was clearly no progressive!  

There are still plenty of people today claiming they can see what horrors the distant  future holds.  Let us hope they are all as pathetically wrong in their dark visions as was Jenny Vinniccombe.

Norney of course, is the Northernhay Gardens.

Peter's churchyard is the Cathedral Green.

Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 32^nd March, 1850.