BAD FRENCH, EXETER, 1841.

 This was different:  a hearing at Exeter Police Court but conducted in (bad) French by Mr Blackall, one of the magistrates and printed in French by The Western Times, without benefit of translation, to its Devon readers  Nor, apparently,  in 1841, did  setting the French language, accents and all, cause any problem to the hot-metal typographers at The Times.

The circumstance was this:  an impoverished German youth with a melancholy expression and tattered habilliments had , in time-honoured fashion, turned up at the Guildhall to seek relief.   The Court could speak no German.  The youth could speak no English.  Mr Blackall addressed the youth in French:

"Mr. BLACKALL - Eh bien, que voulez-vous de nous?    

"German - De l’argent, Monsieur, s’il vous plaît.  J’ai faim, Monsieur,  et, (pointing with woe-begone looks to the remnants of a once fashionable pair of boots, but which now barely kept together by the aid of a  pair of straps.) regardez mes bottes nous avons été bons amis trés long-temps, mais, helas! Monsieur, vous voyez que - 

"Mr. BLACKALL - Combien long-temps avez vous ètè en Angleterre?  

"German - Quinze jours, Monsieur.

I

"Mr. BLACKALL - Et d’ou venez-vous?

"German - J’ai été à Paris à Jersey et à Londres.

"Mr. BLACKALL - Mais de quelle ville veniez -vous à présent?

"German - Je viens à présent de Plymouth, Monsieur.

"Mr. BLACKALL - Que voulez-vous ici, donc, que cherchez-vous?

"The German appeared not to understand this question - perhaps because Mr. Blackall’s pronunciation is. as a Frenchman would say , un petit peu Anglicé - though otherwise he speaks French well and with fluency; there was a misapprehension, however, and the applicant at length replied with a bland smile and a true continental shrug  of the shoulders,  “Jene vous comprends, Monsieur; ce n’est pas bon Français ça.”

"Mr. BLACKALL - Ah! I believe you are an imposter - that’s my opinion.

"The German, who looked like a man sensible of having committed a faux pas  continued to urge his case in broken sentences,  “Ah Messieurs,  que je suis misérable - de l’argent, c’est de l’argent qu’il me faut."

"The Bench, however, after a short consultation, coincided with the opinion expressed by Mr. Blackall, and dismissed the applicant, telling him they could do nothing for him.

"The German, after making a profound congé, turned on his heel, muttering, as he left the Court,  ”Mon Dieu, que je suis bête!“ evidently thinking that he had done no good for himself by criticizing  the hon. magistrate’s ”bad French“ ".  

*

I suppose a German youth might mutter to himself in French having, as it were, once got into gear.

I am inclined to think this German youth was a romantic figure and the city of Exeter ought to have helped him.  After all he was fluent in French and he had a lively turn of phrase; his once fashionable boots had long been his good friends. I can imagine his continental shrug, and his bland smile as he fenced with the unlovely Mr. Blackall and his parting bow as he left the Guildhall.  Yes, I'm convinced he was at  the very least a Freiherr, travelling incogito, who would return to his domain and tell about the mean-minded Exeter magistrates. 

As for that Mr Blackall,  one gives him credit for his bad French but he seems, not for the first time, to have let false pride weight the scales of justice.

,

 

Source:  The Western Times, 2nd October 1841.

A "WEY GOOSE", EXETER, 1841.

We learn from The Western Times of 26th September, 1841, that a Miss Channing was the mistress of a tobacco-pipe manufactory in Exeter.   She employed a number of girls at her manufactory one of whom was "a young woman called Hookins".

One Monday morning Hookins , The Times grants her no further name or title, did not turn up for work and her absence continued.    Miss Channing had a "written agreement" which bound Hookins to her bench.  She was brought before the magistrates at the Exeter Guildhall charged with  "neglecting her work and leaving it in an unfinished state". 

Poor Hookins tried to defend herself.  She denied having made the "written agreement".  She claimed she was bullied by the other girls and then:

"The next reason appeared  a much more plausible one - namely that they had had a 'Wey Goose' on the previous Saturday night and had kept up the jollifications to a late hour, or rather an early one the next morning - the consequence of which was that the lady's 'coppers' were rather hot and she had recourse to the usual means of cooling them by a drain of 'the dew of the valley' or 'Prince Albert's own' vulgarly called gin.

"Mr Blackall advised her to go back to work immediately, But the effects of her libations did not appear to have left her yet, for with a most outrageously squinting twinkle of the eye, she insisted she would not and would rather go to prison.

"'Very well' said Mr.Barton 'we'll endeavour to accommodate you that way - how long would you like to go for?'

"'As long as you please, sir - I'd rather stay in prison altogether than go back there again - if I wouldn't I'm blessed!'

"In kind compliance with her desires the Bench sentenced her to a fortnight's imprisonment.  She was walked off by the officers but scarcely had they got her to the bottom of the stairs before the lady's valour had evaporated and springing away from the grasp of the officers she darted upstairs to lay her recantation before the Bench; but to her great mortification, the door of justice was closed in her face.

"She was recaptured by the officers, and marched off in a more penitent mood to her solitary quarters in the city prison, where the glorious associations of a 'wey goose' were, alas! never understood or dreamt of."

*

A travesty, it seems to me, of justice.  But neither the Court nor the newspaper had any sympathy for the pathetic Hookins,  hung-over, bullied, no doubt over-worked and, it might seem, with a bit of a squint.

The popular names for gin, 'dew of the valley' and 'Prince Albert's own'  are intriguing.  Did the Prince Regent have a penchant fot gin?

"Wey Goose" is these days usually written "way-goose" but there are several variations.  It is said to derive from a Dutch word  meaning a road-house and thence a jubilation.   It might well have come to Devon with the Dutch traders who landed at Topsham and other ports.  It was one of those many popular terms which came from Britain but which are now more common in her sometime colonies, America, Australia &c.