"We regret to see that the Exeter public are to be deprived of the pleasure of bathing above Head Weir. We think, with a beautiful stream like the Exe, some provision should be made for the encouragement of this healthful recreation. Mr. John Carew, whose delicate eyes are offended by the occasional spectacle of a few naked boys, dancing with joyous glee on the green grass, or plashing in the cool streams at three or four hundred yards distance - Mr. John Carew threatens therefore to spike the river and impale the naked little boys. We will not horrify Mr. John Carew with the sight of the agonised victims of his spiking propensities - because we are sure that he is far too good natured a man to carry his threat into execution.
"Many a grey-headed man remembers with delight the pleasures of his bathing time, and we feel assured that the Exonians will not surrender a prescriptive right to get at the cool stream - no, not even if Mr. John Carew were to shoulder his pike with a little boy impaled upon it, writhing in agony - and to stand a grim sentry at the Head Weir to scare them off.
"If Mr. Carew really wants to get rid of an annoyance he could easily do so by projecting a society for promoting and regulating public bathing - that would put a "spike" into the nuisance, without planting a thorn in his legal pillow. For if he really were to use the pike in a moment of unguarded wrath, his kind heart would repent it in bitterness and sorrow for the rest of his days."
It is no surprise that only little boys would get naked and plash in the Exe.
Plash is the original form. Splash just makes it sound spashier.
I have to suppose some people did spike rivers to stop children from bathing.
I suspect The Times' columnist did not understand the first meaning of 'impale'. - that would be an image too far.
Happily the area above Head Weir continued to be a bathing ground for Exonians for another half century.
John Carew had been mayor of Exeter (1841) and was at this time the city's Registrar.
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