JOHN GOSS, EXETER, 1845.

The Rxeter and Plymouth Gazette of 22nd February 1845 reports how one John Goss....

".... was charged with an assault upon his wife, and attempting to throw her into the water. 

"It appeared that the parties had for several days had disputes, and that about half-past 11 last night, the woman left her house , when the husband followed her, and upon arriving at the Old Bridge, near the Shilhay, caught her up in his arms and endeavoured to throw her over the bridge. 

"Her screams fortunately called the Police to her assistance in time to save her.

"The Court fined him 40s. and the expenses for the assault, and in default of payment ordered him to be imprisoned one month." 

The Old Bridge near the Shilhay in Exeter must mean the mediaeval bridge, some of which still exists,  which was largely demolished before 1845 but this story indicates that some of it still stretched out over waters of the Exe.   

The Shilhay is the southernmost part of Exe Island and itself a virtual island.  It was the industrial hub of Exeter and had been the centre of the woollen trade but by1845 its mills and warehouses were home to  brick-makers, timber-merchants, stone-and-slate merchants, &c,.

These days, surely, magistrates could hardly overlook what would seem to be attempted murder and a month in prison seems a somewhat inappropriate punishment for trying to throw your wife over the parapit of a bridge.

Those busy policemen seem to have been there whenever they were needed.  Of course it can't have been quite like that.

 

RUINED BY THE BLACK DOG, EXETER, 1845

At the Exeter Police Court,  so reports The Western Tiimes for 15th February 1845:  

"EDWARD TANNER was summoned for keeping open  the Black Dog to an unreasonable hour.  The case was proved by Policeman Perriam - an officer invaluable for his acute hearing.  In passing over the Iron Bridge  once an hour from nine in the evening till four in the morning, he could distinguish every time well known voices in the tap-room of the Black Dog;  he could hear them, during the whole of the night, 'tossing for three glasses of gin and water, which made eighteen pence;' and at twenty minutes to four two neighbours living just above came out in a pretty fresh state.

"The Mayor said he had received frequent complaints from the injured wives of the neighborhood, whose domestic happiness had been ruined by the Black Dog;  men who would have been the best of husbands, returned late and intoxicated to their anxious families, and all owing to the Black Dog.

The defendant was fined 40s. and expenses"  

A night-policeman's stag of duty would seem to have lasted eight hours, eight hours of pounding the beat with nothing happening!  Policing Exeter at night would be more exciting these days, - if there were any policemen pounding.

The Black Dog Tavern, now the City Gate Hotel, was at No 5 North Street next to the North Gate of the city and at one end of  Exeter's famous Iron Bridge.  

The Mayor of Exeter, Henry Hooper Esq., just like his predecessor, William Page Kingdon Esq, pretends intimate knowledge of the affairs of the humbler classes.  One wonders how genuine were these pretensions

A pretty fresh state for as drunk as a coot is pleasing.   

COLLECTING SIXPENCES, EXETER, 1845.

The Western Times of 8th February 1845 published a letter from a correspondent living in the village of Bow, eight miles west of Crediton of which this is an extract:

"A small farmer of Morchard Bishop has a son who for two years has been subject to fits, and having consulted many medical men in Exeter, without receiving any benefit, was advised a short time ago to go to the "white witch"  the cognomen of a person who lives in Exeter.

This swindling vagabond told the poor man to procure fifteen sixpences from females living in three adjoining parishes, and to bring them to him in Exeter on a certain day, when he would let him have a silver ring for his son to wear on his finger, which he pretended would completely cure him.

"One day last week I met the silly dupe in this parish, collecting the sixpences which he intended to carry to Exeter the next day, and which no doubt ere this the Doctor has pocketed.  On my questioning the man, he told me that the "white witch" or high priest of his order, has a very extensive practice among men of his class, that in fact it is his only business, and that he lives in a very good house in Exeter.

"I should like to see this impudent imposter punished, a very fit subject for lynch's law.  If he were ducked in your river once or twice, I have no doubt 'twould cure him."

This newspaper correspondence is regettably all hearsay and  does not identify the full-time white-witch nor does it inform us where in Exeter he lived.  But it is surely remarkable, if true, that an impudent imposter could find enough gullible Devonians on whom to practice white-witchcraft and thereby to maintain a very good house.

The method of the imposture rings true;  only sixpences would serve,; there had to be fifteen of them, no more, no fewer,  and they had to come from females and they had to come from three different parishes and be delivered by a certain date.  You can imagine a poor bumpkin struggling with all the crazy conditions anxious that if he made a mistake the charm would miscarry.

This story made me remember a great man called  Edzard Ernst, a professor who lost his job, and of his team whose critical evaluation of alternative medicine at Exeter University was aborted in 1993 largely because of our present king's faith in an impudent imposture called homeopathy - still, you can't duck a king in the River Exe, not even once!

Lynch's law is fun for lynch-law.  Everyone seems to agree that it was in Virginia, USA and in 1780 that lynching was launched.  A Charles Lynch competes with a William Lynch for the honour.  My 1895 Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary has:  lynch, v.t.  said to be derived from the name of a Virginia farmer, who took the law into his own hands by tying a thief to a tree and then flogging him.  I'm for the unidentified farmer and for it being an earlier usage.   

                                                                     

GETTING GLORIOUSLY DRUNK, EXETER, 1845.

 "Incredible as the followig circumstance may appear, it is nevertheless strictly true. - On Sunday, a person living in Sherman's Court in this city,  having occasiion to draw off some soft water from the cock, was surprised to see it of a reddish brown colour, and still more, on tasting it, to find it very good beer, though it had evidently been very lately brewed.

"He could not conceal his good luck, the news of which soon spread, and other cocks were tried with the same result, and on Sunday and part of Monday the denizens of "the Quarter" made the most of the chance by getting gloriously drunk.

"How to account for it is, at present, not easy, but some brewer in the neighbourhood must have suffered, and the beer must have been drawn off by the pipes which were only designed to bring water in.  At present no brewer can be found who will confess to having lost his beer.  Perhaps the same pipes that emptied his vats of their contents, have by this time filled them again with the aqua pura of the resevoir."

"The Quarter" signifies Exeter's West Quarter,  the busiest part of the city within which, at one time, it is said there were forty public houses, many, possibly all, of which brewed their own beer. 

Sherman's Court was a small court or tenement off West Street. 

No doubt The Gazette was making the best of the story but, nonetheless, free beer on a Sunday from the 'cocks' must have seemed a small miracle to the person living in Sherman's Court and his neighbours.

Cock for a faucet or a tap has all but disappeared.  We still have stop-cocks of course.   For Shakespeare it was simply a spout and therefore to hand for bawdy puns. 

Source:  The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 1st February, 1845.