A GUMBLE, EXETER, 1845

In The Western Times for 15th March, 1845, we read

  "A butcher, named PAGE, was summoned by Mr. Stogdon for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on a charge of cruelly killing a terrier dog.

"The dog, which belonged to a person named Downing, got into the Lower Market, and after smelling around the defendant's stall, began to gnaw at a calf skin which hung temptingly near the ground. The defendant took up a 'gumble,' a heavy stick, used to spread the skin and 'hove' it at the dog, and struck it  on the head, and killed it instantly.

"The Mayor said the case was not one of wanton cruelty, and he would impose a small fine only to cover the expenses."

A gumble, here neatly defined by the newspaper, appears in none of my dictionaries.  The OED (online) seemingly knows of only one written reference to gumbles. (in 1688!) meaning a horse's cheekbones.  That there is, via butchers, bones and butchering a link here seems, to me, likely.  Perhaps the cheekbone of the horse was also used to spread calfskin.  It is, I learn, a large, flat bone.  In any case Page, the butcher was a dead shot with the gumble and could heave it with lethal consequence as Downing's terrier found out. 

Page the butcher said hove and, already in 1845, it is given speech marks.  It, the old and regular form,  is still common enough in Devon today as the past participle of to heave and certainly boats can only be hove to. 

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had only been founded in 1824.  I have the impression that Exeter magistrates were not yet taking it seriously. 

I have an image here of this butcher's stall in the Lower Market, with its scraped calfskins hanging to the ground, looking very different from today's butcher's shop, (as if there were any in Exeter!!)  In my imagination it is selling all kinds of tripe and offal and sweetbreads and sheeps' heads, pigs' heads &c. which we seldom see now.  Mind you, thanks to multiple cultures, I have seen that sort of thing on the Kingsland Road and elsewhere in London.  Coming soon to Sidwell Street? 

A BAD SHILLING, EXETER, 1845.

 "Two boys, named  ROBERT HORE and WILLIAM RAWLINGS were brought up on suspicion of passing base coin.  They had been lodging at the  Pestle and Mortar - a very suspicious haunt; and Wolcott and Joslyn who were sent there for evidence in another case, finding the youngsters in bed, thought it proper to search their pockets - in one of which they found a bad shilling.  

"The boys told their stories very circumstantially.  One of them had come the previous day from Chard, where he had been working.  The other said that he ran away from his parents at Falmouth; that he went to sea and to Swansea, for his first voyage; that having been discharged on the vessel getting to London, he had walked hither. He gave the names of the towns he had passed, and spoke with the earnestness of truth. He had made the acquaintance of the other boy in Exeter, and they had agreed to stay here till Monday, and then go on for Plymouth; they had got but five shillings, including the bad one, between them; and they protested that they "never took nothing from nobody."

"They were discharged." 

*

This is a rare mention of The Pestle and Mortar, a public house in Exeter on the corner where King Street (then known as Idol Lane) meets Smythen Street.  The few mentions of this house at this time note its disreputable nature.  It was, says one Exeter mayor, tantamount to a brothel.

These two boys, finding lodging there, would , I feel sure, have been very little lads.  These days they would have been sent home to their mothers and their "sixth form colleges".   Instead they were tramping the country and jumping on ships and making friends in strange places.  London to Exeter is two hundred miles.   Chard to Exeter is thirty miles,  an impressive day's walk.  Britain was still, as in the days of Richard Whittington,  an age of pedestrianism with working men and women tramping the highways of Britain seeking what?  The bubble fortune? The better life? 

As so often, the Exeter policemen seem to be stupid. over-zealous. and unable to foresee the likely response of the magistrates.  To rummage through the pockets of two boys who just happened to be in an inn where they were looking for evidence in another case and then to book them on suspicion of passing base coin just because they found one bad shilling is just bad policing.  That sort of thing couldn't happen now, could it?

Let us wish Robert Hore and William Rawlings well as they journey to Plymouth and beyond.

Source: The Western Times,8th February, 1845.

 

TAFFIES, EXETER, 1845.

 "John TOZER was charged with a most riotous outrage.   In the Butcher-row there is a respectable gentleman who sells taffies and other sweetmeats. Last Saturday he was awakened out of his first sleep by a tremendous battering at the door.  He ran to see who was there and found the prisoner demanding a ha'porth of taffies. He could not serve him at that unreasonable hour; and the other kicked away at the door and swore if he did not serve him, he would beat the sanguinary door in.    He at last opened the door, when the prisoner bolted down the passage and  met a watchman in St. John-street, when he said "watchman, you're too late; there's been a hell of a row - and I've been  in it!"   Complainant then came up and gave him in charge, and the Bench fined him 5s. and expenses, and in default of payment locked him up for a week."

Taffies, of course, are toffees.  This was the original form, not written down, according to OED,  until 1817, a Creole word, coming, like the sugar cane, from the West Indies.  Taffy became first Toffy and then Toffee.

John Tozer  would seem to have been a taffy addict.  We are not told how old he was but cabinet maker or not, I guess he was only a teenager.  He lived with his parents but clearly they were not going to cough up the five shillings to keep him out of gaol.

The Butcher-row was an extension of Smythen St.  It was a poor district.  Would a seller of sweetmeats living in Smythen St. really be a respectable gentleman ? Perhaps not but if so he would be in the class of impoverished gentlefolk, a class we may be seeing more of in the decade to come.  There is a distinct sense of looming Brother, can you spare a dime?  about the present times.

Sanguinary door: No respectable newspaper in 1845 could print the word bloody, used as a vulgar adjective, a word not thus seen in print until 1840 (OED) hence the old humourous euphemism above.  When Bernard Shaw staged Pygmalion (1912)  the spoken word caused shock and dismay. 

Source : The Western Times, 8th March, 1845.  

A CHILD POISONED BY ITS FATHER, BRADNINCH, 1845.

 Under this heading The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, of 1st March 1845, reported:

"During the past week the quiet village of Bradninch, about nine miles from this city, has been the scene of considerable excitement, in consequence of the following circumstances.  

"A short time ago, a husbandman residing there lost his wife in childbed.  The infant was taken into the country by a female relative, who took charge of it.

"On the day of the wife's funeral this person came to Bradninch to attend it, and during the performance of the ceremony left the child in the care of its father, who had been indisposed and was receiving sick-pay from his club, being confined to his bed.

"He had previously provided himself with a bottlle of spirits of hartshorn, unknown to his nurse, by sending a casual visitor for it during her absence.

"He took the child into bed with him, whilst the funeral of his wife was going on and administered the spirits of hartshorn to it, hiding the bottle in a crevice of the floor.

"The female relative, who had interested herself in the case of the child, on returning from the funeral found it foaming at the mouth and very ill.  She was much alarmed and took it to the minister of the parish to be baptised. That gentleman caused the infant to receive medical attention but it died shortly afterwards.

"An inquest was held on the body on Saturday, which was adjourned to yesterday, when we learn that the father was committed for trial on a charge of Wilful Murder."

As so often, one is alarmed to see how quickly and to what degree the newspaper has prejudged a case.  

This seems to be a tale of ultra Victorian Gothic horror.   The degree of misery implied is shocking. We are not given enough detail but perhaps we shall see learn more at the next Assize Court. 

Spirit of hartshorn  was literally obtained from the antlers of the red-deer and some other horny sources.  They were an ammonia solution not particularly known to be poisonous but the child could only have been some days old.

It was clearly thought more important to have the child seen by the minister than the doctor.   I am  distrustful of female relatives;  innate misogyny I suppose!

In childbed  here meaning giving birth is noteworthy.