Surprisingly the early-Victorian Board of Magistrates at the Guildhall of Exeter often functioned as a type of Marriage Guidance Counsel as here in the case of a shoemaker reported in The Exeter Flying Post of 1st May 1845:
"The wife of Alexander Tapscott. a snob, but anything rather than a jolly one, complained that he had been strapping her at a rather unmerciful rate with his stirrup, and also that he kept her without a sufficient supply of the "ready."
"This would seem to be one of the ill-assorted matches that take place. Elick is a teetotaller, and the severity with which he disciplines his own body would seem to be such that his face might be taken for that of one of the old puritans, so lank is it and haggard. His rib, on the contrary, has an eye full of fire, - a face in which spirit sits enthroned, - a form that is buxom, and, in short, appears altogether such as requires only a counter part in her helpmeet to render her a happy and industrious woman. It appears they have one child 14 weeks old.
"The Bench deliberated whether they should not bind over the sullen fanatic to keep the peace; but on his promising not again to abuse his wife; and she promising also to accomodate herself to his peculiar habits and notions as well as she can, the parties were dismissed."
The jolly snob sounds to me like he should feature in a folk-song but, if so, I haven't found him. Snob for shoemaker is still, in 1845, common usage in Exeter.
To strap someone with a stirrup. would be lethal but, bad enough!, it is his stirrup-leather with which Mr. Tapscott strapped Mrs. Tapscott.
Elick is merely a pet name for Alexander.
Mrs. Tapscott is Alexander's rib and all the readers of The Flying Post have The Book of Genesis by heart and are familiar with the image.
The Post can't spell accommodate either.
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