BADGER BAITING, EXETER, 1843.

 

The Scots Greys had marched away and in the Higher Barracks were the 4th Light Dragoons who, I think, were what was called a slang regiment, that is to say a rakish one. There was a law against badger baiting but clearly it was not being observed.  

Badger baiting was a most cruel 'sport'.  The Western Times thought so too,  hence this excercise in heavy sarcasm (1st July, 1843).

"The badger baiting at the barracks is carried on with much spirit.  The sport is excellent, and the elite of Westgate generally honour the officers with their attendance on these occasions.

"At a late exhibition Mr. Westlake's dog proved very game, and the respectable owner was offered four sovereigns for it by a gallant officer, who was so charmed with his pluck that he wished the animal might be left with the badger for an hour, to see which would be alive at the end, the dog or the badger.

"We notice these matters with great pleasure, because we think that sports which tend to advance the human character, and do so much honour to the game breeding of our Cathedral city, should be more generally cultivated.

"In ancient times monarchs used to attend bear baiting - our virgin Queen Elizabeth did so - we hope to see both Mayor and Mace going to this truly noble sport." 

Mr. Westlake was a flour merchant from New Bridge Street, right in the middle of the Westgate district, the least fashionable corner of Victorian Exeter.

'Mayor and Mace' is a sweet phrase to mean the civil authority as a whole.  I have not seen it before.

THE SCARLET FEVER, EXETER, 1843

 The Scots Greys who had distinguished themselves at Waterloo, reasonably fresh in the citizen's memory, were popular in Exeter and it was a standing joke, laboured by The Western Times, that the girls could not resist the troopers nor the ladies, the officers. Hence that newspaper reported the regiment's departure thus:

"This gallant regiment has left our good old city.  On Monday last 'head quarters' marched out in brave style,  the band playing that dear delightful tune of 'The Girl I left behind me,' and leaving the less honourable portion of the regiment,  the 'tail quarters,' if we may so designate it, in contradistinction to the head - to discharge any little arrears of tenderness in the farewell and adieu line of sympathy, which the first detachment had not had time to settle.

"The departure of these heroes had been the subject of several days' sighings, on the part of the damsels of the city of various classes:  gentle and simple were alike the victims of the scarlet fever.

"Society and 'polish' might have kept the patrician damsels within the bounds of decent resignation, but there was many a maiden of gentle birth who envied the interesting milliners on Monday morning, who, being the slaves of no false delicacy and refinement, enjoyed the delightful privilege of kissing their fair hands, and bidding amidst sobs and sighs - adieu to the heroes departing - for Norwich.

"To speculate on all the uses of a standing army is not our province - albeit that we might be tempted to see what effect it hath, in these changes of place, on the population returns  - locally considered."

The march, "The Girl I left behind me," is sometimes called 'Brighton Camp' (which nowadays is a pleasant combination of words)  because of  the stanza:    -     "Oh ne'er shall I forget the night/ the stars were bright above me/ and gently lent their silvery light/ when first she vowed to love me./ But now I'm bound for Brighton camp;/ kind heaven then pray guide me/ and send me safely back again/ to the girl I left behind me."  

Brighton camp, I think, signified a stage on the way to the wars.  But the Scots Greys and their splendid horses were only going as far as Norwich and it would be another ten years or so before the Crimean War meant they were again in action.  

Elsewhere in the same column I read the following delightful sentiments:

"Locks of hair enough to make wigs for the whole bench of bishops were exchanged - where the passion was particularly intense, the fragment of a moustache was parted with by the foredoomed hero - to be woven into some slender love token, to be worn in the bosom where the same moustache had reposed before - with a nose above it perhaps."

The Scots Grey's band used to play in Northernhay Gardens.  These days the good old Salvation Army band turns up once a year for Remembrance Sunday.  I love them but they don't quite send the same message as the band and drums of a regiment.  When did a military band last offer a Sunday concert or march through Exeter?  We ought to allow ourselves more cakes and ale and find some occasions a bit more classy than the underwhelming Winter Wonderland, the construction of which, I understand, will this year once again close the Gardens the citizens and detract from the dignity of Armistice Day.

Source: The Western Times, 6th May, 1843

  

A HIRED SANGUINARY ASSASSIN, EXETER, 1842

The Western Times of  8th October 1842 tells at some length a story of the Landlord of the Ship Inn, John Roberts,  and a  Recruiting Corporal of Marines, Corporal Thomas Apley, who had been handing out the Queen's shilling to Exeter lads for some nine months.  The corporal was a remarkably powerful man standing about six foot high.  The Plaintiff was very much the lesser man.

At one point in the trial the attorney for the plaintiff said:  "the service which he followed, and the clothes which he wore, the allegience he owed the queen, and the gratitude which he owed to the people who paid for the various trappings which adorned his person, and for the rations which kept his body up - these all should have bound the corporal over to a knowledge of the Queen's peace and his duty to preserve it."

But the Bench heard how Corporal Apley had been mightily provoked  the plaintiff had called him a  " .... hired sanguinary assassin, to which he added a  "foul and loathsome epithet.  If you call me that name again John (said defendant) I will knock you down.  He repeated the name the corporal kept his word, and and floored him - he admitted it.  The corporal seemed to be labouring under a mistake.  He apparently imagined that being sworn to maintain the Queen's honour and dignity, and the national weal by deeds of arms - that he was entitled to excercise his gallant calling in defenceof his own honour and dignity - and that he could declare war on his own account but the Bench did not encourage him to hold this belief , for although Sergeant Herbert took his corporal oath in support of the corporal's statement yet the Bench decreed that no provocation would justify the assault.  They admitted, however, that the disgusting and abusive language of the plaintiff must come in mitigation and administered the lowest fine - one shilling and costs."

I was impressed by the idea that there was in 1842, apparently, something like a contract between the public and its servants which is expressed here.  We have lost all trace of it.  There was a time, that I remember, when soldiers felt their 'service' was to the nation.  Now we have no nation, and soldiers, and policemen think and act ever more like the servants of a sometimes tyrannical government.  On the other hand 'society' expresses little or no gratitude to its 'servants'.  I can recall, for a trivial example, as a young soldier in uniform, being ushered into the best seats at the local cinema free of charge.  Nowadays soldiers in uniform just get stabbed.

The Ship Inn, I assume, is the same one in Martin's Lane which Drake is said to have visited and where 'royals' still visit.   They were already 'royal' in Corporal Apley's day. 

These days those who abuse have a strikingly degenerate and limited vocabulary. -   Discuss!

But I think perhaps the witty writer of the column is paraphrasing!

Corporal Oath is a pun worthy of The Times.  A corporal  (corporax), as in the legal term corporal oath, being sacred cloth such as covers the host or indeed , who now believes?, the binding of the Holy Bible.