HUNTING IN HAPPY HEAVITREE, 1841

 "On Saturday last Mr. R. Cockburn's hounds met at Sandy Gate, at half past ten,, when many of the knowing ones who were let into the secret, were on the qui vive.  The dogs were soon in Mr Salter's brakes, and the music of the full-toned hounds gave notice of what we might expect if we looked sharp out - and so it was, for Reynard, after dodging about the furze, made a bolt through the fir plantation, up the quarry lane by Mr Tuckett's farm, in a line to Heavitree Church, as if he were about to take sanctuary, but finding his friends too close at his heels, he made towards Mr Yard's, and there we were at fault, we thought he was gone to the Tanner's to change his coat, but shortly, after he was discovered crossing the gardens, thence over to Mr. Eardley's chapel to Miss Blunt's gate - finding that shut he went away into the adjoining garden where the hounds fresh found him.  He seemed so  taken with the happy village of Heavitree, as to be determined to end his days therein for he scampered away across the church path to Mr.Swale's to the great amazement of the villagiers;  the dogs were close to his brush, ands he once again reached his brake, but with all the appearance of having had more to do than he had anticipated on his first set out from home, which he never again quitted, the dogs having mawled him at the end of the brake."

*

I find it odd that this report from The Western Times of 10th April, 1841 makes no mention of horses leaping over gates or horsemen falling off and breaking their bones or whatever.  Presumably there were  horses galloping in and out of the gardens of the happy village of Heavitree in 1841.  In any case the sporting citizens of Exeter, the 'knowing ones', our hunting fathers, did not have far to go to watch the unspeakable pursuing the uneatable.

What an amazing contrast can be sensed between the spirit of community that is here and the anonymity of our modern life.   Mr. Cockburn and the Salters,  Mr. Tuckett a farmer, Mr. Yard,  Tanner, a tailor?, Mr Eardley, a dissenting minister, dear Miss Blunt,  Mr. Swale, Uncle Tom Cobley and all:  all  (okay, except the last!) have their names casually dropped with the assumption, it seems, that much of the readership, in the city and in towns and villages other than Heavitree, might have some acquaintance with these neighbours.

Mauled, spelled above with a w, - a typo I imagine, as with villagiers, is the just word,  The dogs would have smashed the fox as with a mallet,  not, as the word tends to mean nowadays, leaving the job half finished.   

 

"CHUGGY," EXETER, 1841.

 The Exeter Flying Post for 8th April 1841 reported how, at the Guildhall in Exeter a master-butcher, Mr. Slocombe sought damages for assault from a butcher's assistant called Lang.  The assault had occured at the slaughter house.   Mr Slocombe was leading two calves to their doom and Lang, who was butchering a pig, was blocking his way.

Lang, "not removing  when requested to do so, Mr. Slocombe capsized chuggy and the whole concern.  Enraged at which Lang struck and abused him.  

"William Palmer, a witness, said, 'I saw Lang strike Mr. Slocombe twice.'  On which Lang rejoined, 'I'll bring a witness to prove you were out of sight when I did strike him.' - This admission, of course, put the assault out of all question; and Mr. George Manning, and Mr James Spark, who were called on the part of Lang, could only speak to mitigatory circumstances.   These, however, so operated  that Lang was fined 1s. only, and expenses, making  4s. in all."  

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I am fascinated how scrupulously The Post, here and in general, finds the epiphet 'Mr.' for 'respectable' citizens like this master-butcher, and omits it for base mechanics like the not-very-bright butcher's assistant, Lang.

 Clearly the readers of the newspaper were expected to recognise this pig under the name 'chuggy'.   I have as yet found no other chuggies.

Chuggypig or chuffypig is a south--west dialect name for the wood-louse and wood-lice look uncannily like pigs if you look them in the snout.  Of the eighty or so 'country' names for woodlice many have a piggy connection.

A VIRAGO IN MINIATURE, EXETER, 1841

 "A dwarfish Amazon, named Eliza Marshall, who appears to be emulous of the fame of Lady Barrymore,  and whose visits to the Guildhall,  unlike  "angels' visits few and far between," are of continued recurrence,  was charged with being drunk and disorderly.

"She was fined `10s and costs , or in default of payment, a month's imprisonment.

"As Milford, the night watchman, was conducting this virago in miniature to the lock-up, she suddenly made a violent attack upon him, scratching his face and drawing the blood copiously from his nose.  For this second offence she was ordered to be brought up tomorrow."

*

This Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, (10th April 1841)  typically brutal, police-court report is perhaps of interest only in so far as it mentions Lady Barrymore.   

Until her miserable death in 1832 "Lady Barrymore", properly Mary Ann Pearce, had been, for one or two years only, the cosseted mistress of the obscenely wealthy and decadent aristocrat, Richard (Hellgate) Barry the seventh Earl of Barrymore, (hence Mary Pearce's "title", unto which she had no right), and subsequently she was famous only for drunkeness, appearances in court and assaults upon watchmen.

No doubt Eliza Marshall's sins were scarlet but it wasn't her fault that she was small!

The angels quotation is from  Thomas Campbell's poem The Pleasures of Hope.  

 "What though my winged hours of bliss have been / like angels' visits few and far between...."

Campbell was still alive when Eliza Marshall bloodied Watchman Milford's nose.  

Oh to have lived in an age when words like emulous and copiously were flung to the people that they might leap and catch them and when the words of poets were read and remembered and quoted in the Exeter newspapers!

Nowadays language becomes less  elegant by the day.  Only today I read in Devon Live:

"A train passenger has received praise after they refused to give up their seat to an elderly woman.  The female passenger defended her decision .... &co."  (my emphasis)

How daft can you get?

   

TRENCHER CAPS, EXETER, 1841.

 From the Western Times, March 13th, 1841:

"Every body in this city has seen the Diocesan school boys parade the streets in their trencher caps.   Bishop Phillpotts enforces this daily airing in the open streets by way of advertising the existence of the school.

"Some of the lads look lank and hungry,  We hope their trenchers are filled at home as well as their trencher caps are out. 

"But we neither publish, hint, nor insinuate aught that would imply a doubt of the fact."

*

The Western Times liked a pun as much as it disliked Bishop Phillpotts.  The insinuation is, however much we are assured that there is none, that the twenty-six or so schoolboy/choristers of the cathedral's school were being half starved by a penny pinching Bishop, Dean and Chapter.

A trencher cap is nowadays more usually called a mortar-board.    Both appellations attempt to be pleasant.  It is called a trencher cap, say some, because, upside down, it looks like a trencher coming to table with a bowl upon it but certainly it is so called because the flat hats look like trenchers (wooden plates or platters) at the dining table.  Hence the Times' somewhat heavy pun.   

I wonder whether these caps were worn by schoolboys elsewhere.   

The lank and hungry boys must have looked cute in their 'academic dress' as they passed through the streets of Exeter, just as do the somewhat plumper graduates of the Open University these days. 

A SINGULAR EPITAPH, TOPSHAM, 1840

 "A correspondent has sent us the following epitaph found among the papers of the late Mr, Coysh, schoolmaster, Topsham.  Mr, Coysh had been for many years in the navy.  He was author of a work on which he much prided himself - 'The British Pronouncing and Self-instructing Spelling-book.'  The date of his death is supplied by the Executors: 

"TOPSHAM -

By the Grace of God,

Here lies moored in peace the hulk of
GEORGE COYSH,

who was launched into this ocean of misery on the 18th September, 1781, and who, after sustaining a variety of damage during a boisterous voyage through life, became at last so much impaired as to be rendered unfit for further service, and in consequence of his rotten and infirm state, was in pursuance of orders from aloft, brought to his moorings in this port on the 12th of November, 1840, in sure and certain hope of a thorough refit through him who hath said 'Because I live ye shall live also.""

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It is no doubt a fact somewhat overlooked that George Coysh's British Pronouncing and Self-Instructing Spelling -book  was written in Topsham.   This somewhat crazy work can be found online.  It was well received by the educationalists of Exeter and at his death he had another such work in hand.  The quaint epitaph which he composed for himself reveals him to be have been a character who deserves to be remembered.  

Source: The Western Times, 6th February 1841.

"THANK YE, MY BOYS!," EXETER, 1841.

On Tuesday 26th January 1841, while the Mayor of Exeter and the other magistrates were dealing with the larcenies of the week at the Guildhall, the two constables on duty in the portico had occasion to disturb His Worshipful and the lesser worshipfuls as reported by The Western Times. (30th January 1841):

"JAMES JONES, a one-legged man, was here hurried into the Magistrates' room by Ginham and Lascelles, charged with creating a disturbance at the door, and with threatening to 'pare' the latter officer.

"His conduct was excessively impertinant before the magistrates, and he was ordered to find two sureties in £10., to keep the peace.

"On being taken away, in default of bail, he triumphantly shouted aloud,  'Thank ye, my boys, this is all I wanted - I only wished for grub and lodging without cost.'"

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The constables in Exeter were so few and so well-known to the readers of The Times that this report (and many others) simply uses their surnames.

James Jones' cunning plan was hardly original.  Many poor men must have preferred to seek prison rather than suffer cold and hunger on the winter streets but not many had so much fun in the process of being committed as he, apparently, did.   Nor were others so  excessively impertinent and upbeat as to call the officers of the court 'my boys'.  James must have been quite a character.   I wish we knew more about him.  The granite columns must have quivered! 

To pare someone is new to me.  It sounds rather nasty - death by a thousand cuts?

 

A CHURLISH PRIEST, EXETER, 1841.

 William, Webber, a smith in the employ of Mr. W.C. Bodley, Bonhay, wrote to The Western Times  (9th January 1841) this letter:

"Sir, - Having a child lying dead,  I applied to the Rev. Mr. Atkinson,  Rector of St. Edmund's parish for its interment.   I waited upon him on the Wednesday, intending to have my child buried on the following day,  and he directed me to come again in the evening at half-past seven,

I did so, and his order then was , I were to be in the yard at 1 o'clock the following day.  I told him I could not, as I had some friends in the country coming to the funeral.  To this he answered by asking what had I to do with the appointment of the funeral - and added that he would not be in the yard at any time else.

I sent to him again the next morning, and his answer was just the same.  I was then obliged to apply to Mr. Wood, a Dissenting Minister, who buried my child, after having had another grave dug.

Knowing you to be a working man's friend, I take the liberty of writing to you the above, and trust you will be so kind as to insert it in your paper, which will always be remembered by your very grateful and humble servant,

WM. WEBBER

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It was not uncommon for poor parents to have trouble with Anglican parsons when it came to burying their dead children and without a parson a child could not be buried.  Often Dissenters came to the rescue bur not always.  A last resort was the Quakers.

The editor of The Times subscribed this letter with the comment:  "The act of this priest, if perfectly lawful, was at the same time, perfectly churlish."

"Having a child lying dead." reads like the first line of a poem.  Walt Whitman?

Though a working man,  William Webber wrote a fair hand.  Something, I guess, that came as a surprise to the Rev. Mr. Atkinson.  The March of Mind was changing the game.