Mercuriosities

No longer stocked in Morrisons today, turtle soup! No banquet complete without it, turtle soup was an exotic delicacy brought back from sailing expeditions. If they weren’t being gobbled up at sea, turtle quickly ended up on the tables of royalty – making it sought after, and expensive, produce by the masses.

“HIGH-STREET, GRANTHAM.

BUSHBY has the honor to announce, that he has received a fresh supply of MORRISON’s Patent Preserved Portable TURTLE, sent in jars to any part of the kingdom, and warranted to retain its qualities for years. The turtle in these jars consists of the prime parts of the fish, killed in the West Indies when in the highest health and condition, and will be found to excel, in richness and flavor, the produce of the half-starved, diseased animal, hitherto used in this country after a voyage of several months. To families residing in the country, as affording, at almost instant notice, a dish of the most exquisite and esteemed soup known.

Certificates of its excellence from personages of the highest distinction may be seen, but a single trial is requested in preference, as more certain of insuring general approbation. To be had dressed or undressed, at the rate of 5s. per pint for the former, and 7s.6d, per pint for the latter; which last affords three times its own quantity of the former. For the convenience of families when professed cooks are not kept, an approved recipe will be given.

J.B. also takes this opportunity to express his thanks to his friends for the favors conferred, and begs to recommend to their attention his superb stock of China and Glass, Toilet and Cabinet Ornaments, &c., elegantly designed and finely executed, which will be ready for inspection at the approaching fair, at considerably reduced prices.”

Stamford Mercury, 7 March 1823.

In 1828, Whig politician John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, petitioned for a government bill “for the improvement and regulation of Covent Garden Market”, the fruit, vegetable and flower market for London.  The bill allowed him to knock down the Piazza’s ramshackle stalls, erect a proper market building (still standing today) and institute a regulated system of rents.

“Covent-garden Market is nearly finished, except the green-houses intended to decorate the terrace fronting Great Russell-street, the construction of which has undergone a tasteful change, under the inspection of Mr. Hardy, the Duke of Bedford’s principal agent.  The market, in its detail, will be the most complete in Europe.  Fifty thousand pounds have been expended upon it, which, it is calculated, will barely produce an interest of four per cent.  The report is untrue that the whole rental of the Garden amounts to any thing like twelve thousand pounds per annum.  The Duke of Bedford had long entertained the project of a new Garden, without regard to additional emolument.  The whole of the green-houses are let to two eminent florists.”

Stamford Mercury, 2 April 1830.

The signing of the armistice that ended the First World War had a mixed response.  For the Allies the jubilation was tempered by mourning for the war dead; while, away from the Western Front, fighting continued during the peace negotiations.

“The Great War ended.

ARMISTICE SIGNED.

King George’s Message.

FLIGHT OF THE KAISER.

ENTHUSIASTIC SCENES IN LONDON AND THE PROVINCES.

The Kaiser has abdicated, and has taken refuge in Holland.  Prince Max of Baden, with the assent of all the Secretaries of State, has handed over the Imperial Chancellorship to Herr Ebert, a Majority Socialist.  Herr Ebert has issued a manifesto stating that he intends to form a “People’s Government,” the endeavour of which will be to bring peace as speedily as possible.  The Independent Socialists have been invited to join the Government.

Before Prince Max of Baden left office, he issued a decree announcing the Kaiser’s abdication, the renunciation of the Throne by the Crown Prince, and the appointment of Herr Ebert as Imperial Chancellor.  The decree also proposed the election by general suffrage of a German National Assembly, which should settle finally the future form of government of the German nation, ‘and of those peoples who might be desirous of coming within the Empire.’

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An armistice with Germany was concluded on Monday – our 1561st day of war.  The conditions were signed at 5 o’clock in the morning, after a discussion which lasted all night.  They took effect six hours later.  At 11 o’clock in the forenoon the last shot of the great war was fired.  The duration of the armistice is for 36 days, with option of extension.  Its conditions preclude the possibility of Germany resuming the war.

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HISTORIC LAST LINE.

When the last shot was fired on Tuesday, the Allies and Americans held a front of 320 miles.  Near by one sector of them the Napoleonic wars closed dramatically in the few miles of the field of Waterloo.  The last decisive scenes of the struggle just over were historic battlegrounds in France and Flanders.  In their final marches British troops captured Malplaquet ; the Canadians, in the last hours of fighting, carried us back to Mons and the earliest memories of the war ; and French and Americans had reached and occupied Sedan.

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WELCOMING THE NEWS.

THE KING AND HIS PEOPLE.

London and the country generally received with fervent gratitude the news that the greatest war in history had come to an end.  Churches, including St. Paul’s Cathedral,  were filled to overflowing at the thanksgiving services which were hurriedly arranged, and cheering crowds thronged the streets till a late hour at night.

The King and Queen had an enthusiastic greeting from the great crowds which gathered outside Buckingham Palace when the news was known, and in the afternoon, when they drove through the City and the West End, they again met with a vociferous reception.

To the great rejoicings the King set a high note in various messages.  In that to the Empire he recalls its pledge not to sheathe the sword until our end was achieved.  ‘That pledge,’ he declared, ‘is now redeemed.'”

Excerpts from the Stamford Mercury, November 1918.

After a violent attack of fits, a girl believes it is the work of witchcraft. The treatment of her illness? Drawing blood from the witch.  With help from her mother, siblings and an arsenal of your garden variety household objects, a plan of attack brewed in 19th Century Devonshire…

“SUPERSTITION.- On the 30th ult. the Magistrates of Milverton, Somerset, committed to prison a woman named Bryant, and her three daughters, for cutting and maiming an inoffensive creature who earns a livelihood by collecting rags. It appears that one of the daughters had for some time laboured under violent attacks of fits, and she and her mother unaccountably conceived that the poor old woman, the rag-gatherer, was the sole cause. In consequence, they applied to Baker, the Devonshire conjuror, who, after drawing from their suspicions, told them that she was certainly the cause of the daughter’s illness, and that the fits would be removed by drawing blood of the witch. On their return, they agreed that the next time the old woman came near their dwelling, she should be assailed for the purpose of carrying the receipt into effect : this soon reached the old woman’s ears, who, alarmed at being branded by such an opprobrious name, took an acquaintance with her, and proceeded to Byrant’s house to ask particulars. No sooner had she approached the door, than they fell on her with the utmost violence, cutting her arms in a shocking manner, with pins, nails and scissars, and had not the old woman and her companion alarmed the neighbours, the consequence must have been still more dreadful.”

Stamford Mercury, 24 January 1823.

A few weeks ago we brought you the first of an occasional series of articles about wife-selling from the volumes of the Stamford Mercury.  Here are two further tales.

“At Billingboro’ last week occurred, amongst other improving subjects of conversation in that fashionable village, one of those connubial transfers which are said (untruly) not to be uncommon in London–the sale of a wife!  In the metropolis, the stock so to be put up, it is added, is drawn to Smithfield with a halter round her neck.  There was no recommendation of a good halter, we understand, in the lot at Billingboro’, but still, from the assemblage of a large company in the public street, the lady fetched one pound one [shilling] to her husband, who immediately delivered her to the buyer; and she has since been constantly and openly living with the man to whom she was so transferred.  All this has occurred (to use the language of the city declaimers) “in the nineteenth century !”–It is recommended to us to accompany the notice of so flagrant a transaction with the censure which the outrage on public decorum requires; and we are sorry to learn that there are some people so extremely ignorant as to believe that a sale of this kind will dissolve the marriage contract, and leave the man or the wife at liberty  to enter into a new matrimonial connection !  An application on the subject was actually made in this case to a neighbouring magistrate, who assured the parties of the total groundlessness of their notion, and that the husband was for life bound to support the wife and all the children that she had or might have; his ridiculous proceeding of selling his wife, as it was called, was one, therefore, that relieved him from no obligation, but added to his former burthens the disgrace and infamy of a connivance at his wife’s prostitution !”

Stamford Mercury, 30 August 1816.

“The wife of Henry Frost, weaver, of Hull, some time since sold to one William Whiting, for the small sum of one shilling and sixpence, has returned to her husband, the purchaser having given him two guineas to take her back ! !”

Stamford Mercury, 22nd June 1821.

Two hundred years ago the misuse of charity funds caused public concern. The Court of Chancery provided remedies not obtainable in the common-law courts.

“It transpired in the Court of Chancery on Saturday, that there are in the kingdom upwards of 50,000 charities, of the annual value of about two millions, not above one quarter of which is properly applied.  The public commissioners for investigating charities have reported upon 20,000, and their expenses already exceed 200,000l.  Of these 20,000 charities, two-thirds are awaiting decision, and the law costs exceed 10,000l.  In the case of a charity established for the redemption of slaves on the coast of Barbary, an information having been filed, and a poor sailor made a relator, the result has been, that the trustees of the charity have admitted having a sum of 100,000l. in their hands, and now consent to bow to the decision of the court.–It will be remembered that the practical usefulness of the commissioners of charities was dreadfully frittered away by some alarmed persons procuring the investigation to be restricted to charities for which there were not known ‘Visitors.’  It is believed that, had the powers of the commissioners not been so shamefully confined, ten times the amount of benefit would have resulted from their labours, and great and wicked perversions would have been corrected that now stand over for another day of account.”

Stamford Mercury, 2nd April 1830.

During the war, Churchill was convinced that fifth columnists were at work in Britain.  The UK population had to be on the alert for escaped Nazi prisoners, spies, or anyone with a German accent, but when an escapee speaks fluent English how do you recognise him ?

“ARRESTED A NAZI

SON OF KETTON COUPLE

The recent recapture of an escaped German prisoner by the conductor of a Sheffield ‘bus has a local interest, for the conductor was Mr. Colin Spittle, a son of Mr. and Mrs. A. Spittle, of Ketton.

Mr. Spittle was the conductor on one of the Sheffield Corporation ‘buses when it was boarded by a young man, about 25 years of age, who wore a check cap and a sports coat and flannels, and carried a small attaché case.  He asked for his ticket in fluent English and handed over a florin, but when he received it from Mr. Spittle he clicked his heels sharply, apparently from force of habit.

Mr Spittle’s suspicions were aroused, but he appeared to take no notice, although he told the driver to stop when he saw a policeman.

When this was done, the young man could not produce an identity card and tried to escape, but finally confessed to being a Nazi.  His attaché case contained chocolate !

Mr. Spittle has received a letter of congratulation from the Corporation transport department.”

Stamford Mercury, 31st January 1941.

“OAKHAM TURNPIKE-ROAD.

Notice is hereby given,

That a SPECIAL MEETING of the TRUSTEES appointed for carrying into execution an Act of Parliament passed in the 35th year of the reign of his late Majesty King George the Third, intituled, “An Act for repairing, altering, and improving the road leading from the Great North Road in the town of Stamford, and county of Lincoln, through the town of Oakham, to the Great North Road aforesaid at or near a house called the Cross Guns, in the parish of Greetham, in the county of Rutland ;” and also a certain  other Act of Parliament made and passed in the 57th year of the reign of his said late Majesty, for continuing and amending the first-mentioned Act, will be holden at the CROWN INN at OAKHAM aforesaid, on SATURDAY the 15th MAY next, at 11 o’clock in the forenoon, to take into consideration the propriety of altering the present Surveyor’s Salary, or of appointing a fresh Surveyor in his stead, and to proceed to such appointment if it shall be so determined, and for such other purposes relating thereto as may then be deemed necessary.–By order,

Wm. ADES, Clerk to the said Trustees.

Oakham, April, 1830

N.B. All persons wishing for the above office must send in their names and addresses, with references as to character and qualification, to the Clerk to the Trustees.”

Stamford Mercury, 23rd April 1830.

During the 19th century wife-selling was seen by some as a mutually agreeable way of dissolving a dysfunctional marriage, whilst for others it was a social disgrace.

The first article of a man selling his wife is a true ‘Mercuriosity’ because it involves a certain Thomas Hardy who buys a wife from Thomas Hand in 1786.  Thomas Hardy, the author, had clearly been doing research on wife-selling because in The Mayor of Casterbridge he writes of Susan Henchard, “But she was by no means the first or last peasant woman who had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural records show.”  Did the author ever learn that his namesake bought a wife in this way ?

“On Monday the 12th instant Thomas Hand, a taylor at Spalding in this county, sitting at the pied calf alehouse, expressed some words to the company, of an intention he had to sell his wife, if the man would buy her, and without any persuasion went out, and returned with Thomas Hardy, a cordwainer of the same place.  They both sat down very friendly, and drank a pint or two of ale, when they began to talk of a bargain, and soon agreed for Elizabeth the wife of Hand, to Hardy, for five shillings, to be delivered in a halter in the presence of the company, provided the contract met the approbation of the wife.  Hardy, the purchaser went out, and soon returned with the woman, and the three parties retired into a private room and conversed upon the subject, and very composedly agreed in opinions.  Three witnesses were called in, a halter sent for , which Hand took and put upon her, and delivered her to Hardy, pronouncing the following words: “I now my dear, deliver you into the hands of Thomas Hardy, praying the blessings of God to attend you both, with all happiness.”–Hardy replied, “I now my dear, receive you with the blessings of God, praying for happiness,” &c. took off the halter, saying,”Come my dear, I receive you with a kiss; and you, Hand, shall have a kiss at parting;” which was done with great fortitude on all sides: Hand and Hardy both desired a written memorandum of the agreement, which was given to each, and signed by three witnesses.  A dinner was ordered by the two parties for nine persons then present, and the lady dined at the head of the table with great composure, between Buckram and Wax.  After dinner the lady retired, and the remainder of the day was spent with harmony and mirth, agreeable to all parties.”

Stamford Mercury, 23rd June, 1786.

The article below takes place in the George Inn, Stamford in 1829.  Thomas Hardy’s notebook* confirms that this article inspired his account of the sale of Susan Henchard to Richard Newson in The Mayor of Casterbridge.

“The disgraceful scene of a fellow’s selling and delivering his wife was exhibited in Stamford market on Friday last.  The price obtained was four shillings!  Robert Phillips, under-ostler at the George inn, was the seller, and a man named Wm. Brown, a labourer, of Oakham, was the purchaser.  They were permitted to retire from the market-hill without molestation!”

*”Sale of wife – at Stamford – fellow sold her “for
2/- wet and 2/- dry – delivered her to the
purchaser on the market hill in a halter after wh.
the trio retired to a p. House to quaff the heavy
wet.”

Stamford Mercury, 25th September, 1829.

Two hundred years ago surgery was a terrifying prospect, often performed on the kitchen table.  This account of the removal of a tumour describes the operation as ‘tedious, difficult, and terrible’.  Although morphine had been discovered in 1805, it wasn’t in general use until the middle of the century.

“EXTRAORDINARY SURGICAL OPERATION.-On Friday the 22d ult. an encysted tumour was removed from the body of Hannah Hicks, of Dembleby, by Mr. Bisill, of Sleaford, the dimensions of which, before the operation, were as follow :-Its length, measured on the surface of the tumour, one foot three inches ; its breadth, one foot two inches ; and its circumference at the base, two feet six inches.  The tumour was situated on the back, extending from the right breast, over the lower half of the shoulder-blade, to the spine, and passing down by the side of it, to the loins.  It was ascertained, previously to the operation, that some of the muscles of the back were connected with the tumour ; and it was found also that part of the pectoral, part of the latissimus dorsi, and some of the inferior muscles of the shoulder-blade, were firmly adhering to its upper surface, and, what was very remarkable, part of the fibres of the latissimus dorsi were condensed into a sort of ligamentous band, about the size of a man’s finger, which passed directly through the body of the cyst.  The tumour had also extended itself full three inches underneath the shoulder-blade, adhering there, and to the aponeurotic expansion of the back, and throughout the whole inferior surface of the sac, with a firmness equal to a ligament, rendering the operation at once tedious, difficult, and terrible : but all obstacles were surmounted, and we are happy to state the patient is now in a fair way to do well.”

Stamford Mercury, 5th June 1818.