Read Online A Burglar Caught by a Skeleton & Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press by Jeremy Clay - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeremy Clay
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foot of the majestic Skiddaw.
He obtained work as a labourer from a farmer, and after some time contrived to leave some little money from his earnings in the hands of his employer. One day the old man asked for his cash, saying, ‘I have a son in Scotland who could assist me in my work, and I want to bring him here.’ The amount was paid and Allison departed, and in a short time returned with his son ‘Tom.’
Tom apparently, was an awkward sort of a lad; still he worked with his father in draining and all other kinds of labourers’ employment. Some two years ago he worked with a great number of labourers, in deepening Bassenthwaite beck.
Tom, now and then, was apt to show the white feather, and his father would call out, ‘Tom, Tom, what ev’r ye aboot? Git on wi’ yer work.’ The youth’s general reply was, ‘Mind yer oon.’
The father and son lived together in a cabin quite cosily. Tom was also a frolicsome sort of a fellow; he went in company with the ‘lads of the village,’ and played off all kinds of nocturnal pranks, sweethearting the girls, drinking his glass, singing his song, and smoking his pipe; nothing came amiss to Tom. He courted, it is said, a young woman for 18 months. Our hero was quite a ‘character.’
Tom’s career as a young man was not, however, doomed to last for ever, for in the early part of last week ‘Tom’ unexpectedly gave birth to a fine child, to the astonishment of the whole neighbourhood.
Tom’s sex having never once been suspected, his female neighbours would scarcely believe their organs of vision after being called in, even when they found this extraordinary mother suckling the child, from the shortness of the crop of hair and appearing in unmentionables. The old man, we are informed, owns to the paternity of the offspring which has thus brought to light the sex of this rural celebrity. It has been said that since this auspicious event some of those who have occasionally employed Tom are overwhelmed with vexation at the notion of their having paid him from 2s to 3s per day, in place of 1s 6d, a woman’s ordinary wage.
The Huddersfield Chronicle , September 13, 1856
FOOD and DRINK
Preface
A recipe for lark pie. Tips on the preparation of eel stew. A comprehensive list of the duties of a footman. Advice for treating someone struck by lightning.
For anyone who required these things in the second half of the nineteenth century, there was one place to turn: Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management , a domestic version of Google, painstakingly compiled over the course of four years by the wife of a prominent publisher.
Within its 2,751 numbered paragraphs, the book dispensed pithy wisdom on the art of dressing a bullock’s heart, the practicalities of cleaning plate and whether or not a drowned man should be hung up by his heels. (Not, was the conclusion. Far better to stick him in a bath, then tickle his nose with a feather.)
If you had half a calf’s head handy and a partially drained bottle of sherry, Isabella Beeton was there to explain how to fashion them into mock turtle soup. If you needed to brush up on the origin of the onion, she was ready with the answer. And if you’d forgotten how long to boil carrots, a quick flick to the right section would put you right. Ah yes, two and a quarter hours.
To her devoted readership, she represented an ideal of British motherhood, a lighthouse beam to guide them through the rocky waters of etiquette and the expectations of the age.
But though the book is rightly cherished for offering a glimpse of day-to-day home life in the Victorian era, it isn’t, of course, anything like the full picture.
To the slum-dwellers of the great cities of Britain, Mrs Beeton’s rarefied world was as foreign as the French names of the dishes she recommended for her dinner parties.
Thirty years after the Book of Household Management first appeared on bookshelves, Friedrich Engels’ The Condition of The Working Class in England was
He obtained work as a labourer from a farmer, and after some time contrived to leave some little money from his earnings in the hands of his employer. One day the old man asked for his cash, saying, ‘I have a son in Scotland who could assist me in my work, and I want to bring him here.’ The amount was paid and Allison departed, and in a short time returned with his son ‘Tom.’
Tom apparently, was an awkward sort of a lad; still he worked with his father in draining and all other kinds of labourers’ employment. Some two years ago he worked with a great number of labourers, in deepening Bassenthwaite beck.
Tom, now and then, was apt to show the white feather, and his father would call out, ‘Tom, Tom, what ev’r ye aboot? Git on wi’ yer work.’ The youth’s general reply was, ‘Mind yer oon.’
The father and son lived together in a cabin quite cosily. Tom was also a frolicsome sort of a fellow; he went in company with the ‘lads of the village,’ and played off all kinds of nocturnal pranks, sweethearting the girls, drinking his glass, singing his song, and smoking his pipe; nothing came amiss to Tom. He courted, it is said, a young woman for 18 months. Our hero was quite a ‘character.’
Tom’s career as a young man was not, however, doomed to last for ever, for in the early part of last week ‘Tom’ unexpectedly gave birth to a fine child, to the astonishment of the whole neighbourhood.
Tom’s sex having never once been suspected, his female neighbours would scarcely believe their organs of vision after being called in, even when they found this extraordinary mother suckling the child, from the shortness of the crop of hair and appearing in unmentionables. The old man, we are informed, owns to the paternity of the offspring which has thus brought to light the sex of this rural celebrity. It has been said that since this auspicious event some of those who have occasionally employed Tom are overwhelmed with vexation at the notion of their having paid him from 2s to 3s per day, in place of 1s 6d, a woman’s ordinary wage.
The Huddersfield Chronicle , September 13, 1856
FOOD and DRINK
Preface
A recipe for lark pie. Tips on the preparation of eel stew. A comprehensive list of the duties of a footman. Advice for treating someone struck by lightning.
For anyone who required these things in the second half of the nineteenth century, there was one place to turn: Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management , a domestic version of Google, painstakingly compiled over the course of four years by the wife of a prominent publisher.
Within its 2,751 numbered paragraphs, the book dispensed pithy wisdom on the art of dressing a bullock’s heart, the practicalities of cleaning plate and whether or not a drowned man should be hung up by his heels. (Not, was the conclusion. Far better to stick him in a bath, then tickle his nose with a feather.)
If you had half a calf’s head handy and a partially drained bottle of sherry, Isabella Beeton was there to explain how to fashion them into mock turtle soup. If you needed to brush up on the origin of the onion, she was ready with the answer. And if you’d forgotten how long to boil carrots, a quick flick to the right section would put you right. Ah yes, two and a quarter hours.
To her devoted readership, she represented an ideal of British motherhood, a lighthouse beam to guide them through the rocky waters of etiquette and the expectations of the age.
But though the book is rightly cherished for offering a glimpse of day-to-day home life in the Victorian era, it isn’t, of course, anything like the full picture.
To the slum-dwellers of the great cities of Britain, Mrs Beeton’s rarefied world was as foreign as the French names of the dishes she recommended for her dinner parties.
Thirty years after the Book of Household Management first appeared on bookshelves, Friedrich Engels’ The Condition of The Working Class in England was
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