dismissed them.
In 1823, an army sergeant in residence in Devonport Dock tracked his
faithless wife to Liskeard, and there engaged the bell-man to announce
that it was his intention to dispose of her by sale to the highest
bidder. Procuring a rope, he placed it round the neck of his spouse,
and led her unresisting to the Higher Cross, opposite the Market, where
the offers were taking a spirited turn when the police interfered.
In the same year, William Hodge was indicted at Plymouth for putting
his wife up to auction, and William Andrews for purchasing her. It
was shown that Hodge had repeatedly threatened to sell his wife,
that she had cheerfully welcomed the proposition, and that Andrews
had anticipated the transaction of the sale by abducting her. At the
Quarter Sessions “the auctioneer” was conspicuous by his absence; the
wife pleaded that he had frequently assaulted her; and Andrews was
condemned to prison “by way of warning.”[4]
The Rev. W. H. Thornton, vicar of North Bovey, in _Devon Notes and
Queries_, Vol. IV, 1906, writes: “A sale may apparently be effected
either by private arrangement or by public auction, and in neither case
do the prices obtainable seem, as a rule, to run high. The husband
naturally considers the result more satisfactory if a good sum can be
obtained for his wife, but when the course of matrimony has arrived
at a crisis, he commonly feels that it is better to accept the market
price of the day than it is to lead her home again to resume conjugal
life.
“My attention was recently called to the matter, when, in March of this
year (1906), I was investigating in North Devon a remarkable instance
of suicide, and a still more remarkable verdict thereon. My informant
was an old poacher and fisherman, and speaking of the deceased, he
said casually that he came of a curious family, and that he himself
could well remember to have seen the dead man’s grandfather leading
his grandmother on a halter to be sold by public auction in Great
Torrington Market. The reserve price was, in this instance, fixed at
eighteen pence, but as no one would give so much money, the husband
had to take his wife home again and resume matrimonial intercourse.
Children were born to them, and the ultimate result was the suicide.
“On being asked whether, in such instances, the neighbours generally
considered the transaction legitimate, old John Badger replied in the
affirmative; he declared that the vendor was held to be free to wed
again, and the purchaser to be liable for the maintenance of the woman,
but not till the money had changed hands over the bargain.
“This statement reminded me of a case which occurred at North Bovey
shortly before I became incumbent of the living in 1868. This can
easily be verified. A man, whose name I can give, walked into Chagford,
and there by private agreement sold his wife to another man for a quart
of beer. When he returned home with the purchaser the woman repudiated
the transaction, and, taking her two children with her, went off at
once to Exeter, and only came back to attend her husband’s funeral, at
which, unless I am mistaken, I officiated.
“Mr. Roberts, the present old clerk at Wolborough, tells me that he has
heard his father say that he knew of several instances of the kind now
under consideration, but that he does not think that in South Devon
the arrangement was often considered legal. In the north of the county
people were less enlightened.”
Devon was not alone the scene of these wife-sales, though they were
probably more common there than elsewhere. Still, there is evidence
that such transactions went on elsewhere, and one or two instances may
be quoted, to relieve Devon of exclusive discredit in such matters.
The story is well known of the Silesian noble whose house was raided
by Tartars, one of whom carried off the nobleman’s wife on his horse
behind him. The Silesian looked after the disappearing bandit, rubbed
his hands, and said, “Alas, poor Tartar!” Doubtless there were many
husbands who would have been glad to be rid of their wives at any
price, even for nothing at all.
In 1815, a man held a regular auction in the market-place at
Pontefract, offering his wife at a minimum bidding of one shilling, but
he managed to excite a competition, and she was finally knocked down
for eleven shillings.
In 1820, a man named Brouchet led his wife, a decent, pleasant-looking
woman, but with a tongue in her mouth, into the cattle market at
Canterbury from the neighbouring village of Broughton. He required a
salesman to dispose of her, but the salesman replied that his dealings
were with cattle only, and not with women. Brouchet, not to be beaten,
thereupon hired a cattle-pen, paying sixpence for the hire, and led his
wife into it by the halter that was round her neck. She did not fetch
a high figure, being disposed of to a young man of Canterbury for five
shillings.
In 1832, on 7 April, a farmer named Joseph Thomson came into Carlisle
with his wife, to whom he had been married three years before; he sent
the bell-man round the town to announce a sale, and this attracted a
great crowd. At noon the sale took place. Thomson placed his wife on
a chair, with a rope of straw round her neck. He then said--according
to the report in the _Annual Register_--“Gentlemen, I have to offer to
your notice, my wife, Mary Anne Thomson, otherwise Williams, whom I
mean to sell to the highest and fairest bidder. Gentlemen, it is her
wish as well as mine to part for ever. She has been to me only a born
serpent. I took her for my comfort, and the good of my home; but she
became my tormentor, a domestic curse. Gentlemen, I speak the truth
from my heart when I say may God deliver us from troublesome wives and
frolicsome women! Avoid them as you would a mad dog, or a roaring lion,
a loaded pistol, cholera morbus, Mount Etna, or any other pestilential
thing in nature. Now I have shown you the dark side of my wife, and
told you her faults and failings, I will introduce the bright and sunny
side of her, and explain her qualifications and goodness. She can read
novels and milk cows; she can laugh and weep with the same ease that
you could take a glass of ale when thirsty. Indeed, gentlemen, she
reminds me of what the poet says of women in general:--
Heaven gave to women the peculiar grace
To laugh, to weep, to cheat the human race.
She can make butter and scold the maid; she can sing Moore’s melodies,
and plait her frills and caps; she cannot make rum, gin, or whisky,
but she is a good judge of the quality from long experience in tasting
them. I therefore offer her with all her perfections and imperfections
for the sum of fifty shillings.”
That this address was spoken by Thomson is most improbable--it is
doubtless put into his mouth by the editor of the _Annual Register_; it
was not to his interest to depreciate the article he desired to sell.
After about an hour, the woman was knocked down to one Henry Mears,
for twenty shillings and a Newfoundland dog. They then parted company
in perfect good humour, each satisfied with his bargain; Mears and the
woman went one way, and Thomson and the dog another.
In 1835 a man led his wife by a halter, in precisely the same way, into
the market at Birmingham, and sold her for fifteen pounds. She at once
went home with the purchaser. She survived both buyer and seller, and
then married again. Some property came to her in the course of years
from her first husband; for notwithstanding claims put forth by his
relatives she was able to maintain in a court of law that the sale did
not and could not vitiate her rights as his widow.
Much astonishment was caused in 1837 in the West Riding of Yorkshire
by a man being committed to prison for a month with hard labour for
selling or attempting to sell his wife by auction in the manner already
described. It was generally and firmly believed that he was acting
within his rights.
In 1858, in a tavern at Little Horton, near Bradford, a man named
Hartley Thompson put up his wife, who is described by the local
journals as a pretty young woman, for sale by auction, and he had the
sale previously announced by sending round the bell-man. He led her
into the market with a ribbon round her neck, which exhibits an advance
in refinement over the straw halter; and again in 1859, a man at Dudley
disposed of his wife in a somewhat similar manner for sixpence. A
feature in all these instances is the docility with which the wife
submitted to be haltered and sold. She would seem to have been equally
imbued with the idea that there was nothing to be ashamed of in the
transaction, and that it was perfectly legal.
If we look to discover whence originated the idea, we shall probably
find it in the conception of marriage as a purchase. Among savage
races, the candidate for marriage is expected to pay the father for
his daughter. A marriageable girl is worth so many cows or so many
reindeer. The man pays over a sum of money or its equivalent to
the father, and in exchange receives the girl. If he desires to be
separated from her he has no idea of giving her away, but receives what
is calculated to be her market value from the man who is disposed to
relieve him of her. In all dealings for cattle, or horses, or sheep, a
handsel is paid, half a crown to clinch the bargain, and the transfer
of coin constitutes a legal transfer of authority and property over the
animal. This is applied to a woman, and when a coin, even a sixpence,
is paid over and received, the receiver regards this as releasing him
from all further responsibility for the wife, who at once passes under
the hand of the purchaser. There is probably no trace in our laws of
women having been thus regarded as negotiable properties, but it is
unquestionable that at an early period, before Christianity invaded the
island, such a view was held, and if here and there the rustic mind is
unable to rise to a higher conception of the marriage state, it shows
how extremely slow it is for opinions to alter when education has been
neglected.
WHITE WITCHES
Some years ago I wrote a little account of “White Witches” in the
_Daily Graphic_, in which I narrated some of my experiences and my
acquaintance with their proceedings. This brought me at the lowest
computation fifty letters from all parts of the country from patients
who had spent much of their substance upon medical practitioners, and,
like the woman with the issue of blood in the Gospel, “had suffered
many things of many physicians and was nothing bettered, but rather
grew worse.” These entreated me to furnish them with the addresses of
some of these irregular practitioners, that they might try them. I did
not send what was desired, and that for a very good reason, that I
regard these individuals as impostors and the occasion of a good deal
of mischief.
At the same time _distinguez_, as the French would say. They are not
all so, and I have seen and can testify to very notable and undeniable
cures that they have effected. That they believe in their powers and
their cures is true in a good many cases, and I quite admit that they
may be in possession of a large number of valuable herbal recipes,
doubtless of real efficacy. Some of our surgeons are far too fond
of using the knife, and the majority of them employ strong mineral
medicines that, though they may produce an immediate effect, do injury
in the long run. I take it that one reason why our teeth are so bad in
the present generation is due largely to the way in which calomel was
administered in times past, a medicine that touches the liver but is
rottenness to the bones.
What Jesus the son of Sirach said centuries ago is true still: “The
Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will
not abhor them ... by such doth he heal men, and taketh away their
pains. Of such doth the apothecary make a confection” (Ecclus. XXXVIII.
4, 7, 8). What the writer meant was herbs and not minerals. The simples
employed by the wise old women in our villages were admirable in most
cases, but they were slow, if sure of action, and in these days when we
go at a gallop we want cures to be rapid, almost instantaneous.
But the professed herbalist in our country towns is very often not a
herbalist at all, but a mere impostor. He puts up “herbalist” on a
brass plate at his door, but his procedure is mere quackery.
Moreover, the true White Witch is consulted not for maladies only,
but for the discovery of who has cast the evil eye, “overlooked” and
“ill-wished” some one who has lost a cow, or has been out of sorts,
or has sickness in his pig-sty. The mode of proceeding was amusingly
described in the _Letters of Nathan Hogg_, in 1847. Nathan in the
form of a story gives an account of what was the general method of
the White Witch Tucker in Exeter. A farmer whose conviction was that
disorders and disasters at home were the result of the ill-wishing of a
red-cloaked Nan Tap, consulted Tucker as to how the old woman was to be
“driven” and rendered powerless.
I modify the broad dialect, which would not be generally intelligible.
When into Exeter he had got
To Master Tucker’s door he sot;
He rung’d the bell, the message sent,
Pulled off his hat, and in he went,
And seed a fellow in a room
That seem’d in such a fret and fume.
He said he’d lost a calf and cow,
And com’d in there to know as how,
For Master T., at little cost,
Had often found the things he’d lost.
Thereupon the farmer opened his own trouble, and told how he and his
were bewitched by Nan Tap. And as he told his tale, it seemed so sad
that the man in the room bade him go in first to consult the White
Witch.
Now this fuming man was employed by Tucker to draw out from the gulls
what their trouble was, and there was but a sham wall of paper between
the room where the interview took place and that in which he received
the farmer, whom he greatly astonished by informing him of all the
circumstances that led to the visit. The remedy he prescribed was to
carry a little bag he gave him, in which were some stones, and to dash
water in the direction of the old woman, and say, “I do it in the name
of Tucker,” and if this did not answer, he was to put a faggot up his
chimney, set fire to it, and say a prayer he taught him while it was
burning. We need not follow the account any further.
There was a few years ago a notable White Witch of the name of Snow,
at Tiverton, who did great business. In a case with which I am well
acquainted, he certainly was the means of curing a substantial farmer.
The man had caught a severe chill one night of storm, when a torrent
threatened to inundate his house. He had stood for hours endeavouring
to divert the stream from his door. The chill settled on his chest, and
he became a wreck; he drew his breath with difficulty, walked bent,
almost double, and as I was convinced would not live out the twelve
months. He consulted the most famous and experienced physicians, and
they did him no good. Then in desperation he went to “Old Snow.” From
that day he mended. What the White Witch gave him I do not know; but
the man is now robust, hearty, and looks as if many years were before
him.
I know another case, but this is of a different nature. A young farmer,
curious as to the future, visited a White Witch to learn who his
future wife would be. Said she--this witch was a woman, and an old
one: there are female witches who are young and exercise very powerful
charms--said she: “Next Sunday, you go along Narracott lane, and the
first young woman you see pass, look her well in the face, and when
you’ve gone by, turn your head and look, and if she’s also turned her
head and is looking at you, that’s the one.”
“Well now,” said this farmer in later years, “it were a coorious thing
it were, but as I were goin’ along thickey lane there I seed Bessie
Baker, and I turn’d, and sure enough her were lookin’ over her shoulder
to me, and wot’s most coorious of all--her’s my missus now. After
that, don’t ee go and tell me as how White Witches knows nothin’. But
there’s somethin’ more to the tale. I heerd afterwards as Bessie, her’d
consulted old Nan, and Nan had said to her, ‘Go along Narracott lane,
and the first man as you sees, when you’ve past, turn and look; and if
he’s lookin’ over his shoulder to you, that’s the one.’ There’s facts;
and wi’ them facts staring of you in the face, don’t you go and say
White Witches is nort.”
There is an old woman I know--she is still alive. It was six years
since she bought a bar of yellow or any other soap. But that is neither
here nor there. She was esteemed a witch--a white one of course. She
was a God-fearing woman, and had no relations with the Evil One, of
that one may be sure. How she subsisted was a puzzle to the whole
parish. But, then, she was generally feared. She received presents from
every farm and cottage. Sometimes she would meet a child coming from
school, and stay it, and fixing her wild dark eye on it, say, “My dear,
I knawed a child jist like you--same age, red rosy cheeks, and curlin’
black hair. And that child shrivelled up, shrumped like an apple as is
picked in the third quarter of the moon. The cheeks grew white, the
hair went out of curl, and she jist died right on end and away.”
Before the day was out, a chicken or a basket of eggs as a present from
the mother of that child was sure to arrive.
I have given an account of this same old woman in my _An Old English
Home_, and will here add a few more particulars about her. She
possessed of her own a two-storied house, thatched, built mainly of
cob, but with two chimneys of brick. Some five-and-twenty years ago the
house was habitable enough. The thatch had given way in several places,
but she could not or would not have it repaired. Perhaps she had not
the means; but the farmers offered her straw, and a thatcher would
have done the work for her gratis, or only for her blessing. She would
not. “God made the sky,” she said, “and that is the best roof of all.”
After a while, however, the roof became leaky everywhere. Then she
sought shelter for her head by stuffing up the chimney of her bedroom
fireplace with a sack filled with chaff, and pushing her bed to the
hearth, she slept with her head and pillow under the sack. But access
to this bedroom became difficult, as the stairs, exposed to the rain,
rotted and gave way, and she was compelled to ascend and descend by an
improvised ladder.
[Illustration: MARIANN VOADEN, BRATTON]
[Illustration: MARIANN VOADEN’S COTTAGE, BRATTON]
The rector of the parish went to her and remonstrated at the dangerous
condition of the tenement.
“My dear,” said she, “there be two angels every night sits on the rungs
of the ladder and watches there, that nobody comes nigh me, and they be
ready to hold up the timbers that they don’t fall on me.”
The rector’s daughter carried her some food every now and then. One day
the woman made her a present of some fine old lace. This was gratefully
accepted. As the young lady was departing, “Old Marianne” called after
her from the bedroom door, “Come back, my dear, I want that lace again.
If any one else be so gude as to give me aught, I shall want it to
make an acknowledgment of the kindness.” The lace was often given as
acknowledgment, and as often reclaimed.
After a while the ladder collapsed. Then the old woman descended for
good and all, and took up her abode on the ground floor--kitchen and
parlour, dining-room and bedroom all in one.
Finally the whole roof fell in and carried down the flooring of the
upper story, but in such manner that the “planchin” rested at one end
against the wall, but blocked up door and fireplace. Then she lived
under it as a lean-to roof, and without a fire for several winters,
amongst others that bitter one of 1893-4, and her only means of egress
and ingress was through the window. Of that half the number of panes
was broken and patched with rags. As the water poured into her room
she finally took refuge in an old oak chest, keeping the lid up with a
brick.
I knew her very well; she was a picturesque object. Once she and I
were photographed together standing among the ruins of her house. She
must have been handsome in her day, with a finely-cut profile, and
piercing dark eyes. She usually wore a red kerchief about her head or
neck and an old scarlet petticoat. But she was dirty--indescribably
so. Her hands were the colour of mahogany. She promised me her book
of charms. I never got it, and this was how. The huntsmen were wont,
whenever passing her wretched house, to shout “Marianne! Marianne!” and
draw up. Then from amidst the ruins came a muffled response, “Coming,
my dears, coming!” Presently she appeared. She was obliged to crawl
out of her window that opened into the garden and orchard at the back
of the house, go round it, and unlace a gate of thorns she had erected
as a protection to her garden; there she always received presents. One
day as usual the fox-hunters halted and called for her; she happened
at the time to have kindled a fire on the floor of her room to boil a
little water in a kettle for tea, and she left the fire burning when
she issued forth to converse with the gentlemen and extend her hand
for half-crowns. Whilst thus engaged the flames caught some straw that
littered the ground, they spread, set fire to the woodwork, and the
room was in a blaze. Everything was consumed, her chest-bed, her lace,
her book of charms. After that she was conveyed to the workhouse, where
she is still, and now is kept clean.
Once, before this catastrophe, I drove over to see her, taking my
youngest daughter with me. The child had breakings-out on her face;
Marianne noticed this. “Ah, my dear,” said she, “I see you want my
help. You must bring the little maiden to me, she must be fasting, and
then I will bless her face, and in two days she will be well.” Her cure
for whooping-cough was to cut the hair off the cross on a donkey’s
back, fasten it in silk bags, and tie these round the children’s
necks. “You see,” she said, “Christ Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an
ass, and ever since then asses have the cross on their backs, and the
hair of those crosses is holy and cures maladies.”
Although I did not obtain her book of charms, she gave me many of her
recipes. For fits one was to swallow wood-lice, pounded if one liked,
better swallowed _au naturel_.
_For Burns or Scalds._--Recite over the place:--
There were three Angels who came from the North,
One bringing Fire, the other brought Frost,
The other he was the Holy Ghost.
In Frost, out Fire! In the Name, etc.
_For a Sprain._--Recite: “As Christ was riding over Crolly Bridge, His
horse slid and sprained his leg. He alighted and spake the words: Bone
to bone, and sinew to sinew! and blessed it and it became well, and so
shall ... become well. In the Name, etc.” Repeat thrice.
_For Stanching Blood._--Recite: “Jesus was born in Bethlehem, baptized
in the river of Jordan. The water was wide and the river was rude
against the Holy Child. And He smote it with a rod, and it stood still,
and so shall your blood stand still. In the Name, etc.” Repeat thrice.
_Cure for Toothache._--“As our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
were walking in the garden of Jerusalem, Jesus said unto Peter, Why
weepest thou? Peter answered and said, Lord, I be terrible tormented
with the toothache. Jesus said unto Peter, If thou wilt believe in Me
and My words abide in thee, thou shall never more fill [_sic_] the pain
in thy tooth. Peter cried out with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou my
onbelieve [_sic_].”
_Another receipt for a Sprain._
2 oz. of oil of turpentine.
2 oz. of swillowes.
2 oz. of oil of earthworms.
2 oz. of nerve.
2 oz. of oil of spideldock (? opodeldoc).
2 oz. of Spanish flies.
I recommend this recipe to be taken to an apothecary. Order it to be
made up, and observe his face as he reads it.
Marianne had the gift of stanching blood even at a distance. On one
occasion when hay was being cut, a man wounded himself at Kelly, some
eight miles distant, and the blood flowed in streams. At once the
farmer bade a man take a kerchief dipped in his blood and gallop as
hard as he could to the tumble-down cottage, and get Marianne to bless
the blood. He did so, and was gone some three hours. As soon as the old
woman had charmed the kerchief the blood ceased to flow.