sweasel.com

I love this thing! Mwah!

John Williams, Killing > murder, 14th October 1730.

John Williams , of St. Andrew’s Holbourn , was indicted for the Murther of Joseph Hastings , by giving him several mortal Bruises with an Unicorn’s Horn, the 17th of August last, of which Bruises and Wounds he languished till the 28th of the same Month…

A…what now?

Porn!

Jacob Vernarde, Sexual Offences > other, 14th October 1696.
Reference Number: t16961014-32
Offence: Sexual Offences > other
Verdict: Not Guilty > no evidence

Jacob Vernarde was indicted of a Misdemeanor, for composing and printing filthy obscene Cards and Books. There was no Evidence against him, whereupon the Jury acquitted him.

Say, isn’t that name Dutch? Plus ça change, eh? A really surprising number of the cases — well, surprising to me — end in acquittal. The standard of evidence was very high.

For sodomy, for example, you had to have two eyewitnesses and…physical evidence.

Insanity plea! w00t!

Alice Hall, Killing > murder, 17th January 1709.
Reference Number: t17090117-19
Offence: Killing > murder
Verdict: Not Guilty > non compos mentis

Alice Hall , of St. Giles’s without Cripplegate , was Indicted for the Murder of Diana Hartley and Martha Shetton , by Poysoning of them with Rats Bane in Broth , on the 2d Instant. She was a 2d time Indicted upon the Coroners Inquest, for the Murder of the Persons aforesaid. It appear’d that on Sunday the 2d Instant the Prisoner came to a Parish Nurses, and sat down by the Fire; That she was observ’d to take something out of her Pocket, and convey it into a Ladle half fill’d with Broth, stirring it about with her Finger, and put it into the Porridge-Pot then upon the Fire. The Family not knowing what was done, eat of the Broth to the Number of 15, which in an hour or two were taken with Vomiting; it wrought to that degree upon the 2 deceas’d Persons, that they died the Day following. It appear’d that the Prisoner had been with several Apothecaries on the first Instant to buy Rats Bane, and could not get any; that at last she succeeded, but would not discover where she had it. She confess’d that her intent of getting it was to Poyson her self, but was prevented by the Woman, who she thought see her put it into the Ladle; and it did not appear that she had any Design upon the Persons that took it. It appear’d thro’ the whole Series of the Evidence, that the Prisoner had been for a considerable time Distracted, and fancied she was Damn’d, that she was a Spirit, and not a Woman; and sometimes was so very Outragious that she was chain’d in her Bed, &c. It likewise appearing that she was under great disorder of Mind when she committed the Fact, the Jury acquitted her, and brought her in a Lunatick.

brought her in a Lunatick

You Brits have the coolest English!

A possible ancestor of mine was transported to the colonies for “feloniously stealing a Hat.” Yay!

Actually, my ancestors got here for either poaching or being Quakers, depending on whom you believe.

I love the references to coining. I started thread-surfing and ran across reference to it.

I read Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle series and it is absolutely fascinating how the coin of the realm made or broke economies.

For sodomy, for example, you had to have two eyewitnesses and…physical evidence.

(shudder – I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.)

Muslihoon… the Brits don’t speak English! They speak BRITISH. 🙂 Just like I’m continually amazed at how well the Canadians can just rattle off English like it was a natural tongue. Sadly, we don’t get courses in school to learn British or Canadian.

(waiting patiently for KC to spit on me)

Quakers were quite rowdy then. Why does that seem to fit?

Poaching Quakers would be my guess.

Weren’t they streaking other church’s services? Do you think……..?

I only get one entry for my name. And it was as a witness for an alleged crime of defrauding for which the defendant was later found not guilty: I am a typewriter mechanic, employed by Messrs. Wyckoff & Co., at 16, Crutched Friars—on June 14th the prisoner came with an order for a machine from the office at Gracechurch Street—I got one ready for him—he did not say who he was—it took 20 or 25 minutes to get it ready—I cannot swear if the order was open or closed when it was handed to me—when the machine was ready the prisoner said he would go out and get some help—it weighed about 36lb.—he only spoke about South Africa and the weather, not about his business—he went out, but I sent my porter out with the machine, to save him the trouble of coming back.

Following the law to the letter since at least 1901, us.

Gibby! Your people were typewriter mechanics! Why, that’s excellent!

Why the hell do I use so many exclamation points in here? In real life, I’m seldom energetic enough to sit up straight and breathe for myself.

It’s not right, I tell you.

Better, they were law abiding typewriter mechanics. Well, at least one of them was anyway. Interestingly enough, the guy in question had a middle name which appears a lot in my family. I really think he was a relative. He sounds really dull too, which does nothing to assuage that notion. I bet he spent a lot of his time complaining about Chinamen and their dark arts.

Bummer. The site is inaccessible (at least to me, though I tried both Firefox and MS Exploder). I get this:

Proxy Error
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.

The proxy server could not handle the request GET /index.jsp.

Reason: Could not connect to remote machine: Connection refused

Speaking of which, would that be a pretend-error one uses until a real error comes along?

“a vibrant, even joyful, world of men who pursued both homosexual experiences and a distinct lifestyle” — i.e. lots and lots of cross-dressing and buggery. (After 1790 the courts got squeamish and censored the transcripts).
Sounds like my days in my all boys high school.

Looks like it’s down, JW. I was accessing it all morning using those links, and now I’m getting that error too. Somehow I don’t think sweasel.com generated enough traffic to knock it over, so give it another try in a bit.

I was really hoping you’d started a weaselanche that brought down the Old Bailey. Take that, Rumpole!

/rumpole. rump hole. get it? sigh. nevermind.

I’d say that Old Bailey appearance is guaranteed now, Weasel. You crashed their damned website. Just wait till you next scamper through Heathrow!

OT: When Weasels Attack:

“I had never seen anything like it,” Ms. Beaudry recalled. “I didn’t know what it was. It kind of looked like a fox. But it was very, very ratty looking and had fangs and claws. It was creepy looking, but not that big.”

Oh, yah. Fisher cats. Bad mofos, them. Or would that more properly be “mofoes”?

Poaching Quakers

Is that Quakers that poach or Quakers that are the object of another’s poaching?

I wonder how poached Quaker would taste.

My ancestry is boring. So very boring. All wandering about South Asia.

Woohoo! Fear the Weasel’s lanche-fu!

Weasel’s American ancestors weren’t so law abiding either – Search Google on “When Weasels Attack” and up pops -Weasel’s Granddad and his brother!

WEASELS ATTACK GIRL
She Fights Them for Fifteen Minutes, and Wins at Last

December 12, 1904, Monday

LINCOLN PARK, N.J., Dec. 11. — As Jennie Vreeland, fourteen years of age, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Milton Vreeland, was returning to her home from the village late yesterday afternoon she was attacked by two weasels. Only with great difficulty did she succeed in beating them off.

After reading that article God shudders to think what they were up to…. fortunately beating them off made them go away

Nothing worse than a Fisher Cat. ‘Cept for a coupla over-sexed weasels on the prowl.

Heck, I’ve had that link on my sidebar for a while now (the link is the picture from Hogarth’s Harlot’s Progress).

And speaking of Hogarth: The Complete Engravings
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Hogarth%2c%20William%2c%201697%2d1764

It’s an 81MB PDF, so be warned.

(sigh) is there a way to kill Akismet?

Fortean Times once ran an article entitled ‘When weasels attack’ all about cases where stoats and weasels had gone mediaeval on people.

You cannot imagine the look of cool disdain when I waved the magazine underneath our leader’s nose… she refused to believe a word of it!

Oof! Sorry, kishnevi. You are liberated.

I didn’t realize you were a moronblogger; we need to get you on the list.

I don’t believe a word of it, B! Purest bullshit. We keep ourselves to ourselves, that’s what weasels does.

mediaeval

That spelling hurts my brain. Too many vowels.

Weaz crashed The Ol’ Bailey? Heathrow is next?

Yes! I always knew she had the right stuff!

She is the West’s secret weapon!

Your Ladyship: target al-Q’s websites next!

Boo! I just wanted to play with the murderers and the sodomites 🙁

You be sure to wash your hands before you go eating anything, Weaz!

the murderers and the sodomites

So, al-Q it is then.

Boo! I just wanted to play with the murderers and the sodomites

Until they get the new weasel-proofed servers installed, will you settle for us ‘umble perverts and deviants?

Well…okay. But I’m still following McGoo’s advice about washing my hands.

I’m getting the error too.

Dang!

Me too. How rude! I’m tharted.

This may call for an angry letter to the Times.

Ah – crap. I missed Nova again tonight, too.

I never did master Tuesdays.

Monday’s child is mainlining smack,

Tuesday’s child fears heart attacks,

Wednesday’s child is full of woe,

Thursday’s child’s bank balance is low,

Friday’s child sells love for a living,

Saturday’s child wins fights by shiving,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is HIV postive, bald, and gay.

“Well, I Came upon a Child of God“

Back up.

Coining carried the death penalty. Interesting stuff. A thirteen and fifteen year old were sentenced (transported) to seven years for stealing a handkerchief. I suppose this is how some of my ancestors might have come to America.

HAH! 30 hits on my last name, half crimes committed, other half of them my namesake was either the victim or testified.

Hilarious. I knew I’d get some cause my last name is also the name of an English county

no murders though. or buggery

Found one on my wife’s side. Just what exactly is “Burnt in the hand” as a punishment?

Is it branding?

I’m still trying to figure this one out.

“Mary James alias Simpson, pleaded her Belly, and a Jury of Matrons being impannell’d, brought her in Not with Quick Child.”

I would guess that first thing is branding, Allen. And in the second case, the woman tried to get out of it by claiming she was pregnant, but a bunch of old biddies took a peek and decided she was faking.

..or that she wasn’t carrying a slow child. Nothing pisses off the Brits like a smart-assed kid. Well, that, and floss.

I found the punishments description section here:

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp

You’re right in both cases Weasel. What a fascinating website.

Isn’t it great?

There’s a LOT of other archival material online from Britain — parish records and that sort of thing. Uncle B and I found all sorts of fascinating stuff when we were doing some preliminary research into Badger House.

If you have British forebears and you have any idea what county or town they came from, it’s worth poking around online.

Oh, wow. 631 mentions of my daddy’s ancestors. ’bout 1/3 victim, 2/3 crook. I always wondered why ol’ man McGoo and his son came over, but ol’ lady McGoo stayed in Jolly Ole. Bet they were “invited” to leave.

Looks like you really, really bingo’ed, Weaz! I’m gonna be in there for weeks.

Twenty four mentions of the Weasel fambly. Uncle B’s lot? Over three thousand! Is it because they’re common? Is it because they’re criminal? Can’t it be both?

No Brits on my side. Just Finns and Huns. Fortunately we have family geneaologies and histories going back about 500 years. Makes for interesting reading.

One of my favorite stories: Great-Great Uncle Otto froze to death while seeking violent revenge on someone who insulted him. Moral of the story: never attempt revenge while filled with Finnish vodka, in January, in Northern Finland, and you have to walk to get there.

Allen – There’s a certain amount of truth in that old saying: “Before seeking revenge, be sure to dig TWO graves.”

…in case there is a witness”

Finally got oldbaily.com to function, and actually viewed three pages worth (out of 271 records) of “Paine” surname search results before it crapped out again.

What I discovered before oldbaily fell down again is that the Paines seem to be quite fond of “sexual offences” and “animal theft” (o pleeze gawd tell me these were two separate and entirely unrelated “offences”), as well as the more urbane “privately stealing 12 yards of Shag and 6 Pound of Feathers.” I guess publicly stealing something is a privilege reserved for MPs.

I also note that execution and “TRANSPORTATION” were the preferred methods of rehabilitation. Having been on public transportation all over the world, I can assure skeptics that 7 years on the Philadelphia (for example) subway would rehabilitate anybody. Well, them that it didn’t execute.

Incidentally, oldbaily.com must be running on one of those state-of-ye-olde-art wood-burning Anglish 6000 servers.

Pity, that, as Ace just linked this post. Hence, I shall postpone pulling something lame and last minute out of my posterior for today.

Hey Weezie,

Rich fodder! I shall research and report back.

Branding was, in effect, the mark (literally) of a first offender.
If you were convicted of a felony, you got hung. (If you were convicted of treason, you got hung, drawn and quartered.) Clergy were exempt from this, and were supposedly turned over to their bishop for punishment. (Remember Thomas Becket and all that.) So the “pleaded benefit of clergy”, but they could only do this once, and to make sure they could only do it once, they were branded after the first conviction. Eventually, benefit of clergy got widened so that almost anyone could use it, as long as they could memorize a particular verse of the Bible (that being the test–in the Middle Ages, if you could read the Bible, you could be assumed to be a clergyman), and Parliament granted it as a matter of course on some crimes, so the convicted person didn’t even need to do that all the time. And Parliament also legislated lots of crimes for which benefit of clergy was not available even for the first offense. But the branding remained, and if you were convicted of another felony, it marked you as not being able to plead benefit of clergy, and therefore ready for a date with the hangman. Unless of course you could get yourself pardoned or pardoned on condition of transportation, etc.

A series of nice pics of the Old Bailey here (BBC), from its early years to hippies & IRA car bombs in the 70s.

Sadly, I have an occupational surname (you know, like Smith or Fletcher), so there’s no way of telling which, if any, of the 4000+ results are related to me.

I did look up my mother’s maiden name, though. The most interesting case was this:

“I am the widow of the deceased. My husband, Patrick Farrel , Timothy Garvy, and myself, were coming by the Prisoner’s Door, on the 11th of March, between five and six in the evening; Patrick Farrel said to the deceased, David, Do you know that Man? (meaning the prisoner, who was then standing at his own door). No, says he, I do not, I never saw him in my life to my knowledge. The prisoner’s wife sitting at the door overheard the words, and said, you pack of Thieves, suppose it is Jack Ketch , do you want to rob him? Said Patrick Farrel , I do not want to rob him. and if I have given offence, I am sorry for it. Then the prisoner came out of his house, and struck this Farrel in the Face two or three times, with his fist; he was not satisfied with that, but he went back, pulled off his coat, hat, and wig, and was then in a flannel waistcoat without sleeves; he went in and fetch’d a Cutlass, drawed it, delivered the scaboard to his wife, and pursued the three men, who were then got to the head of the Cole yard, Drury-lane. David Faris turned round, and saw him coming, on which they three ran; he pursued them cross Drury-lane, into an Arch-way, going under Short’s Gardens, and as the deceased ran forward the prisoner struck him on the left Side of his Head, but he held up his stick and kept off several blows from his head, till his foot slipp’d in the Dung, then he fell down, and the prisoner gave him several cuts, but where about I cannot tell. The other man who was confined with the prisoner, Enoch Stock , upon my crying out my husband was killed, made a blow at me with a stick, which hit the infant in my arms, and stunn’d it. My husband died on the 19th of March.”

Uncle B’s name is occupational too, Mrs P. Hence the three thousand hits. Whenever I read the old cases, it’s like there’s something maddeningly missing. A sort of WTF feeling.

Felix! New kitteh? Update!

I went and visited teh kitteh, but he had (as I once read in “Kids’ Letters From Camp” — Art Linkletter, I think) the “dire rear” (on worm meds), so I have to wait at least a week more. He was verrrry cute, and smaller/thinner than I expected @12 weeks. I think he’s more of a modern-type Meezer than like my 2 (now one) Traditional/Applehead Siamese.

My, what a plethora of strange punctuation above … must get back to work, can’t fix it! 🙂

Well! Luck to the little one (and you too). Is he in with or near other cats? Charlotte was 12 weeks (and totally feral) when I squirrel-trapped her, and she adjusted to me eventually…but not other cats. She’s a damn good cat now, but fated to be a singleton. On the other hand, if he’s acclimated to other cats, he should be okay with your existing two.

It was the part where the guy’s foot slipped in the dung that got me. I wonder what animal produced the dung in question. One hopes it was a horse, but one fears it was a human.

The woman who is keeping him is from a rescue group, and she had him plunked in a carrier @PetSmart with 2 rather larger (and very cute) tabby bio-brothers, and they were all snuggled up in a big ball — She told me that they were like that a lot, even when they weren’t crammed 3-to-a-carrier. She said he was very affectionate to persons as well as other kittehs. And he was just as cute as he could be … big blue eyes and rather wispy, medium-length fur.

LOL, Mrs. Peel — maybe it was … sheep???

You realize of course, that the modern sanitation systems that you all tout so highly put a lot of Englishmen out of work. Lucky for you Brits that they weren’t unionized, or you’d still be tossing pots of shit out the windows.

Tosher – A tosher was someone who scavenged through the sewers looking for various riches. Before the Great Stink, toshers were regarded as a lower class because of the terrible smell from the sewage. However, because the toshers (who often worked as whole families) worked in the sewage they gained a tolerance for certain diseases that arose and killed many later during the Great Stink.

Grubber – People referred to as grubbers would scavenge in drains in a similar effort of the tosher to find small treasures to sell. Both the tosher and the grubber, in their removal of small items, helped to ease the flow of water and waste in the sewer systems.

Mudlark – Similar to the tosher and the grubber, Mudlarks were people who scavenged in the mud of the Thames and other rivers. Mudlarks were generally young children who gathered small items in the mud and sold them for very small amounts.

Nightsoil man – Nightsoil men removed human and animal waste from the city to farms for use as manure. However, as London expanded, there were fewer farms further away from the city. A farmer would have to pay an average of 2s and 6d for the manure. However, the trade ceased almost completely when in 1870 solidified bird droppings, called guano, from South America became available at much less cost. This caused an increase of households dumping waste into the street where it made its way to the Thames through the sewers and other rivers.

However, I’m not sure if any of these even make the list of the Worst Jobs in History

Didn’t London run herds of pigs through the streets at night to tidy things up a bit?

…and you know your town is really, really, rilly filthy when running a herd of pigs through it tidies it up.

Thank you. I just spent a long time reading about horrid jobs of yore. Wonderful way waste away the day, in between doing translation.

Hm. Reminds me of something I read a long time ago: native British men in midieval times pissing and moaning because the Viking men got all the girls. They blamed the Vikings’ superior hygeine.

Yeah. If you lose your girl because a Viking smells better, you have issues.

Rules to live by, Weaz. Rules to live by.

It also reminds me of the Victorian saying, “wash your hands often, your face seldom and your head never.” Victorians thought it was dangerous to get your head wet.

You know how in all those old photographs, the people look kind of…greasy? Well, they were. Really greasy.

Wasn’t there an old, old expression about bathing – something to the effect that “Once when birthed, once in your coffin’ll see ya through life”?

And … wasn’t a bath a weekly thing as recently as the late 1800’s? Phew!

‘Course, like so many things, it just depends on what you’re accustomed to.

And – naturally – I have to mention that if you want to get a nose-full on “scent”, read “Perfume”. The movie didn’t really even begin to do it justice.

You kidding, McGoo? Weekly baths were common in the Weasel household when I was a lass, which waren’t no late 1800s.

Or maybe that was just weekly hair-washing.

Yeah – “weekly” was common amongst my own relatives when I was a kid, and I only took them every 2-3 days. I was just skirting the issue.

For all our wunnerful technology and scientific whoopee, we are still only a step or two from crapping in the woods and stinkin’ like a dog.

[…] the stuff the British government has gotten online so far is impossibly cool. I posted about the proceedings of the Old Bailey database this Spring (couldn’t find any significant criminal records for the Weasel *or* […]

Wonderful beat ! I wish to apprentice while you amend your web site, how can i subscribe for a blog site?

The account aided me a acceptable deal. I had been a little bit acquainted of this your
broadcast provided bright clear concept

[…] Murder and buggery, indeed. […]

[…] Murder and buggery, indeed. […]