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21-10-2016, 05:06 PM
61

Re: Tales from the mid 19th Century

The story of Ursula Lofthouse (part 5)
not recommended reading for persons of a squeamish disposition.

THE TRAIL AT YORK ASSIZES

Margaret Lofthouse. - I was at the deceased’s on the evening my brother and Dorothy Ashley were there. He was very sick, vomiting. My brother Henry held his head; I did so afterwards. I remained till 7 o’clock in the morning. I said to prisoner I think my brother is rather worse, we had better fetch the doctor. She said, “never mind, I’ll go myself in the morning when it is light.”

Cross-examined. - Prisoner sat up all night. I tended him more than she. She never held his hand. We got tea together. Brother Henry went for the doctor in the morning.

By the JUDGE.- She sat in the house part. He was in bed in the chamber. She went up once or twice during the night. I was sometimes in the house part, and sometimes in the chamber. I sat a little sometimes. He vomited in a basin on the floor. The prisoner was in the chamber when the deceased was vomiting. It came on by fits. I can’t say how many. Sometimes he called out to us, and we went up. Prisoner did not seem to be in any ways put out of it. I can’t say I saw her cry. She took away the basin. I do not know what she did with it. It was removed from time to time, and the basin brought up again.

Dr. William Sowray. - I am a physician. I was called upon on Friday, the 7th November, to attend to Robert Lofthouse, about 11 o’clock in the morning. Henry Lofthouse, his brother, came. I sent medicine by him. About three hours after I visited him. I found him very ill, complaining of pain in the stomach and bowels, having no pulse, or scarcely perceptible, coldness of the tongue and extremities, spasmodic pain in the right arm, intolerable thirst, suppression of urine, the pupil of the eye dilated and projecting, the blood vessels of the eye turgid and loaded with blood. I did not see him attempt to eat anything. I remained with him about 15 minutes. I never saw him again alive. I sent him medicine that afternoon.

Cross-examined. - I never recollect attending deceased before. I never told Mr. Prest the attorney so. I never said he was subject to a certain complaint. I have been 26 years in practice. I ma not an apothecary. I have no license for it. I have been regularly educated. I practice generally, and have a diploma from the college of St. Andrew’s. I never attended a case of spasmodic cholera. The impression on my mind was that he died from cholera. I sent him a cholera mixture, 1 dram of tincture of opium, 2 ounces of aether, 1 ounce tincture of rhubarb, and seven ounces of pure water. I mixed it myself. I don’t recollect saying that if Mr. Prest knew as much of the matter as I did, the prisoner would be acquitted. I was present when the stomach was taken from the deceased.

By the JUDGE.- I inquired after the vomiting of the prisoner; she said she had put it all out of the way. I inquired after the appearance, she said it was like gruel or milk and water, both vomited and purged. I saw the mother of the deceased there, but not Margaret Lofthouse, to my knowledge.

Margaret Lofthouse recalled.- I was at the deceased’s when he died. I saw him dead. It was I believe after 1 o’clock on Saturday. I think he died about 2 o’clock on the Saturday afternoon, the 8th November. He was buried at Kirkby on Monday, the 10th. Had no conversation with the prisoner further than this; I opened the oven door to put in a shelf, and there was a chicken. I said, “What’s this?” She said, “It is the chicken that dropped down dead this morning.” That was after my brother was dead. It was on the Saturday. I said it was queer to roast a dead chicken. She said she thought he would eat a bit of it. It had been plucked and was cooking. I turned away,. She said, “Will you have a bit of it?” I said I would not have a bit of it were it ever so. Next day I asked her what had become of it, she said she had put it in the ash-hole. I saw two hens dead on the Saturday. The one in the oven was one of them. The other was in the garden. I saw some that died on the Sunday. I can’t say how many I saw dead in the whole.

By the JUDGE.- I was with my brother on the Thursday night and held his head. He purged also. He could not get himself up. I helped him to the vessel. He was in a great deal of pain at that time. i did not see the evacuation. His wife took it away. It happened more than once in the night. I heard nothing the doctor said about seeing it.

John Johnson examined. - I was at the deceased’s house on the Monday morning after he died. I buried two fowls in the garden at the low end, near three stones out of a wall there, close against the three stones. I know Ann Ashby. I did not see her there.

Ann Ashby examined. - I live in a cottage under the same roof with the deceased. He had some hens and fowls. Thye died about the same time. I did not see any of them buried. I remember Robert going to Ripon fair on the Thursday. Prisoner had left her child with me a little after 1 o’clock. She came to my house fro me to take the child while she went to Thomas Richmond’s with a pair of clogs. She said that to me. I took the child. She went away. She returned home between 4 and 5 o’clock, as far as I know. Kirkby is about three miles from our house. She came for the child. I went into her house between 6 and 7 o’clock. There was nobody but herself and her child. I smelt a smell of good cake. I can’t tell what I mean by good cake. I remained two or three minutes and went to my own house. I saw prisoner after that in my cottage. She had her child. Robert Lofthouse had come home, she said he was going to die. She seemed sadly troubled. She left the child with me. She said she was going to Henry Lofthouse’s. I went into the deceased’s house. He was sitting in his chair, very sick, beside the staircase. I satyed until she was over the door-stone. I went in again that night. Prisoner did not say what deceased had had that night. Dorah Ashby, Henry and the deceased’s father and wife were there. I heard the prisoner say nothing that night. She never mentioned any tea to me. I recollect nothing about any conversation about tea.

TBC
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21-10-2016, 07:38 PM
62

Re: Tales from the mid 19th Century

The story of Ursula Lofthouse (part 6)

THE TRAIL AT YORK ASSIZES

Ellen Lofthouse recalled. - I had a conversation on Saturday with the prisoner, when she was buying black in my shop. She told me he came home and wanted some potatoes. She told him he had better have some tea; she had made a good cake for him. A good cake is called a short-cake. He went into the shop and did some work while she got it ready. Then he came out, and got a cup of tea, and nearly another, and ate a very large cake except a small piece. He said, “Bless me, I am so ill I could not eat another bit if I could get all the world by it - thou mayst eat it.” She said, “You often say your pipe does you good - get your pipe.” He rose to get his pipe, and was so bad that he fell down; and then she ran towards us saying, “Henry, come away - Robert’s dying.” I had no conversation with her about the discharge from the deceased, but she said she had thrown them in the garden.

Thomas Richmond examined. - I don’t know the day on which Robert Lofthouse died. The prisoner was never at my house. I had before that time bought clogs off her husband but I had got them long before he died. I live two miles from Kirkby, and a mile from deceased’s house.

Lawson Harland. - I am shopman to my brother John. He is a druggist and plat dealer at Kirkby. I did not know deceased. A woman came to buy two pennyworth of arsenic. I told her it was rank poison, and refused to let her have it. She said it was for one Thomas Grange. As she came past his house, she would bring two pennyworth of arsenic from John Harland’s to poison rats with. Upon that I let her have it. Knew Thomas Grange to be respectable. This was about 3 o’clock. Mary Gill was in the shop at the same time. It was on Thursday, the 6th of November. She said I was to wrap it up very tight, as she was to put it in her pocket. A person asked if it would poison two or three people. I said yes, all the people in Kirkby. There were two ounces - to a certainty that. The prisoner is the same as got the arsenic of me.

Cross-examined. - Our shop is a middling size. There are two counters and two windows; one large glass, the other not; one a sash, the other like a back window. It is a low ceiling room; things in the windows for sale; hats, brushes, and linen. It is a draper’s shop. It was middling light. I never saw her before. When the coroner asked me before she came in I said I did not know if I should know her or not. When she came in I said, “To the best of my knowledge she is the person who brought the arsenic.” If it is taken down that I said I believed she was the woman it is wrong. I told the coroner we were in the habit of selling arsenic to anyone who asked for it.

Re-examined. - I sold no other arsenic on that day.

By the JUDGE. - She did not ask for anything but arsenic. There are two counters, one on each side. That for the sale of drugs is on the right side. The large window is on the drug side. Hats and brushes are in that; it slides up. I was behind the drug counter, about a yard off her. I was right in front of her and looked in her face. I cannot tell how she was dressed. I think she had a black hat on. I knew Mary Gill before. She was selling straw plat. I was the only shopman in the shop. I did not mark ‘poison’ on the paper.

Mary Gill. - I was at Mr. Harland’s shop on Thursday, about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Nobody was in the shop when I went in. I was selling plat. A woman came in afterwards. She asked for two pennyworth of arsenic. Lawson Harland refused let her have it, and told her it was rank poison. She said it was not for herself, it was for Thomas Grange, and so he let her have it. He charged her all the time that it was a most serious thing to let her have, it was rank poison. She told him to wrap it up very fast in a paper, as she had to put it in her pocket. To the best of my knowledge the prisoner is the person. I never saw her before. I believe she had a black bonnet on. I cannot say if it projected beyond her face. I just did see her face, but that was all.

Ralph Tinsley. - I live at Kirkby, and am a blacksmith, I know the prisoner, and have done so for five years. I remember seeing her in Kirkby Malzeard on Thursday, the 6th November, from half past 2 to 3 o’clock. I saw her go to John Harland’s shop. In a few minutes I saw her go from the shop towards Dallowgill-road. She lives there.

Cross-examined. - In coming from Dallowgill to Kirkby Malzeard, a person would pass by my house on the left side, only two houses before mine. Harland is at one side of the main street, and I on the other; he in the street coming from Ripon. My shop adjoins my house. Harland’s is, perhaps 60 or 70 yards from my house. I can see it from mine. She was betwixt Harland’s house when I first saw her, and was returning when I saw her next, from 25 to 30 yards distance.

TBC
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22-10-2016, 05:10 PM
63

Re: Tales from the mid 19th Century

The story of Ursula Lofthouse (part 7)
The last witnesses.

THE TRAIL AT YORK ASSIZES

Thomas Grange.- I live at Dallowgill. I know the prisoner very well. I never employed her to purchase arsenic for me.

Elizabeth Grange. - I am the wife of the last witness, and know the prisoner. I was summoned to attend the coroner’s jury on Friday, November 14. On the day before that I saw the prisoner from our own field; she was in her garden. I said the summons was come, and they were going to take Robert Lofthouse up next day. She said did I think they would take him up? They need not walk round the grave and come back again. She said it was along of his father. They would have put him out of the way on Sunday, as she would have them, by the doctor’s orders. I had no more conversation that day.

I went to Kirkby the following day. It was reported that she had bought arsenic. I said she had been at Kirkby on the 6th of November. She said for sure she was. I asked her what she was doing there. She said to see for the little girl a beaver hat and pair of shoes; Mr. Harland had none that suited, but had orders for some coming in. I said to Ellen Lofthouse we would go and ask Mr. Harland. She did not speak.

We went and came back. I asked her then if she ate some of the cake that Robert ate of; she said yes. I told her that Harland had more beavers than he would sell this season, and more to come in. She did not answer. Did she drink of the same tea that Robert drank? She said yes, he got one cup and part of another, and put his bit of cake to her and bade her eat it, saying he was so ill he could not eat a bit more for the world. A little after the prisoner said, “she ate coarse cake, and he flour cake.” Looking through George Musgrove’s parlour window where we were sitting, I said “They are fetching Mary Gill up to see whether she can swear to you or not.” She said, “If she swears to me, I needn’t go.” I said, “If you are innocent, you need not fear; and if you are guilty, you ought to suffer.” That was all that passed.

I said, “Was there a little small woman whom you knew at Harland’s shop?” She said there was, but she did not know her. This last was when we were talking about what happened in Harland’s shop. I had known the prisoner tow years; she had been married about that time. I knew her husband well; he worked for us often. I never heard anything to the contrary of their being on good terms. I never heard of any disagreement.

Thomas Thorpe. - I am the constable of the township of Kirkby Maleazrd. I took the prisoner to York in a gig; on the way, a mile beyond Ship-bridge, she began talking of herself. She said, speaking of her husband, he had very disagreeable breath; he would hardly allow her common necessaries to live on. She believed he had saved upwards of £40 or £50; he never told her what he did with it; she believed he carried it to Henry Lofthouse’s, and that he loved Ellen Lofthouse better than her, which made her very unhappy in her mind. Tate and I went to see the house; we did not search the house.

John Clews. - I went on Monday, the 17th of November, to the deceased’s house to get some fowls. I got them from a corner of the garden, buried near a wall, near two or three stones laid actually on them. I took them to Kirkby. We were directed to the spot. I gave them to Mr. West. We searched the whole of the house twice over, but did not find a particle of arsenic nor a piece of cake.

TBC
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22-10-2016, 05:51 PM
64

Re: Tales from the mid 19th Century

The story of Ursula Lofthouse (part 8)
The medical evidence. Not recommended reading for persons of a squeamish disposition.

THE TRAIL AT YORK ASSIZES

Mr. Dinsdale.- Is coroner for the North Riding, and had the body of the deceased taken up.

Dr. Sowray. - It was the body of Robert Lofthouse that was taken from the grave, it was opened in my presence by Mr. John Buckle; Dr. Dalgleish was present. The body was not putrid.

John Buckle. - Is a surgeon of Bedale. I was present at the post mortem examination of the body of the deceased, in the church of Kirkby Malzeard, on the 14th of November, and opened the abdomen and found it exhibit appearances that inflammation and mortification had existed during life. There was considerable appearance of mortification at the lower extremity of the smaller bowels, there were patches upon the rectum and on the duodenum. The kidneys also exhibited appearance of inflammation, and so did the mucous membrane of the bladder. The spleen was perfectly healthy. The heart natural. I did not examine the head at all. The lungs tolerably healthy. The inflammation caused mortification, and that caused death. I am of the opinion that arsenic taken into the stomach would produce these appearances.

I took the stomach out, and tied it at the extremity to preserve the contents, and put it into a jar. It was sealed up; Dr. Dalgleish conveyed it from the church to the public house, the gave it to Dr. Sowray and myself. It was ultimately conveyed to Mr. West, chymist, of Leeds.

Cross-examined. - Arsenic produced these appearances. They might be otherwise produced. Common inflammation might produce the same appearances. I could not form a judgement how long life had been extinct. The body might perhaps have remained in that state weeks or months to come. I believe all the appearances took place before death. Some persons think that arsenic prevents decomposition. Not much blueness on the coats of the stomach. I attended one case of spasmodic cholera near Bedale. The symptoms were violent vomiting, purging, great thirst, suppression of urine, and eyes sunk. That body was not opened.

By the JUDGE. - I was convinced he did not die of spasmodic cholera. Symptoms of arsenic are often developed in a quarter of an hour: I have known them commence immediately, or delayed three-quarters of an hour. There are considerable retchings not unfrequently mixed with blood, great pains in the stomach and abdomen, general purging, excessive thirst, generally constriction, and a burning sensation in the throat; that is one of the early symptoms. Suppression of urine, fullness of the eyes, and great anxiety. It terminates in convulsions and death.

W. West. - Is a cymist at Leeds. I received the stomach from the last witness and Dr. Sowray on the 15th of November. They directed me to examine whether it contained poison or not. I found arseniuos acid, commonly called white arsenic, in substance, adhering to the internal surface of the stomach; it was studded with numerous white particles, some soft and pulpy. That was coagulated milk; mingled with these were other particles about as hard as chalk or eggshell. I experimented upon them. They were particles of white arsenic. I have no doubt there had been a large quantity in the stomach. The quantity I found was very small. I incline to the opinion that in the state in which the stomach reached me there was enough to cause death, but I speak cautiously.

Thomas Thorpe brought me two fowls, and Clews brought me two. I found arsenic in the contents of the craw of one. I tested the contents by the usual chymical tests. I analyzed two or three pieces of cake found in the deceased’s house: one piece was currant cake; one piece made with butter or fat. I found no poison in either the one or the other. I know Dr. Paris by name and reputation; he stands high. I should not think a man a good chymist who mistook it for charcoal. I searched the deceased’s house, but found no poison in anything.

Tate re-eamined. - I served the summons on the prisoner, and she came with the rest of the witnesses.

Dr. Dalgleish. - I never attended the deceased, and never heard the deceased that he was subject to complaints of the bowels.

Dr. Sowray re-called. - I gave it as my opinion that the body should be interred on the Sunday, and that it would not be safe to take it into the church, on account of the cholera.

The prisoner, in her defence said, “all I have to say is, I am innocent.”

His Lordship, in recapitulating the evidence to the jury said that it was of infinite importance, however painful the duty might be, that the business of the Court should be conducted with a due sense of justice to the country. - After pointing out various points in the evidence, the jury retired...

TBC
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22-10-2016, 07:07 PM
65

Re: Tales from the mid 19th Century

The story of Ursula Lofthouse (part 9)
The verdict and sentence.

THE TRAIL AT YORK ASSIZES

After an absence of almost twenty minutes, the jury returned into court and pronounced the prisoner Guilty.

The JUDGE, in a very solemn tone, proceeded to pass sentence of death upon the prisoner: in doing which he said that she had been found guilty by a jury of her country, of one of the most frightful crimes that it was possible for a criminal to commit. The only appeal left for her in this world was, to that tribunal from which alone mercy could be extended to her; and who witnessed the committal of that crime for which she stood convicted, and who knows the secrets of all hearts. He besought her not to loose a moment, even at that late hour, in applying to that throne of mercy and ask forgiveness from her only advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. Dreadful as the crisis was, she must consider herself as dead for ever to this world, and to live only in eternity.-

His Lordship then put on the black cap and passed sentence of death upon the prisoner,-

I have only now to discharge my painful duty, that of declaring to you the sentence the law imposes for your crime, that is, that you be taken from hence, to the place from whence you came; and that on Monday next you be taken from thence to the place of execution, and there hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body be taken down and buried within the precincts of this Castle, that your remains may still be confined in this place, according to the statute in that case made and provided; and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul. -

The scene in Court during the passing of this solemn award of the law was painful in the extreme, the cries of the prisoner for mercy were heart-rending, and affected all present to tears. At the conclusion of the sentence she sank back into the dock, and at least a quarter of an hour elapsed before she could be conveyed out of Court.

Yorkshire Gazette, 04 April 1835
Evening Mail, 08 April 1835
Hull Packet, 10 April 1835
Leeds Times, 11 April 1835
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22-10-2016, 07:25 PM
66

Re: Tales from the mid 19th Century

The story of Ursula Lofthouse (part 10)
The story was widely reported.

No less than five persons were ordered for execution on Monday morning: Ursula Lofhouse, for poisoning her Husband at Kirkby Malzeard, near Bedale; Joseph Heely, for stabbing James Lee, at Kirkburton, originating in a drunken quarrel; William Allott, for murdering his mistress, Martha Hardwick, near Sheffield; and John Hoare and William Howe, for the murder of John Harvery, plumber and glazier, at Langport.

Cheltenham Chronicle, 09 April 1835
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23-10-2016, 06:50 PM
67

Re: Tales from the mid 19th Century

The story of Ursula Lofthouse (part 11)

EXECUTION OF THREE MURDERERS AT YORK
Monday 6th April 1835

On Monday morning, at the hour of noon, the dreadful sentence of the law was carried into its full effect, upon the wretched criminals who had, during the preceding Friday and Saturday, been found guilty of atrocious murder. The three, namely Ursula Lofthouse, aged 26, for the wilful murder of her husband, Robert Lofthouse, of Kirkby Malzeard, by poison; William Allott, 35, for the murder of Martha Hardwick, his mistress at Upper Heeley, near Sheffield, by kicking and otherwise ill-treating her; and Joseph Heeley, 29, for the murder of James Lee, and Kirkburton, by stabbing him in the neck with a knife, underwent the extreme penalty of the law at the usual place behind the Castle.

A vast assemblage of persons, not fewer than 6,000, had congregated to witness the melancholy and ignominious end of those, who had offended unpardonably the laws of the land and the rights of society, and whose pangs, if it were possible, must have been heightened by the feelings themselves to be a loathed and horrid spectacle to their fellow beings.

The woman, Lofthouse, after her condemnation, when she was taken out of court in a state of insensibility, refused food and could scarcely be persuaded to take bodily support necessary to keep soul and body together for the short space that the law had allotted her to remain upon the earth.
Although she seemed to apply herself seriously and earnestly to prayer, and to derive comfort from the consolations of religion, she did not appear at first to have been brought to a full confession of her crime. She acknowledged, indeed, that she sought the arsenic which caused the death of her husband, but that it was at his request, and agreeably to his directions that she had done so; and that hers was not the hand that administered it. Her statement was to the effect that her husband had knowingly and voluntarily taken the poison, and that he threatened to accuse her of giving it to him, if she ever told; a tale so self-contradictory, that one shudders to think of it being uttered by one who was standing on the brink of eternity. Could the miserable woman have deluded herself to the last with the vain hope that her impending fate might even yet be averted?

On Sunday she eventually recanted this, as the hour which was to terminate her sufferings drew near, and fully and freely declared herself to be the only guilty person - that she, from the causes named on the trail, had suffered herself to be betrayed into one of those fits of jealousy which too often “haunt the mind” without reason, and in that hour she alone had determined upon the deed for which she was about to die. The confession appeared to relieve her considerably from the agonies which oppressed her, and prepare her to meet, with fortitude, the ordeal through which her body must shortly pass;- throughout the night, indeed, she appeared more composed. She partook, however, of but little food: embracing the promises of the holy word of God as her last and only consolation.

The culprit Heeley had never denied the crime for which he was about to suffer, and now admitted the justness of his sentence. -

Allott persisted in the same statement which he made to Cooper the keeper of the Sheffield lock-up, that he was innocent, or if he had done it, that he was drunk and soft at the time, and knew nothing about it. -

Both these unhappy men, it appeared from the evidence, were under the influence of intoxication when they committed the horrid offences which they this day expiated by an ignominious death.

The Rev. William Fowler, jun., chaplain to the Castle, was unwearied in his attention to the spiritual wants and consolation of the three condemned persons, during the whole of Saturday and Sunday, that period that intervened between their sentences and the execution.

The men, Allott and Heeley, who had destroyed life by other means, acknowledged the justice of their sentences - with cool, deliberate, and bloody hands, they had taken the lives of their fellow creatures - they had imbued themselves in blood - and they now fervently sought forgiveness from the only source whence it could be obtained. They as well as the female, appear to have lived up to this period in almost total darkness as to religion.

At half-past eleven o’clock, as the fatal hour approached, the two men, having had their arms pinioned in the condemned cell, were led into an apartment, in which the female had previously been placed, where they all partook of the holy sacrament, in the most devout manner. As the hour of twelve drew near, they were ushered along the gallery and on towards the place of execution.

Allott appeared first on the scaffold, walking with a firm step, but with agony apparent in his limbs. He wildly surveyed the thousands before him, but did not exhibit that extreme fear which is often observed in persons so awfully situated.

Heeley, was the next malefactor brought out. When brought upon the platform, he took little notice of the objects around, but seemed absorbed in meditation.

When they had knelt down with their backs towards the spectators, Ursula Lofthouse was brought from the condemned cell to her appointed place between them on the scaffold, being supported on one side by Holgate the turnkey, and on the other side by the matron, to prevent her from falling, till placed on her knees on the fatal platform besides her fellow sufferers. On beholding the crowd on her way to the scaffold she covered her face with a handkerchief. She was dressed in decent mourning, with a red and spotted handkerchief over her neck.

The chaplain then read the usual prayers, and the prisoners, particularly Allott, responded most fervently to them. He lifted his pinioned hands, as far as he was able, towards heaven, and shook in dreadful agitation upon his limbs.

Prayers being over, the culprits raised themselves erect. After this the executioner performed his last office, first placing the fatal ropes, around their necks, and then, drawing the fatal bolt, which launched them into eternity.

The woman was soon dead. Allott suffered very little, but an expiring shudder was long observable in his strong muscular frame. Heeley was occasionally much convulsed, and was considered to be longer in dying than usual.

After hanging the usual time of one hour, the bodies were cut down and consigned to the appointed officers, and on Tuesday were interred within the precincts of the Castle, according to the law’s direction. Thus did the miserable wretches expiate, by their lives, the crimes which they had committed.

Yorkshire Gazette, 11 April 1835
Leeds Times, 11 April 1835
Sheffield Independent, 11 April 1835
Newcastle Journal, 11 April 1835
Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser,18 April 1835
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23-10-2016, 06:58 PM
68

Re: Tales from the mid 19th Century

I'll make that the last story in this thread, unless there is any interest and anyone would like more. They're not all as gory as the previous one.
 
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