News of the Week
"News of the Week" - taken from The Wigan Observer And District Advertiser, 1860. Material kindly loaned by Paul Byrne.
News not relating to Wigan was covered by the local press at the time, but usually by means of a single line or small paragraph. Here are some odd ones.
Friday, January 6, 1860.
On the Trent Valley line, last week, a girl three years old fell out of a train going at the rate of ten miles an hour, through the carriage door flying open. The child was found by some plate layers sitting by the side of the rails unhurt.
A husband and wife and three children slept together in one bed in Glasgow. On Sunday morning two of the children were found dead, having been suffocated, and the other three barely recovered.
At Sheffield, a voracious youth of 17, who often took a half quarter of apples to bed, to eat them before going to sleep, has killed himself by devouring a pound of peas and two pounds of nuts.
Benjamin Allen, weaver, Brighouse, Leeds, whose wife had abandoned him because he was subject to fits, was seized with a fit last week, fell into the fire, and was fatally burned.
A sheep was shot on Wednesday week with Terry's breach-loading cavalry carbine, at Havant, Hants, at a range of 950 yards.
At Retford, on Friday, three persons were struck by lightning, but fortunately they were not very seriously injured.
Major Glyn, of the rifle brigade, who distinguished himself in India, died on his way home.
Friday, January 13, 1860.
A man has been fined £5, at Harlepool, for biting off the end of his step-son's nose.
A man named Sandworth, at Whaplode, committed suicide the day after his marriage.
In Berkshire, a carter drove a horse and cart into the river Kennel to wash them; the horse got out of his depth, the man was washed out of the cart, and both were drowned.
Mr. Bewick, inspector of the Great Northern Railway, Australia, has found a tortoise about the size of half a crown, embedded in the solid rock. It was alive, but its mouth was closed up.
Friday, January 20, 1860.
Joseph Timmins, aged 20 years, of Swan village, West Bromwich, was drowned in the canal last week; and his mother died within an hour after she had seen his body.
At Huddersfield, a young man, in trying to blow out a lighted candle, by discharging a gun, shot a woman named Harrison, lacerating her right arm. She has since died.
At Hedley Hope, Durham, a man named James Dawson, who not long ago was run over by an engine, whilst in a drunken sleep on the railway, has been roasted to death whilst sleeping in a coke oven.
A very curious trial for polygamy is likely to attract the attention of the gentlemen of the long robe at the next Lent assizes for Sussex, a man of no small consideration in Brighton, having contracted marriage with five different females, three of whom are sisters.
Friday, January 27, 1860.
The Manchester volunteers, 800 strong, recently marched to Eccles, and when they departed, they did not leave an Eccles cake behind. One shop supplied them with 700.