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, April 6, 1860.
An Irish doctor advertises that the deaf may hear of him at a house in Liffey-street, where his blind patients may see him from ten till three.
In a squabble at the Clifton Workhouse, the matron was struck by a lunatic. She fell to the ground and expired. The jury, however, found that death was caused by cessation of the heart's action, owing to excitement.
Friday, April 13, 1860.
Manassah Burns, of Stalybridge, has been in the habit of chaining and padlocking his wife to a doorpost.
In London, Henry Thomas Gray, aged seven, rolled out of bed headforemost into a pail of water, from which he was taken out dead.
At Paisley, John Gubbie, 14, collier, has been sentenced to three months' imprisonment for tearing about six inches off the tongue of a pony.
Mrs. Ward, 22, wife of a farmer in Lincolnshire, by mistake mixed some arsenic instead of sulphur with treacle, and died soon after taking the mixture.
An Irishman, at Kilmarnock, burnt his spouse's bandboxes and clothing. When the police came he set the bed on fire, and was apprehended for arson.
A private of the 45th regiment, Scarborough, while walking near the edge of the cliff, fell over. The cliff is 305 feet high. He received fractures of the ribs and dislocation of the hip.
In a public-house at Carlisle, two young men put a quantity of twist tobacco into a kettle. It contained water from which tea was made for ten persons, who were all attacked with sickness and vomiting.
Friday, April 20, 1860.
Two gentlemen at Leeds, mistaking the road, drove into the river on Tuesday evening and were drowned.
A correspondent in Golspie states that on Thursday morning week, a gentleman there was presented with his twenty-seventh legitimate child.
At the Provan Mill distillery, Glasgow, a workman lost his balance and fell into a tub of fermenting liquid. The floating of his cap led to the discovery of his body.
The West Highland Journal gives an account of a hen which on being killed was found to have a live frog in its stomach. It is supposed to have been swallowed when young.
Two boys, named Joseph and George Rushton, the former 15 and the latter 12 years of age, were returning to their homes in the village of Castle Bromwich on Wednesday week, when they noticed something looking like meal on the road. They ate some, and a short time after they began to vomit. They became worse after reaching home, and died next morning.
Friday, April 27, 1860.
The John o'Groats Journal relates an instance of a raven having been found devouring a live sheep.
Annois, the Portuguese sailor, condemned to death for murder, is not to be executed. It turns out that he is insane.
An old pensioner, named Parry, residing near Shrewsbury, blew off his head with a gun. He formerly served in India, and had had a sunstroke, which permanently affected his brain.
The sparks thrown out by the engine of a passing train set fire to the thatch of a cottage standing near the line between Warrington and Newton on Wednesday week. Owing to the prevalence of a strong east wind, the progress of the fire was too rapid to be checked, and the whole cottage became a mere heap of burning matter.