← My Victorian Nightmare
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Hello and welcome to my Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Manion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me, there's just something especially intriguing, creepy and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is advised. Hello, friends, and welcome to this, my 83rd episode. I hope that you had a lovely week. I went for a little field trip with my whole coven to the botanical garden near my place after brunch this weekend. Scampered through the jungle rooms, cackling among the 85 degree palm trees. That is why my voice is a little froggy today. I feel reborn and so much more moisturized than last week. Highly recommended. Palm tree cackles with a bunch of witches in the dead of winter. What a vibe for you Today, dear listener. I will discuss the criminal, lunatic, murderer and master painter of fairies, Richard Dadd. The ballsiest fraudulent mediums of all the Davenport brothers. Men attacked with swords, the tough lives of newsboys and bloodthirsty female whiskey slingers. All this and much, much more. But first, a little haunted housekeeping. Thank you to Monique, Brynn, Elena, Ayne and Lacey for subscribing to the Patreon. You and everyone who joins are the reason why my show can continue. So thank you. I've been talking about what to do and what not to do during this current eclipse season. That we find ourselves in over on the Fan Coven and sharing some lovely meditations with techniques that I use to keep myself from going insane or even more insane. I also discussed the murder of Christy Warden on the True Crime Extras. That is one of the wildest true crime stories that I have ever researched. Oh, also, I wanted to ask you something. Quick poll. I would love to know which are your favorite or least favorite segments on the show. If you're listening on Spotify, I added a poll. If you click the name of the episode and then just scroll all the way down to the bottom, you will find the poll. Select any that you like and if you're not so into one of them, just leave it unclicked. I would love to know if you guys enjoy these topics as much as I do and if you like some more than others, I am happy to lean in more to those we'll see. Please let me know. And if there's anything else that interests you, any topics that you want to hear me talk about, tell me. I'm always looking for ideas Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema after an initial four month or longer dosing phase. About 4 in 10 people taking EBGLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
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Ask your doctor about ebglis and visit eglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979. Okay, we now have a new official segment I have been having a lot of fun digging into the lives of darkly fascinating Victorian so and so's the last few weeks. Madame Vesta, la Viesta, Nikola Tesla, Madame Tussaud. And I've enjoyed learning new things about these folks that I never knew before. So I would like to officially welcome you to our new segment, who Are these People? Where I discuss a little, little known history about the Victorian era's most darkly fascinating individuals. And today I want to talk to you about the criminal, lunatic, murderer and master painter of fairies, Richard Dadd. This man was a Victorian era artist who suffered from schizophrenia. And even though he was born in 1817, his works look so modern. Some of them look like 20th century anime. I of course put a few of his works on the Instagram link in the show. Notes. Now, the diagnosis for schizophrenia did not exist in his time, so the condition that he suffered from is assumed. You can't diagnose someone officially without examining them. But he suffered from delusions that led him to do some sadly terrible things in a very similar manner to currently diagnosed schizophrenics who have also killed. He was born in Chatham, Kent, in England, the son of a pharmacist, one of seven children, four of which would go on to suffer from similar mental illnesses as Richard. At age 18, Richard went to the Royal Academy of Arts in London. And very quickly he gained acclaim for his very original style. He was considered a rising star in the London art scene. But by his mid-20s, he began to experience signs of mental illness and was aware that something wasn't right. This is very common for schizophrenia. Symptoms often appear around this time in a person's life. I had a friend who this happened to. Suddenly their text messages would just start to get repetitive. I just thought it was a problem with his phone. He would send the same strange sentences over and over again. I remember one, it was my foremost plea. And fancy over and over again. I thought it was maybe a joke, but his schizophrenia was just starting to become apparent and then he disappeared. I just had to let him. That was really hard. This is such a sad illness, to lose someone too. While on a trip to Egypt with a friend to study the architecture and to paint, Richard told his friend, quote, I have lain down at night with my imagination so full of faggeries that I have really and truly doubted my own sanity. While returning to England through Italy, he expressed a wish to find and attack the Pope. He didn't know why, he just felt an overwhelming desire to hunt him down and kill him. But he still knew it was strange that he felt that way. When he returned to England, his behavior became increasingly disturbed. Conversations with him became increasingly untethered to reality and difficult to understand. He began eating only eggs and drinking only beer. His family took him to see a doctor, and the doctor said that he was suffering from, quote, such an aberration of the intellect that he should be placed in an asylum. His father refused to commit him, though he believed that he simply needed to be in a quiet, stable place. But sadly, not too. After his father took him out for lunch and then a walk in a park nearby, and out of nowhere, Richard pulled out a knife and stabbed his father to death. He fled to Dover, where he took a ferry to France. He had obtained a passport for France a few days earlier. So this wasn't just a sudden outburst of mania. He had been plotting, just like he had been plotting to kill the Pope in Italy, but simply didn't attempt to actually kill the Pope. Two days after arriving in France, he stabbed a passenger on a ferry and was arrested. He had a list on his of people who, quote, unquote, had to die. He was planning a rampage. The Emperor of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, was on that list. And it's interesting to think that if he was successful, world history would have been likely massively altered. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was the first trigger of the First World War. If he had been killed by a mentally ill English artist versus a Bosnian Serb nationalist, I wonder how that would have shifted things. Richard said that he killed the passenger because he got a message from the stars commanding him to do it. He said he killed his father because the ancient Egyptian God Osiris told him that his father was possessed by demons and was no longer even his father. He was just an imposter. He said he saw black devils crawling all over him and especially in his saliva. His official diagnosis was homicidal monomania, brought on by sleep deprivation, emotional trauma and sunstroke. But we now know that schizophrenia is often brought about by genetic factors or complications during pregnancy or birth. Interestingly, Richard was one of the first people whose murder trial was subject to the McNaughton rules. As of 1843, a right wrong test was instituted to determine if a person was insane at the time of the crime. The test to determine if they knew what they were doing was wrong. These rules still apply in the UK and the us. It's a two pronged test to establish insanity. It must be proved that the defendant did not know the nature and the quality of their act. Like, did they truly understand what they were doing and did they understand that what they were doing was wrong? There's a scene in the Dahmer series on Netflix where his father and his defense attorney were leading him to answer in ways that meant that he was insane. But he said, clearly, I knew exactly what I was doing and I absolutely knew it was wrong. He said he felt compelled to do it not. Not by voices, but by a compulsion. He knew he had a choice not to, but he chose to do it instead. So the insanity defense went out the window. Although there are other tests and rules deemed appropriate apart from the McNaughton rules, like the defense of diminished responsibility. This is the test of temporary insanity that serves like not to advocate for asylum versus prison situation, but a diminished sentence, like from murder to manslaughter. In Dad's case, he was found not guilty of for reasons of insanity and given a life sentence in an asylum, not a prison. But as we know, Victorian era lunatic asylums were no better than prisons. In fact, in many ways they were far worse. He was sent to Bedlam, then to Broadmoor. At Bedlam, his behavior became even more erratic. He was even more disturbed in that terrible confinement. But when he was transferred to Broadmoor, they gave him a studio for painting. Although he was still considered dangerous at both hospitals, he was more relaxed and able to focus at Broadmoor. He was allowed to tour the grounds and to paint the other patients playing cricket. He also painted scenery around the hospital. Sadly, those paintings have been lost. It was noted that although he never believed anything other than what he had told the police, that it was his belief that he killed his father because he had to. He was told to, he quote, unquote, exhibited the warmest and most affectionate attachment to his father. In his mind, he believed that he saved his life. His piece, the Fairy Feller's Master Stroke, is considered indeed a masterpiece. He painted this at either Bedlam or at Broadmoor. It is obsessively detailed. Its precision is almost microscopic. You can see themes of anxiety in the work, like a fairy mid swing with an axe. All characters seem to be engaged, but they all seem somewhat, somewhat disengaged with one another. But there are also such pretty daisies, shiny walnuts, those fluffy balls that cover the ground in the fall. It has a dark playfulness, it's disjointed, but there's a pleasant order to it. I'd say it makes me nervous, but I get it. Richard sadly contracted tuberculosis and died on January 8, 1886, at 68. He's buried at Broadmoor Hospital, which still exists. His Fairy Fellers masterstroke painting that was created in Bedlam can be found in the permanent collection of the Tate Museum. And now let us have our second segment with Their Own Eyes, where I share with you the personal, haunting accounts of petrified Victorians. Now, a listener wrote in and gave me a fascinating detail about the terrifying story that I've been sharing with you over the last few weeks from the Jeffersonian. That, as I've mentioned, was placed among all of the other news articles of the day as if it were itself just any other news article of the day. I'm going to share a bit more from that article and then I'm going to share that interesting detail that the listener shared with me. And now the conclusion of the Haunted House ghost hunt from 1859. If you recall, this poor man was last dealing with all manner of spooky ghosts wafting in and out of his room. And now he was left only with a shadow. And it continues. Nothing now was left but the shadow. And on that my eyes were intently fixed, till again eyes grew out of the shadow, malignant serpent eyes. And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered, irregular, turbulent maze mingled with the wan moonlight. And now, from these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out. The air grew, filled with them. Larva so bloodless and hideous that I can in no way describe them, except to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes. In a drop of water, things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each other. Forms like naught ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport. They came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary cross command against all evil beings. Sorry, I'm really leaning into the frog in my voice at the moment. I continue. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but not by them. Invisible hands touched me once. I felt the clutch as of cold, soft fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril. And I concerted all of my faculties in the single focus of resisting stubborn will. And I turned my sight from the shadow above all from those strange serpent eyes, eyes that had now become distinctly visible. For there, though in naught else around me, I was aware that there was a will. And a will of intense, creative working evil which might crush down upon my own. The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden, as if in the air some near conflagration. The larva grew lurid as things that live in fire. Again the room vibrated. Again were heard the three measured knocks. And again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the dark shadow. As if out of that dark darkness all had come. Into that darkness all returned. As the gloom receded, the shadow was wholly gone. Slowly, as it had been withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again into the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly, healthfully into sight. End quote. Wow. Wasn't that fabulous? And a bit disgusting and creepy. I love it. So a listener named Miles wrote in and confirmed what I had assumed. The very specific kinds of hauntings in this story are very similar to those in A novella from 1859 called the Haunted and the Haunters by Baron Edward Bulwer Leighton. Leighton. That's his full name. The article isn't exactly the same, but it does contain full paragraphs and whole sections from this novella. So it is possible that the author of this article is the same guy who wrote that novella. He's just not listed as the author in the paper. And for whatever reason, it was presented as just another article in the paper. So sadly, this was not a true story. For all we know, it may have been. Regardless, I still love it all the same. Great catch, Miles. Okay, now won't you follow me into the seance room where we discuss the goings on in the Spiritualist society of the 1800s. In this article from the Spiritualist of 1870, Mr. Peebles, who I mentioned last week, he was the spiritualist lecturer that told people that ghosts didn't want you to eat pork. In this article, he recounts an experience that he had with the Davenport brothers. I've mentioned them before, but after this article I want to tell you a little more about these guys. The article reads, About 12 years ago, Mr. Peebles chanced to pay a visit to Mr. And Mrs. Odell in Cleveland, Ohio, at a time when the Davenport brothers were stopping in the house. A public seance was held in the afternoon, and the manifestations were very powerful. He thought that some years ago, the manifestation stations through the Davenport boys were more powerful than they had ever been since. While the audience were holding hands and the Davenports were tied with flour in their hands and chalk marks around their feet, there was just light enough to see the musical instruments flying about the room, and they could be heard playing tunes. The spirits requested the witnesses to keep passive and said that they would try and materialize themselves sufficiently to be seen seen. A faintly luminous cloud was then seen to form in the ceiling. It gradually shaped itself into a human figure with hands appraised, and then it vanished. Everybody in the room saw it. Mr. Peebles, at the close of the sands, said, we read that spirits once rolled away a stone from Christ's sepulcher and unlocked prison doors. If you be spirits, I defy you to do the same. That evening at the house of Mr. Odell, while the room was brilliantly lighted with gas and the Davenports were tied, he and all the company saw Peacock's plumes floating about the room and a book walked across the floor with nobody touching it. Some unseen power then laid hold of his ankles and jerked him out of his chair so that he came to the ground in a very undignified way and hurt his arm. That night the two Davenports slept in a bed at one end of a very large room. And he and Mr. J.K. brown of Buffalo, New York, slept in the other. The light of the moon made objects in the room pretty clearly visible. Three loud raps came upon the door. So he said, come in, as though he thought it was Mr. Odell. The door opened, opened and shut, but nobody came in. Next he felt one great blow on his forehead and the second on the pit of his stomach. The spirits, said the medium, and immediately there was a tremor of the whole house. His bed was then upraised and began to rock in the air with such vigor that one of the casters dropped off the bedposts. Brown said, for God's sake, Peebles, get a little. He jumped out of bed to do so. Just as he reached the door, a great big hand hit him on the back and he jumped back into bed again, being frightened. Afterwards, the spirits told him that they manifested so violently not to do him any harm, but because he had dared them to do their worst or their best, end quote. I love that description. That he came to the ground in a very undignified way. As if there was a dignified way to have your chair yanked out from under you by a ghost. Okay, I don't know about Mr. Peebles here, but they say you are only as good as the company you keep. And the Davenport brothers were perhaps the ballsiest of fraud mediums. I have discussed these guys a little in the past. They were cabinet mediums. They had one big one that fit the both of them. And as the article stated they would be bound, flour would be sprinkled around them, put in their hands. And then once the doors to their cabinet would be closed, the lights would go out and instruments that were inside the cabinet would play themselves. Sometimes instruments would play themselves while floating around their cabinet on the outside. All kinds of weird and wild things would occur once they made contact. But they were just magicians. And other magicians that were not pretending that they were communicating with ghosts. Made a living showing how they did everything. How they instructed their assistants to tie very specific knots that they could easily get out of. How their cabinet was built to hold more than just the two of them. It had a secret place for another person to hide out in. These guys shows caused literal riots when they would get exposed, which happened a number of times. And when they were caught, audiences would lose their minds. A guy who was like a master knot tyer, I suppose he knew how to do a particular knot called the Tom Fools knot, which you cannot escape. He went to all of these guys shows just waiting to be asked to tie them up. When they'd ask a member of the audience to do it, they finally picked the guy and he tied them up and their whole act fell apart. They couldn't get out and the knot was so tight that their manager had to use a knife to cut them out of it. Their cabinet was smashed by the audience when they came out asking to be untied at a performance in Paris, they were tied up and the lights went completely out. They had added a flash effect to their cabinet so people would view floating instruments in the air for just moments at a time. But a man in the audience noticed in the flash one of the Davenport brothers at the side of the stage operating strings which were holding the instruments. He'd escaped the cabinet in the dark and didn't obscure himself well enough. When the music began to play, the audience rushed the stage, smashed the cabinet again. They were luckily able to escape the riots with their lives each time. Though in 1869, they were luckily able to escape the riots with their lives every time, though. 1869 was. Was the year that these guys were really beginning to lose respect in the spiritualist community. So it's interesting that that article I just read was written in 1870. They still had some friends, it seems, though Harry Houdini himself said that they both confessed to him personally that they were frauds. And in 1998, an investigator named Joe Nickel discovered a scrapbook that belonged to the Davenports. And in it were some blueprints for Spiritual tricks, confirming for anyone who still doubted they were indeed frauds. But he also discovered that despite their trickery, at least Ira Davenport, one of the brothers, was a practicing spiritualist. He still believed that he could speak to spirits. He believed that he was a medium, just not through the cabinet that he was using. That's an interesting detail to me. Okay, let us now have some articles from the Illustrated Police News, Law Courts and Record, our favorite goopy, gloppy, blood soaked tabloid from the 1800s. This first one is short and sweet and absolutely horrible. It is called A man fearfully cut with swords in Brooklyn. And it reads on the morning of April 10, Alexander and James Elliot got into an altercation with Joseph Clinton at 464 Warren Street, Brooklyn. The Elliotts took two swords and made an attack upon Clinton who was cut in a fearful manner about the head and arm. Arms. It is not thought that his wounds will prove fatal, but his assailants have been committed without bail to await the result. End quote. That's the article. Okay, I'm sure you, like me, may be interested in what in God's name could have inspired this situation. Well, luckily I found out. I did some digging. It sounds like a similar situation to why my last name only has two N's. I've mentioned before that when my Irish family came over during the famine, the first to come were two brothers, both with the names spelled M A N, N I O N with three N's. But one of them married a Protestant so the other, out of spite that his brother converted from Catholicism, changed his own name. He removed one of the N's from his name. I'm the lineage of the spiteful name changing brother in this situation. Two cousins were having drinks and one of them started calling the other a Protestant son of a bitch. There was a rift in the family about the one guy converting. It started as just the two cousins getting drinks but got drunk and then the other started getting aggressive about the conversion and he called for his family to come and beat the other guy up. And some of these people brought frickin swords and they slashed him up. It sounds like it was all cousins and brothers of the same family. So it was more than just two guys. Sounds like a brawl but most of them ran ran off when the cops arrived. I didn't see any more articles about this case after that. I'm sure the brothers were likely found guilty of attempted murder. They were caught red handed by the police in the act of slicing up Mr. Clinton. But like I said, the trail went cold after that wild story. Okay, get a load of this next article. It is something else. It is called the Grand Executioner Dead. And it reads, a great and venerable character is dead in Paris. Since Good Friday he occupied a position no less respectable than that of Executioner des Rote Ovreux, or Public Headsman of Paris, and as such rejoiced in the honorary title of M. De Paris, his name in private life being hendrich. He was 70 years of age and had been decapitating ever since. He entered upon his brilliant career at Toulon when he was only 16. During the Troubles, the communists burned the old man's guillotine, but nothing discouraged, he built another upon improved principles, having to execute people in the provinces. He caused a van to be constructed for the excursion of La Mere Guillotine. And it is also stated that he slept in the carriage with that lady of sanguinary memory. He was followed to the tomb by three subordinates and the turnkey of the prison of La Roquette. Not an overly lovely procession, certainly. Okay, I want to talk about a particular line there that he quote unquote, slept in the carriage with La Mere Guillotine, that lady of sanguinary memory. At first I thought that that might be Marie Antoinette, but no. La Mere Guillotine or Madame La Guillotine or La Veuve. The widow was simply an affectionate, though gruesome nickname for the guillotine itself. Parisians called the guillotine these nicknames during the French Revolution, highlighting the grave, grim, ironic maternal role in giving birth to a new nation by eliminating its perceived foes. Just an interesting and horrifying little fact there. Okay, this next one is very sad, but it has a heck of an illustration that I placed on the Instagram. It is called Attempted suicide of a married lady in 3rd Street, Allegheny, Pennsylvania. And it reads the other day a rather bungling. And fortunately the unsuccessful attempt was made to commit suicide by a married lady residing on 3rd Street, Allegheny, Pennsylvania. It is said that she had been exhibiting signs of mental aberration for some time past, but none of her relatives suspected her to be so much affected as to attempt anything like what occurred. About 3 o' clock in the afternoon she slipped away from the rest of the family and going up into the garret, she tied a small cord to a nail in the seam. Kneeling and then standing on a chair, she fastened the other end around her neck and jumped off. The force of her fall, however, broke the nail and she dropped upon the floor, stunned and half strangled. As soon as she recovered herself sufficiently to arise she went to the back window and either fell or threw herself out of it and rolled off the roof of the building, which is two stories in height. Fortunately, there is a shed immediately below and she fell upon its roof and rolled thence to the ground. She was picked up and carried into the house. And when it was found that although bruised and exhausted, she had sustained no serious injuries. Ah, poor woman. Ugh. Okay, there are no names here, so I can't confirm if it is true. I imagine it may not be. I hope it isn't. I honestly included this article mainly for the illustration. You'll see why when you take a look. Okay, this next one includes a topic that I don't think I have so much as stuck a toe into yet. It is called the Newsboys Home in New York City and it reads, the newsboys of New York City are a set of youthful bohemians such as can be found nowhere else but in the great metropolis. They are intelligent and quick witted beyond their years and, and the necessity which they labor under from earliest childhood of struggling with the world unaided gives them a particular degree of shrewdness, impudence and self confidence. Their mode of life throws them constantly in the way of temptation to evil. And to counteract this, a number of Christian gentlemen have established what is called the newsboys home. A place where the boys can not only receive the advantages of mental culture, but have all of the appliances of innocent recreation. The experiment thus far has been eminently successful, and it is hoped that its advantages will be felt still more in the future than at present. The home is provided with a bathroom, a gymnasium, and a room in which short and appropriate lectures are delivered by the founders of the institution. End quote. Okay, like I said, I haven't talked much, perhaps even at all, about newsboys of the 19th century and these, these wonderful newsboys homes that played a major part in actually taking care of these young boys. Toward the later mid-1800s to the 20th century, when newsboys began to luckily disappear from the streets, when universal education and child labor laws were passed, newsboys were mostly poor immigrant children, mostly Irish, Italian or Eastern European boys. Not always orphans, but often they were. They were as young as 6 years old to mid teens. Selling papers was one of the few jobs that was open to children, apart from the very dangerous factory jobs, and it required no training. These boys would buy papers in bulk at a slight discount and then take the profit if they sold all of their papers, which was very meager. If they didn't sell all of their papers, they would make no money at all. Most of these boys survived on scraps or bread. They often slept in dorms, abandoned buildings, or cheap lodging houses run by Christian charities. Although many of the newsboys didn't trust the Christian charities, they would expect you to work there. And often if it was discovered that a child stole anything, including food, they would often hand children over to the police. So because boys didn't want to utilize what already existed, caring folks in the community and the newly created Children Children's Aid Society devised a plan to create homes specifically for these boys that they could trust. They charged a tiny amount of money from the boys for a bed, bath and a meal, expecting nothing but those few cents that most paper boys could easily afford and they didn't have to work there as well. And they also did make exceptions when boys couldn't afford it. This contributed to building that trust. Also importantly, in New York, the first of the lodgings houses for newsboys in 1854 allowed children of all backgrounds, all ethnicities, to stay, which was a pretty big deal. Boys could come and go as they pleased. They weren't given curfews. By the mid-1870s, tradesmen were teaching in these homes so that the boys could learn trades to get off the streets. The homes eventually set up relationships with farms nearby and upstate, enabling boys to go work on a farm, farms, learn more trades, and a number of them ended up being adopted by families through this program. The Newsboys home at 9 Duane street in New York claimed to have housed 250,000 children in its day. The boys home no longer stands there. Today the location contains mixed commercial and residential buildings, but not but a few yards away from where the boys home used to stand. And is a statue called Triumph of the human Spirit. It is not a dedication to the children who used to live there, but I have often thought that if time had eyes and could look backward and forward from any point in New York City, what magnificently poetic stories it would see.
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The new chicken bacon ran street chalupa, the taco Bell. You can't get just one. Okay? So that's not. Not like some marketing hyperbole. You literally can't get just one. They come in twos. So, like, if you want just one, you're gonna need to find a friend who loves slow roasted chicken, bacon and avocado ranch sauce. Or a friend of a friend, or have an awkward conversation with a complete stranger to see if they're obsessed with chicken bacon and avocado ranch. Or you could just like eat them both because you're Obsessed with slow roasted chicken bacon. Okay, you get the idea. The new chicken bacon ranch street chalup is a taco bell by participating taco bell US Locations for a limited time while supplies last.
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Okay, our next one is upsetting and intriguing to me. It is called a bloodthirsty female whiskey slinger. She shoots at her sleeping husband and then kills herself. And it reads. A correspondent writing from Aurora, Nevada, under date of March 21, says about 10 o' clock last evening, the people of this usually quiet village were suddenly aroused by one of the most shocking tragedies ever enacted in this county. The main points of the great horror as developed by the testimony given by the coroner's jury are as follows. About 8 o' clock last evening, Wilson Butler, registrar of the United States land office at Aurora, left a public store and retired to his residence, where he remained in his private office writing until 9 o', clock, when he retired to bed alone and soon fell asleep. Mrs. Butler was intoxicated at the time and did not retire with her husband. About 10 o', clock, Mr. Butler was suddenly aroused by the firing of a pistol close to his head and supposing himself to have been shot, he jumped up from his bed and rushed from his room to the kitchen where a lighted candle was standing on the table. While running toward the kitchen, he heard a second shot fired, and upon reaching the kitchen door, the of a most shocking scene presented itself to his gaze. Mrs. Butler was just falling to the floor with the sulfury smoke of gunpowder encircling her head and her lifeblood spouting from a pistol shot wound through her brain. Mr. Butler immediately rushed to the street door, holding his head with both hands, believing himself to have been shot there, and shouted, oh, oh, oh. In tones that were heard all over the town. Down. Within a few seconds, several gentlemen reached the house, Mr. E. Rolle, jeweller of this place, being the first to enter the chamber of the dead, he found Mrs. Butler lying at full length on the floor, apparently quite dead, with her right hand almost touching the fatal instrument of her death, which lay near her while the crimson tide of life was fast ebbing from her wound and spreading over the floor. On raising her head, however, Mr. Rolle found her still alive and faintly breathing. But she was beyond the reach of medical aid, and at about 5:00 clock this morning, seven hours after the fatal shot was fired, the spirit of Julia Butler winged his flight to the great unknown world beyond the dark River. Goodness, Mr. Butler. On being examined by the SG Cobb and others a few seconds after the Shooting was found to have narrowly escaped instant death. The shot fired at him had passed through both his coat and undershirt, directly over his heart, but had not touched his body. About this time, the fumes of burning cotton were discovered issuing from Mr. Butler's bedroom. And on examination, the bedspread was found on fire. The ball fired at Mr. Butler, had passed through the bedspread, two pair of blankets, Mr. Butler's shirts, the edge of a hair match mattress, and then penetrated half an inch into the hard finished plastering on a brick wall, whence it dropped to the floor, a mere flat piece of lead, about the size of a shape of a 10 cent coin. The pistol used was a small five shooter belonging to Dr. Butler, which he left at his house over a month ago, empty and with no ammunition about the place. How Mrs. Butler got the ammunition and who, if any, loaded the pistol for her has not yet come to light. Although several witnesses were examined by the coroner's jury on these points, all the preliminaries of the fatal tragedy are wrapped in profound mystery. Mr. Butler and his wife had lived very unhappily together for about three years. And it is generally thought that their domestic infelicity and Mrs. Butler's well known habit of intemperance were the primary cause of the shocking affair of last evening. Okay, very, very upsettingly, as it was mentioned in the article, Wilson Butler was the patent registrar for the entire state. And so his name was in just about every newspaper that listed patents, which was almost every newspaper in 1872. So it was very difficult to find any more information about this particular situation. But I don't know about you, but doesn't this sound fishy? If he got up and ran away and she wanted to kill him, why would she not have followed him and tried again? Instead, she let him run out of the house and shot herself. Now this is the Illustrated Police News. No details whatsoever can ever be trusted. But let's imagine that these details are all 100% factually given. If he got away, why would she shoot herself? And that detail. The gun wasn't loaded. It was left at the house over a month ago. No idea how Mrs. Butler got ammo for that gun. Gun or even who loaded it. These were things that he would have had to say to the coroner's jury. Doesn't that sound like a strange detail to you? It was my gun, but I don't know how it got loaded or who even loaded it. Why would she have needed someone else to load it for her in the first place. Also if she supposedly aimed for his head, but the bullet went through his shirt and went far off course. This all just seems really strange to me. All the details are really murky. I'll just say it. It sounds like he killed his wife here to me. Just based off of what is in this article. What do you think? Alright, this last one is completely hilarious. I'm gonna try my best to get through it. This is news, my friends. And the headline this news is A Harrisburg woman sits beside her lazy husband in a bar room and is resolved to remain as long as he does and it reads the following scene occurred in the office of one of the hotels in Harrisburg the other day. A young lady sat beside a gentleman for many hours. Silently. She was told that the proprietor was upstairs and if they wished to see him he could be called down. The lady said, no sir, my husband. No sir, my husband chooses to loaf, pointing to a man sitting close by and I'm going to stay here with him. End quote. It is needless to say that their scene caused considerable consternation among the boarders and guests. The woman then left the hotel shortly afterward, followed by her liege. That's it. That's it. That's the news. A man loafs. A woman waits. People are concerned at the duration of the loafing. Woman storms off. Guy gives up the loaf tonight at 11. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leave me comments because you know I love them so much and join the fan coven to listen free and for even more creepy and witchy content. Until next time, be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares. This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. You can't solve every case for your kids, but with Greenlight they'll have the instincts and money skills to stay out of trouble. With a Greenlight debit card and money app, parents can monitor spending and teach financial responsibility. Educate your kids kids as they grow from earning allowance and tracking chores to learning how to save and invest. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today at Greenlight. Com Spotify.