A Burglar Caught by a Skeleton & Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press (28 page)

Sudden Death of a Lady From Being Shot at with a Toy Pistol

On Saturday evening, as Mrs Norris, who with her two sisters have for many years kept a haberdasher’s and stationer’s shop in Brentwood, was serving some customers, some boys threw some peas at the shop window and into the shop.

She ran to the door to drive them away, when one of them fired a toy pistol at her. She instantly dropped down dead. She had previously been suffering from a slight affection of the heart.

The Grantham Journal
, January 30, 1869

Strange Death of a Professor

A retired University professor, M. Louis Gerard, aged 56, met with a singular and terrible death, on Friday night, at Paris.

A match he had struck to light his pipe set fire to his long and bushy beard. It flared up tremendously and the flames caught his hair, and then set fire to his clothes.

Before they could be extinguished, the unfortunate gentleman had been so shockingly burned that he died from exhaustion half an hour later.

The Cornishman
, March 2, 1899

A Mexican Chapter of Horrors

A correspondent of the
Morning Post
, writing from Mexico on the 29th ult., says: One of the female scholars in one of the public schools of the city the other day found at home a packet of strychnia, and quite ignorant of the fatal properties of the drug, she brought it to the school house and placed it in the vessel containing the water for the use of her fellow-pupils.

Eight of them drank the poisoned water, and four of them, including the author of the calamity, expired in great agony.

The Dundee Courier and Argus
, December 10, 1868

Killed by a Coffin

Dr Lankester held an inquest on Saturday evening at the University College Hospital on the body of Henry Taylor, aged sixty-six.

The evidence of Mr E.J. Reading, an undertaker’s foreman, and others, showed that on the 19th instant the deceased, with others, was engaged at a funeral at Kensal Green Cemetery.

The church service having been finished, the coffin and mourners proceeded in coaches towards the place of burial. The day being damp, the foreman directed the coaches with the mourners to proceed to the grave by the footway, and the hearse across the grass towards a grave-digger, who was motioning the nearest way.

The coffin was moved from the hearse and being carried down a path only three feet wide, by six bearers, when orders were given to turn, so that the coffin, which was what is known in the trade as a 4lb leaden one, should go head first.

While the men were changing, it is supposed that the deceased caught his foot against a sidestone and stumbled; the other bearers, to save themselves, let the coffin go, and it fell with great force on to the deceased, fracturing his jaws and ribs.

The greatest confusion was created amongst the mourners who witnessed the accident, and the widow of the person about to be buried nearly went into hysterics.

Further assistance having been procured, the burial service was proceeded with, while the deceased was conveyed to a surgery, and ultimately to the above-mentioned hospital, where he expired on the 24th instant.

The jury recommended that straps should be placed round coffins, which would tend to prevent such accidents. Verdict – accidental death.

The Illustrated Police News
, November 2, 1872

Choked by a Billiard Ball

A singular death occurred on Wednesday night at a public house in Soho, London. Some men were in the billiard room, when one of them attempted to get a billiard ball into his mouth. This feat he had previously accomplished, and had successfully removed the ball.

This time, however, he failed to extract it, and it became fixed in his throat. A cab was immediately fetched, but while being removed to the hospital the unfortunate fellow expired.

The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent
, November 4, 1893

Awful Occurence

On Monday morning last, a woman named Jones, at Mullahead, near Tandragee, went out of the house, leaving her two children in the kitchen with a pot of water ready for scalding the churn.

The children began to play hide and seek, and one of them got into the churn and put on the lid. The mother came in, and in a hurry threw in the water and scalded the child to death. The other called out to her what she had done, when she took up a stool and dashed out its brains, and then ran out and is supposed to have drowned herself as she has not yet been discovered.

The Cork Examiner
, March 20, 1843

Missing for Four Months and Dead at Home at Last

The American newspapers report a curious case. A man named Colt, living in New York, disappeared on the second of December last, being last seen by the conductor of a car apparently going towards his home. The relatives and his wife made every exertion to find Colt, without the slightest success.

About the time her husband disappeared, Mrs Colt noticed that the outhouse door, which fastened with a spring lock, was shut, and as she had no key, she was unable to open it. The natural grief and anxiety attending the fruitless search for her missing husband, caused Mrs Colt to pay no special heed to the circumstance, and she made no effort to open the door.

Mr Colt still continuing to be missing, his wife and children were finally compelled after an interval of some three weeks, to leave their residence and seek another more suited to their changed circumstances. The second floor which they had occupied was not re-let and still remains untenanted.

On Tuesday, several boys residing in the neighbourhood engaged in a game at ‘hide and seek,’ and one of them in the course of his play peered through a knot-hole in the side of the outhouse already spoken of, and was surprised to see the form of a man therein.

The police were subsequently notified, and broke open the door, and discovered that the man was quite dead and slightly black in the face. It proved to be the missing Colt. The process of decomposition had in some unexplained manner been greatly retarded.

The Grantham Journal
, May 7, 1870