Burying in Woollen Acts

Following a decline in the wool industry, c.1660s, the English government, in a bid to boost sales, made it law that the dead be buried in pure English woollen shrouds to the exclusion of all other textiles.

As the document above shows, an oath had to be made by a member of the deceased’s family confirming that the ‘lately deceased, was not put in, wrapt, or wound up, or buried in any shirt, shift, sheet or shroud, made or mingled with flax, hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver, or other than what is made of sheep’s wool’. The same went for the lining of the coffin.

The legislation was in force until the 1810s, however, it went mostly ignored after 1770 by people who could afford to pay the £5 fine for noncompliance.

[Sources: Burying in the Woollen Acts | Needleprint Blogspot]

Nocturnal Amusements of the 18th Century

No, not sex. It would seem people in the 18th century had better stuff to do. Like stabbing one another in the butt and slashing one another’s faces with knives…

According to Francis Grose’s 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, one “diversion practiced by the bloods of the last century” was Sweating:

these gentlemen lay in wait to surprise some person late in the night, when surrouding him, they with their swords pricked him in the posteriors, which obliged him to be constantly turning round; this they continued till they thought him sufficiently sweated.

Then, “somewhat like those facetious gentlemen some time ago known in England by the title of Sweaters,” were Chalkers. In Ireland Chalkers were “Men of wit … who in the night amuse themselves with cutting inoffensive passengers across the face with a knife.”

[Sources: Hypervocal | From Old Books]

Guillotine Toy

Following the bloody conclusion of the French Revolution “The toy shops put on the market little guillotines with which little patriots could behead figures of aristocrats. There still survive some specimens of this pretty and diverting machine, of which one bears the date 1794 [above].

In December, 1793, [one man] asks his mother in Frankfurt to get him such a toy guillotine for his son … and in her reply he certainly got some home-truths. In her decisive manner she wrote to him by return post: ‘Dear Son, Anything I can do to please you is gladly done and gives me joy;—but to buy such an infamous implement of murder—that I will not do at any price. If I had authority, the maker should be put in the stocks and I would have the machine publicly burnt by the common executioner. What! Let the young play with anything so horrible,—place in their hands for their diversion murder and blood-shedding? No, that will never do!”

(Source: 50watts.com)

Learned Pigs

Learned Pigs provided a popular form of entertainment throughout the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

The original Learned Pig caused a sensation in London during the 1780s. To the amazement of enraptured audiences, the “intellectual” swine would “by means of typographical cards … set down any capital or Surname, reckon the number of people present, tell by evoking on a Gentleman’s watch in company what is the Hour and Minutes; he likewise tells any Lady’s Thoughts in company, and distinguishes all sorts of colours.” In 1788 it was reported that the pig had died, however, later conflicting reports announced the pig’s return following the 1789 French Revolution, and his readiness to “discourse on the Feudal System, the Rights of Kings and the Destruction of the Bastille”.

In the 1790s another Learned Pig, the “Pig of Knowledge”, toured the USA. Its owner described his methods of training the pig by coaxing it, rather than torturing it, which many believed must be the only way to get these pigs to respond. Despite this, the owner was accused of employing witchcraft, with one incredulous spectator declaring that “his performances were the effects of the Black Art; that the Pig ought to be burnt, and the Man banished, as he had no doubt but…[his trainer] familiarly corresponded with the devil.” The same pig was later exhibited in London where he was advertised as having acquired his knowledge from “Souchanguyee, the Chinese Philosopher.”

An illusionist in the early part of the 19^th century exhibited yet another Leaned Pig by the name of Toby. Toby could “discover a person’s thoughts”, a skill “never heard of before to be exhibited by an animal of the swine race” and around 1817 Toby published an “autobiography” entitled The life and adventures of Toby, the sapient pig: with his opinions on men and manners. Written by himself. Thereafter, Toby became the standard name for a Learned Pig.

[Source: Learned Pig]

Peter the Great’s Dwarf Wedding

As was the vogue in the early 18^th century, Peter the Great harboured a partiality for oddities and curiosities; a passion that lead to the establishment of his Kunstkamera, a cabinet of curiosities dedicated to preserving “natural and human curiosities and rarities.” The museum boasted an impressive collection of deformed human and animal skeletons, the tsar having issued a macabre proclamation demanding all deformed stillborn babies from every part of Russia to be sent for displaying as examples of accidents of nature.

This provides some context for Peter’s more disturbing fascination with little people, which culminated in his organising an elaborate wedding for the royal dwarf Iakim Volkov:

“The tsar … had instructed Prince-Caesar Romodanovsky to round up all the dwarfs in Moscow and send them to St Petersburg. Their owners were told to provide smart outfits for the dwarfs in the latest Western fashion, with plenty of gold braid and periwigs … On the day about seventy dwarfs formed the retinue for the wedding ceremony, which was accompanied by the stifled giggles of the full-sized congregation … a spectacle made all the funnier by the fact that most of the dwarfs were of peasant extraction with coarse manners. At the feast … the dwarfs sat at miniature tables in the centre of the room, while full-sized guests watched them from tables at the sides. They roared with laughter as dwarfs, especially the older, uglier ones who hunchbacks, huge bellies and short crooked legs made it difficult for them to dance, fell down drunk or engaged in brawls.

On one level, the dwarf wedding was just an entertainment. Being amused by the vertically challenged may offend modern sensibilities, but dwarfs were a standard feature of early modern European courts … The 6 foot 7 inch tsar loved his contingent of resident dwarfs, who were liable to surprise guests by leaping from pies (sometimes naked), dancing on tables or trotting in on miniature ponies, as well as performing domestic duties … But like all Peter’s mock spectacles, the dwarf wedding also operated on a more symbolic level. [It] suggested that the full-sized guests were watching caricatures of themselves, miniature ‘lords and ladies’ clad, like them, in unfamiliar Western dress. Peter’s courtiers … still had a long way to go before they were fully fledged, ‘grown-up’ Europeans.” (Peter the Great: A Biography by Lindsey Hughes, pp.90-2)

[Sources: Cabinet of Curiosities | Kuntskamera | Peter the Great: A Biography on Google Books | Image Source]

Excessive Eaters of the 18th Century

For some unfathomable reason the 18th century threw up a formidable clutch of prodigious eaters, and scholars have supplied many trustworthy accounts of these great polyphagi. For instance, Rev. Lysons, a habitué of London’s low life, [who visited] squalid, back-street monster-shows and collecting information about al he saw there, recorded in 1788 that “The Duke of Bedford [had] betted 1000 guineas with Lord Barrymore, that he does not eat a live Cat! It is said his Lordship grounds his chances upon having already made the experiment upon a Kitten.” The unusual bet attracted considerable public attention and several articles appeared under the headline ‘Cat Eating’. One authority on blood sports pointed out that it was “not without precedents in the annals of sporting.” He had himself witnessed an Irishman devouring five fox cubs for a bet of £50, whilst another said he had seen a Yorkshire shepherd eat a live cat to win a bet of two guineas.

A few entrepreneurial gluttons managed to transform the art of bizarre consumption into a profitable sideshow act, eating all manner foods for the entertainment of live audiences. Thomas Eclin, for example, performed such wonders in London in the mid-1700s. His feats included eating dogs and cats and leaping head first into the Thames when the weather was freezing cold. The 1770s saw the rise of ‘The Stone Eater’, who would invite doubters to his shows to witness him grind stones and pebbles between his powerful jaws, whilst claiming that his intestinal tract had become used to minerals as the principal source of nourishment after he was shipwrecked on an uninhabited island for 13 years.

Perhaps the most celebrated gluttons, however, are Charles Domery and Tarrare. Domery served with the Prussian Army in the War of the First Coalition, however, upon finding the rations were insufficient to satisfy his appetite he defected to the French Army in return for food. He is recorded as having eaten 174 cats in a year, and although he disliked vegetables, would eat 5 pounds of grass each day if he could not find other food. He once also attempted to eat the severed leg of a crewmember hit by cannon fire, before it was wrestled from him.

When Domery’s ship was captured and imprisoned by the British he remained hungry despite being put on ten times the rations of other inmates. He was subsequently experimented on: throughout a day he was fed a raw cow’s udder, which was eaten without hesitation; 4.6kg of raw beef; 24 large tallow candles; and four large bottles of porter. During the course of the experiment he did not defecate, urinate or vomit, his pulse remained regular and he did not change temperature.

Similarly, Tarrare was a French showman and soldier able to eat vast amounts. He was constantly hungry; his parents could not provide for him, and he was turned out of the family home as a teenager. He travelled France in the company of a band of thieves and prostitutes; swallowing corks, stones, live animals and whole apples. He then took this act to Paris where he worked as a street performer.

He also found military rations unable to satisfy his appetite, and would eat food from gutters and refuse heaps. Suffering from exhaustion through hunger, he was hospitalised and became the subject of experiments to test his eating capacity, in which, he ate a meal intended for 15 people in a single sitting, ate live cats, snakes, lizards and puppies, and swallowed an eel whole without chewing. Despite his unusual diet, he was of normal size and appearance. His army general decided to put Tarrare to use as a courier, swallowing documents and transporting them over enemy lines, however, Tarrare was captured upon his first mission and subjected to a horrific beating and mock execution.

Returning to the hospital following this, Tarrare was caught several times attempting to eat the bodies in the hospital mortuary. After some time, a toddler disappeared, and Tarrare was immediately suspected and banished from the hospital. After his death Tarrare’s body was found to be filled with pus; his liver and gallbladder were abnormally large, and his stomach was enormous, covered in ulcers, and filled most of his abdominal cavity. The cause of their appetites is not known and there have been no modern documented cases of polyphagia as extreme as Domery’s and Tarrare’s.

[Sources: Fortean Times | Charles Domery | Tarrare]

Cemetery Gun

(Source: Slate)

Peter the Wild Boy

Amongst William Kent’s depiction of George I’s court, which adorns the King’s Grand Staircase at Kensington Palace, is the above image of a smartly-attired but bushy-haired youth: the mysterious Peter the Wild Boy. Peter’s story is as sad as it is curious.

In Germany, in 1725, a ‘naked, brownish, blackhaired creature’ was found living in a woods near Hamelin. He walked on all fours and exhibited uncivilised behaviour. As an honoured guest at a banquet of George I, this feral boy aroused the curiosity of the king by gorging on vegetables and rare meats and eating noisily with his hands – behaviour which had him attributed with his title of Peter the Wild Boy. By royal request he was taken to England where he became an instant sensation, providing a remedy to the tedium of court life and inspiring such satirical works as The Most Wonderful Wonder that ever appeared to the Wonder of the British Nation (attrib. Jonathan Swift).

Peter appealed especially to the Princess of Wales, who essentially kept him as a pet. Though he was inclined to sleep on the floor he was dressed in a fine suit each morning, whilst vein attempts were made to properly educated him – though physically healthy “he could say nothing but his own name and a garbled form of ‘King George’. [Thus], Peter could not to live up to the popular interest invested in him and a fickle public quickly abandoned him in favour of the next unfortunate”¹. 

Consequently, in 1728 he was taken to live in the country. Here “He developed a taste for gin and loved music, reportedly swaying and clapping with glee and dancing until he was exhausted. But he never learned to speak and his lack of any sense of direction gave cause for concern”².

He was also prone to wandering. On one occasion, in the midst of the Jacobite Rebellion, he was mistaken as a Highlander and arrested; in 1751, he went missing for such a period of time advertisements were placed appealing for his safe return. When a fire broke out in goal in Norwich, some 100 miles from the farm on which Peter lived, and the inmates were released, one aroused particular curiosity due to his remarkable appearance and the strange sounds he uttered, leading some to describe him as an orangutan. He was identified as Peter the Wild Boy, returned to the farm and fitted with a collar bearing the inscription: ‘Peter, the Wild Man of Hanover. Whoever will bring him to Mr Fenn at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, shall be paid for their trouble.’

Peter died in 1785 at the age of about 70. A portrait of Peter as an old man was published in Caulfield’s Portraits of Remarkable Persons, and matches the last description of him as having a full beard. He was buried at Northchurch and his grave can still be seen in the cemetery of St. Mary’s Church. A modern assessment of Peter’s condition might be read here.

[I wrote this myself (for a change) however I am heavily indebted to this, this and this. I’ve also had the pleasure of seeing Peter’s portrait with my very own eyes and I recommend it very much]