Did the gift of a shawl bring the plague to Russia?
Mrs Daffodil must once again beg the indulgence of her readers. Something has gone wrong with the pneumatic tubes that deliver Mrs Daffodil’s work to the public, so she has asked that scribbling person over at the Haunted Ohio blog for the loan of a post to fill the gap. Here, then, without further ado, is “The Plague Shawl.”
Today’s post returns to one of my favorite themes: deadly clothing. We have covered the perils of poisoned stockings and noxious hairpieces. The history of disease is filled with cases of contagion spread by textiles:
In 1665 at Eyam, in Derbyshire, a tailor received a flea-infested shipment of cloth from London. He was dead of the plague within a week. Heroically, the villagers voluntarily quarantined themselves to keep the disease from spreading—at a fearful cost: at least half of Eyam’s inhabitants died.
At Fort Pitt, in 1763, two Native American chiefs were given blankets and a handkerchief from smallpox victims, possibly causing an outbreak of the disease and extensive casualties among the Indians.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1838 story, “Lady Eleanore’s Mantle” tells of a richly embroidered cloak believed to have brought the smallpox to Boston. The story is fiction, but Hawthorne’s readers’ belief in an infected cloak causing an epidemic was not.
In 1872, Ipswich was hit by an outbreak of smallpox, blamed again on textile infection:
During Christmas week two imported cases occurred…a young man brought a bundle of infected linen with him from London, and had it washed in Ipswich. Twelve days after, the servant who washed the linen showed symptoms of small-pox. In another case, a woman, who had been at Highgate Hospital, brought with her a shawl which she had worn during convalescence, but had not been disinfected; and in fourteen days her sister, who washed the shawl, was attacked, and a boy also in a house to which the sister went before the rash appeared upon her. This case might also have been caused by the infected shawl. The disease shortly afterwards broke out in Harwich and was very fatal, as 24 per cent. of the cases admitted died in the hospital. The Sanitary Record, Vol. 8, 1878
In a very recent case, in September of 2012, a young girl contracted the plague from her sweatshirt which had been laid by a decomposing (and flea-ridden) squirrel.
Then there is this story from 1895 illustrating the improbably long shelf-life of smallpox:
TENACITY OF GERMS
How an Old Lady and Her Little Shawl Carried Death With Them.
The tenacity and virility of smallpox germs are to the medical fraternity one of the wonders of contagion, and were never made apparent so startlingly as a few years ago in the little village of Hector, this state, says the New York Sun. This is an isolated place, being at the time of the smallpox epidemic there twenty miles from any railroad, and its people rarely traveled far from home, and few strangers were visitors there. Early in the fall smallpox broke out in the village. The disease was not known to be anywhere in the vicinity. How it happened to appear there was a mystery that remained unsolved for months, but was at last cleared up through the investigation and inquiry of Dr. Purdy of Elmira.
Dr. Purdy learned that one day in the winter preceding the breaking out of smallpox in Hector a passenger on an Erie railway train was taken violently ill just after leaving Salamanca, and a physician who was on board the train discovered that the passenger had the smallpox. When this became known the other passengers in the car hurriedly left it for another one. The car containing the smallpox victim was placed on a siding when the train reached Hornellsville, where it was quarantined.
Among the passengers who left the car when the case was made known was an old lady who had a ticket for Elmira. Her seat had been the one behind the one where the man with the small-pox sat. She had with her a small shoulder shawl, which had hung on the back of the seat ahead of her. When she left the train at Elmira she placed the shawl in her hand satchel. At Elmira she took a Northern Central train for Watkins, the nearest station to Hector, to which place she was going on a visit to her son’s family. She remained there until the following fall when she was driven by her son to visit another son some miles distant. The day was extremely cold, and her son’s ears being in danger of freezing she took the shoulder shawl from her satchel, where it had been ever since she put it away on leaving the Erie train at Elmira the previous winter, and wrapped it about his head.
A few days after the son returned home to Hector he became violently ill. Before it was known what his ailment was he was visited by various neighbors. Then his disease was pronounced smallpox, and it was such a malignant case that he died within a few days. The disease became epidemic and was not eradicated until the following summer. Every family in the village and immediate vicinity lost at least one member by the disease. That the first case originated from the germs collected by the shawl in the railroad car near Salamanca months before there can be no doubt. Idaho Register [Idaho Falls, ID] 15 February 1895: p. 6
I say “improbably long shelf-life” of smallpox, but the virus is capable of prolonged survival. Excavators in the crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields, 1984-86, for example, took special precautions, not only against the lead dust from the coffins, but against potentially viable smallpox from dead victims of the disease buried there. And in 2011, an 1860s smallpox scab was seized by the CDC from an exhibit at the Virginia Historical Society.
In Russia, the Plague of 1878-79 was reported to have had its origins in a lethal sweetheart’s souvenir.
A COSSACK FROM THE WAR Brings to His Lady Love
A Costly Shawl Which She Wore Two Days,
Then Sickened and Died, and in this
Lies the Origin of the Present Russian Plague.
London, Feb. 3. The origin of the plague in Russia is thus given: A Cossack, returning from the war to Wetlisuka, brought his lady love a shawl which she wore two days and then sickened with all the symptoms of the plague and died. The following four days other members of her family died. The disease spread rapidly, the local authorities not paying any attention to it till half the inhabitants had died and the remainder were unable to bury them. Then, when the epidemic had assumed serious dimensions energetic means were taken for preventing its spreading, and strict quarantines were established: firstly in towns and villages, shutting off streets where the plague reigns from the rest of the place and secondly by surrounding the villages with troops, so that nobody is allowed to pass in or out.
The panic in Russia is almost incredible. Every class and station in life have petitioned for the entire cessation of all intercourse even postal communication between the rest of Russia and the Volga. Letters from Astrachan and Zaritzin are not received by persons to whom they are addressed. Some people even refuse to take money, fearing the germ of infection might be communicated through it. It is almost impossible to describe the terror which has taken possession of the people.
The Russian Sanitary Commission has proposed to shut off the Volga line from all intercourse with Western Russia and permit communication only under quarantine. Russian railway cars are not admitted to German territory. The export of grain from Poland will suffered severely from this restriction. The Roumanian government are discussing the expediency of prohibiting the transit of Russian provisions sent to victual the Balkan army.
(This appears to be a paraphrase of a New York Times article of 2 February 1879. It appeared in the Plain Dealer [Cleveland, OH] 3 February 1879: p. 1)
The Russian plague caused panic throughout Europe, which feared the spread of an epidemic on the scale of the Black Death. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica observed that the Russian wave of the disease killed about 362 victims out of a population of about 1700.
It is, of course, impossible to tell if the story of the deadly shawl is more than a fanciful legend, although the story is repeated in a scholarly article: “The Russian Plague of 1878-79,” Hans Heilbronner, Slavic Review, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Mar., 1962), pp. 89-112 in the note on pp. 91-92.
A story was bandied about in 1879 that a Cossack, returning to Vetlianka from Turkish Armenia, brought a scarf to his fiancée as a present. She supposedly wore it for a few days, then developed fearful symptoms of an undiagnosed nature, and died within a few days. The members of her family contracted the same disease and so did some neighbors. Refugees from the village reportedly carried the affliction to other Volga towns and villages.
Strangely, the story is also the subject of a poem by Ohio poet Sarah Piatt
THE STORY OF A SHAWL
[1879.]
My child, is it so strange, indeed,
This tale of the Plague in the East, you read?
This tale of how a soldier found
A gleaming shawl of silk, close-wound,
(And stained, perhaps, with two-fold red)
About a dead man’s careless head
He took the treasure on his breast
To one he loved. We know the rest.
If Russia shudders near and far,
From peasant’s hut to throne of Czar
If Germany bids an armed guard
By sun and moon keep watch and ward
Along her line, that they who fly
From death, ah me ! shall surely die.
This trouble for the world was all
Wrapped in that soldier’s sweetheart’s shawl.
Pray God no other lovers bring
Some gift as dread in rose or ring.
Poems, Vol. II, Sarah Piatt (London: Longmans, Green and Co.) 1894
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.
I once attended a very poor old man of the name of Jordan, in his last illness. I call him poor, but yet he was not in want, and had about him the comforts of life. When he was near his end, he said to me—
‘Doctor, I want to know the truth from you. I am not in the habit of being flattered by the world. There was a time, indeed, when it ‘fooled me to the top of my bent;’ but that was long ago. Do you not flatter me, but tell me your real opinion. Shall I soon die, or shall I linger on a brief career, in a world I am quite willing to be done with?’
‘You desire me,’ replied I, ‘to be candid with you, and I will. You are on your death bed.’
‘How soon shall I be immortal?’
‘That I can not say. But your hours, so far as human experience can teach me to predict, are numbered.’
He was silent for a few moments, and a slight spasm passed across his face.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it is the lot of all. I have lived long enough.’
‘Is there no friend or relation, Mr. Jordan,’ said I, ‘to whom you would wish to send? You are here, as you have often told me, quite alone in lodgings. Perhaps you would like to revive some old recollections before you leave the world.’
‘Not one,’ he said.
‘Are you so completely isolated?
‘Most completely. I have tried all relations, and found them wanting. But still I have remembered them, and made my will. It is now between the mattress and sacking of this bed, and Mr. Shaw, the only honest attorney I ever met with, and who resides in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, will carry my intentions into effect I was rich once in early life. How dark a day.’
‘What day?’
‘To-day. How dark and misty it has come over, doctor.’
His sight was going fast, and I felt certain that it would require but little patience, and a small sacrifice of time to see the last of Mr. Jordan.
‘Yes,’ he continued, speaking in an odd, spasmodic fashion. ‘Yes, I was rich, and had many a crawling sycophant about me, many smiling faces at my board; but there came a reverse, and like fair flowers at a sudden frost, my kind friends hid their heads. I was nearly destitute, and thinking and believing that the ties of blood would be strong enough to bind to me, in my distress, those with whom I claimed kindred, and who had been delighted to claim kindred with me, I went to them, a visitor.’
‘And failed.’
‘And failed, as you say. They dropped from me one by one. Some remembered slight offenses; some were never at home; some really thought I must have been dreadfully improvident, and, until they were convinced I had not, could not assist me. Doors were shut in my face—window blinds pulled down as I passed. I was shunned as a pestilence — my clothes were in rags — my step feeble from long want of common necessaries. And then an old school companion died in the West Indies, and left me £20,000, which I received through the hands of Mr. Shaw.’
‘A large fortune! And your relations?’
‘Heard of it, and were frantic. I disappeared from them all. From that day to this, they have not heard of me. Do you love wild flowers?’
‘Wild flowers?’
‘Yes. Here are heaps just from the teeming garden. Look, too, how yon cherub twines them in her hair. The stream flows deep to eternity!’
‘Mr. Jordan, sir,’ I cried. ‘Mr. Jordan, do you know me.’
‘Come hither, laughing, gentle spirit,’ he said, ‘bring with you your heap of floral gems. Yes, I know this is the sweet violet. Mary, my Mary; God knows I love you.’
It was a strange thing but, at the moment the blind of the window, which I had drawn up to the top, came suddenly rattling down, and the room was quite dark. I raised it again, and then turned to the bed,
Mr. Jordan was a corpse!
What a remarkable change had in these few moments come over the old man’s face. The sharp lines of age had all disappeared, and there was a calm, benign expression upon the still features, such as in life I never saw them wear.
‘A restless spirit is at peace,’ I said, as I felt for the will where he told me it was placed, and found it. It was merely tied up with a piece of red tape, and addressed to Mr. Shaw, 20, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields; so I resolved to trust no other messenger, but to take it in my hand myself. I told the landlady of the house that her lodger was no more; and that she would no doubt hear immediately from his solicitor, and then I left.
‘Well, Mr. Shaw,’ I said, after I had mentioned to him the manner of Mr. Jordan’s death, ‘here is the will, sir, and I presume I have nothing further to do than to thank you for your courtesy, and bid you good evening.’
‘Stay a moment,’ he said. ‘Let me look at the document. Humph! a strange will. He leaves the form of an advertisement here, which is to be inserted in the morning papers, calling his relations together, to here the will read.’
‘Indeed!’
‘Yes, Well, I shall, as I see I am named trustee, do as he wishes. He states that he is very poor.’
‘Why, he spoke to me of £20,000.’
‘Did he really? A delusion, sir, quite a delusion. £20,000! He had that amount twenty-five years ago. But, sir, as you have attended him, and as I happen to know he had a high opinion of you, I should like you, as his friend, to be with me, as it were, in future proceedings connected with his will!”
‘In which there is a mystery, eh! Mr. Shaw!’
‘A little—perhaps a little bit of post mortem revenge, that is all, which I am not now at liberty to descant upon. But I will take care to coincide with you, and I shall hope that you will follow the old fellow to the grave.’
I promised that much, and duly attended the funeral. It was a quiet, walking affair, and from the manner of it I felt quite convinced that there were not funds to make it otherwise. A mound of earth alone marked the spot in the little church-yard at Barnes, where Mr. Jordan slept the sleep that knows no waking. A drizzling rain came down. The air was cold and eager, and I returned home from the funeral of Mr. Jordan, about as uncomfortable as I could.
o o o o o o
The next day the following advertisement appeared in a morning paper, and caught my eye as I sat at breakfast:
‘If any of the relations of Mr. John James Jordan, deceased, will call at the office of Mr. Shaw, 20, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, they will hear of something advantageous.’
I made up my mind to call upon Mr. Shaw during the day, and about three o’clock, I reached his chambers, or rather I reached the stair-case leading to them, and there I had to stop, for it was quite besieged by men and women, who were all conversing with great eagerness.
‘What can it mean?’ said an old woman; ‘I’m his aunt, and of course I speak for my Ned!’
‘Well, but bother your Ned,’ said a man, ‘he hardly really belongs to the family. I’m his brother. Think of that, Mrs. Dean.’
‘Think of what, you two-legged goose?’
‘Pho, pho,’ said another man, ‘I knew him very well. I’m his cousin. Hilloa! what’s this? Who are you?’
A woman in tattered garments, but who still looked like a beautiful one, stood hesitatingly at the foot of the stairs.
‘Is this Mr. Shaw’s?’ she said. ‘Hush, Mary, hush! don’t my dear.’ ‘But I am hungry, mamma,’ said the little girl, who was holding her by a handful of her dress.
‘Oh, Mary—do not dear; we—we shall soon go home. Hush, dear, hush, hush! Is this Mr. Shaw’s?’
‘Yes,’ said a fat woman, ‘and who is you, pray?’
‘I—I saw an advertisement. I am his aunt Grace’s only child. My name is Mary Grantham. This is my only child. She—she is fatherless and has been so for many a day,’
‘What,’ cried a man, ‘are you the Mary he broke his heart about?’
‘Broke his fiddlestick,’ said the fat woman.
‘Good God, do I live to hear that!’ exclaimed the woman with the child.
‘You had better go up to the solicitor at once,’ whispered I. ‘Come, I will show his door,’
I made a way for her through the throng of persons, and we soon reached the chamber.
‘Here is another of Mr. Jordan’s relations, Mr. Shaw,’ said I, ‘I find you have had quite a levee.’
‘I have indeed, doctor. You must come at twelve o’clock, next Monday, madam, when the will of Mr. Jordan will be read by me to all around.’
‘I thank you, sir.’ She was about to leave the chambers, when I interposed.
‘Pardon me, madam,’ I said. ‘But as I was the only person with Mr. Jordan, at the time of his decease, I wish to ask you a question. If I mistake not, your name was the last that passed his lips. ‘Mary, my Mary,’ he said, ‘God knows that I loved you!’
She sank into a chair, and burst into tears.
‘You, then,’ I added, ‘are the Mary whom he loved. Ah, why did you not, if you can weep for him now, reciprocate the passion?’
‘I did love him,’ she cried; ‘God knows, and he, who is now with his God, knows how I loved him. But evil tongues came between us, and we were separated. He was maligned to me, and I was wearied by entreaties and tears, until I married another. She, who has turned me from him, and severed two hearts that would and should have been all the world to each other, confessed the sin upon her death-bed.’
‘Who was it?’ said Mr. Shaw.
‘His mother! From no other source could I have believed the tales I was told. But I did not then know enough of the world to think that there were mothers who could malign their own children. We were separated–my husband died, leaving me that last little one, of many. We are very, very poor—no one will help us—an acquaintance showed me the advertisement, and urged me to come—it was a false hope. But I find that there are strong arms and brawling tongues below, that I can not contend against.’
‘Never mind that,’ said the solicitor; ‘it is my duty to read the will on Monday, and as a relation it is your duty to attend at the same time. I tell you to have no expectations.’
I saw Mr. Shaw try to slip some money into her hand, and I saw a crimson flush come over her face as she said, ‘We can still work:’ and then, fearing she had been harsh to one who wished to be kind, she shook his hand in both of hers, and said. ‘God bless you, sir, I thank you from my heart.’
Bang, bang! came to the door of the chamber, a minute after Mary had left, and upon its being opened, a man of about six and thirty made his appearance.
‘Something advantageous!’ he gasped, for he was out of breath; ‘what—what is it? Give it me, give it me! How much? Good God, don’t let any body else have it. I’m his youngest brother—give it to me.’
‘If you will attend here at 12 o’clock on Monday, the will will be read.’
Bang, bang, bang!
‘I’m thoroughly besieged,’ said Mr. Shaw; ‘now, madam, who are you?’
‘Something advantageous,’ screamed a masculine looking woman;
‘I’m a relative—what is it? Come on, my dears. Here’s my five dear daughters, and my baby—come along.’
‘Be off with you,’ cried the younger brother.
‘Did you speak to me, you wretch,’ said the lady, and she planted a blow in his face that made him reel again. ‘Take that; I know you are a sneaking hound; you used to be called the chimpanzee in the family, you poor, scorched-up-looking bundle of cat’s-meat.’
Several more arrivals now took place, and poor Mr. Shaw was fairly bewildered. Sounds of contention arose on the staircase—shrieks from family combatants came upon our ears, and finally, I advised Mr. Shaw to paste a placard on the outer door of his office, on which was written,
‘The will of Mr. Jordan will be read here on Monday next, at twelve o’clock, precisely.’
The riot gradually subsided. The evening came on, and all the relations of the deceased had been and gone. Mr. Shaw and I supped together, and I promised to be with him punctually at twelve o’clock on Monday, for I was as curious as anybody could be to hear the will read, and at all events, anticipated a bustling scene upon the occasion. I was not doomed to be disappointed.
o o o o o
It is a habit of mine rather to be too soon than too late, and in the present instance I found it a most useful one, for I really almost doubt if I should have got into the chambers of Mr. Shaw at all, if I had been later than I was.
I had fairly to push Mrs. Mary Grantham in, despite a vigorous opposition; and a man stopped my own entrance, crying—
‘Who are you? What relation are you?’
‘His grandfather’s uncle,’ said I; ‘and if you don’t make way I’ll pull the nose off your face.’
It was well that Mr. Shaw occupied very spacious chambers, or otherwise he could not have accommodated one-half of the persons who came to the reading of the will; and never in all my life did I see such malignant looks pass from one to another, as shot from the eyes of the relations. It was a most pitiful picture of human nature.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mr. Shaw; ‘ahem! ahem!’
There was a death-like stillness.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am commissioned to read to you the—the —what shall I call it?—it is hardly a will—of the late Mr. Jordan. No, it certainly ought not to be called a will, for a will, properly speaking, is a testamentary—”
‘Read, read, read!’ cried a dozen voices.
‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to see you are all in respectable mourning.’
‘Except one,’ said the younger brother; ‘there’s his Mary, that he was so fond of. Oh, dear me! she only comes for what she can get.’
Mrs. Grantham burst into tears. There was a little shabby piece of black crape upon her arm, and another upon the arm of her child.
‘I—I could not,’ she said; ‘ I could not do more. God help me! I had not the means!
‘Read, read, read!’ cried all the voices.
‘Ahem!’ said Mr. Shaw, reading; ‘I, John James Jordan, being very poor, and having in vain called upon every relation I have in the world, for assistance, and found none, have to state that my heart was filled with bitterness and uncharitableness toward them. But still I think that they are not dead to all feeling; and this being my last will and testament, I desire that my debts, amounting to the sum of one pound, three shillings, and eight pence, be paid forthwith of my estate; that my funeral be strictly private, in Barnes churchyard, where I last parted with one whom I loved, but who has gone abroad, I am told; and to that one of my relations who will erect a tombstone, I bequeath—
‘Hark! will you!’ cried one; ‘be quiet. Go on—yes, yes. Oh: you wretch, where’s your feelings! Go to the devil!’
‘Really, ladies and gentlemen,’ said I, ‘this is most indecorous.’
‘I bequeath,’ continued Mr. Shaw, ‘my dying blessing and forgiveness.’
Mr. Shaw then folded up the will and put it into his pocket, saying— ‘I wish you all good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I sold the few clothes and other matters he died possessed of, and paid for the funeral, and his debts; being myself minus one shilling and four pence, which I hope you will some of you pay.’
It is quite impossible by any words to fairly depict to the reader the appearance of Mr. Jordan’s relations at this moment. If the fabled Gorgon’s head had suddenly appeared, and transformed them all to stone, they could not have looked more completely paralyzed and panic-stricken.
‘A tomb-stone!’ shrieked twenty voices. ‘A tombstone!’
‘A tombstone!’ said Mr. Shaw. ‘A small one would not cost much. You could put on it a suitable inscription. Here lies—’
‘Lies here—never mind,’ said the brother. ‘Never mind. I—I—Oh, that’s all, is it.’
‘You are a humbug,’ said the masculine woman to Mr. Shaw, ‘and so was old stupid Jordan.’
‘Go to the deuce, all of you,’ shouted another; ‘a tombstone indeed.’
Mr. Shaw was wiping his spectacles.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to add,—’
‘Oh, stuff, stuff! Bother! A tombstone indeed; I shan’t stay another moment. An old thief. I wish a tombstone had been down his throat. Come on! Come on! It’s all a do.’
‘But, ladies and gentlemen.—’
They were quite deaf to the remonstrances of Mr. Shaw, and in a few moments the chambers were quite clear, with the exception of Mrs. Mary Grantham, who was sobbing bitterly. She then rose, and looked at me hesitatingly. Then she looked at Mr. Shaw, and she seemed to be struggling to say something. She placed her hand in her bosom, and drew forth a ring tied to a black ribbon, and then, with a convulsive effort she spoke.
‘This—this ring—it is my only valuable possession. It was given to me thirty years ago, by him who is now no more, my cousin John, who loved me. I have clung to it in pain and in sorrow, in difficulty and in distress; I have never parted with it. I seemed to be but only separated from him while I had it near my heart. But now, great distress forces me—to—to part with it. Will—will neither of you gentlemen buy it of me. I—I shrink from its going into the hands of utter strangers.’
‘Humph!’ said Mr. Shaw; ‘there are a couple of sovereigns for it.’
She took the money, and then, after one long, lingering look, and a fervent kiss at the ring. she laid it on the table. and tottered from the place. I was about to follow her, but Mr. Shaw held me back.
‘Hold! hold!’ he said.
‘You are a brute sir,’ said I. ‘Take your hands off me; I will buy the ring of you and give it back to her. It breaks her heart to part with it, I see,’
‘I shan’t part with it,’ he said; ‘you are a very hasty man, doctor.’
I was very angry, and bounced out of the office. I looked eagerly about for Mrs. Grantham, but could not see her. I walked hurriedly across the square, and as chance would have it. I went in the same direction she did. My first impulse was to speak to her, and my second thought was to follow her, and to see where she went. She crossed Holborn, and traversed some of the long streets that lead into the New Road, where she arrived at last, and finally paused at a stone-mason’s yard.
I could have shed tears at that moment, for now I felt why she had parted with her cherished ring. She stayed about a quarter of an hour at the stone-mason’s, and then she came out and walked slowly away. I did not follow her further, but I went into the mason’s yard, and said to him—
‘Did that lady give you an order?’
‘Why, yes, sir, such a one as it is. She has got me to do a stone for two pounds, and she’s paid me. I’m to meet her at the churchyard at Barnes to-morrow morning at nine o’clock with it. and put it up. It’s only to have on it the name of John James Jordan. and under that. ‘God bless him.’
I walked away with a sort of mist before my eyes, and it was an hour before I recovered my composure. ‘I will meet her,’ thought I, ‘at the grave of her last love, and I will be a friend to her, if she never have another in the world. She shall have her ring again, if I force it from the lawyer. She shall have it. I’ll go and get it now, at once.’
I suppose I looked in a very tolerable passion when I got back to Mr. Shaw’s chambers, for he got behind a table when he saw me, and said— ‘Come, come, no violence.’
‘Hark you, sir,’ said I; ‘you have got the ring. There’s your money. Give it me directly, sir. Mrs. Grantham, poor thing, is going tomorrow morning, at nine o’clock, to place a stone at the grave of Mr. Jordan, and I intend to be there and give her her ring.’
‘Oh! very well. Bother the ring. I don’t want it. It ain’t worth half the money I gave for it. There it is; don’t bother me.’
I took up the ring, then put down two sovereigns, and casting upon him a withering look, which, to tell the truth, he did not seem much to care about, I left the chambers.
o o o o o
A soft. damp, white mist covered up all objects, and made the air uncommonly raw and chilly, as on the following morning, just as the clock of the church at Barnes chimed the three-quarters past eight, I entered the churchyard.
The first thing I then did, was to fall over somebody’s grave, for I was looking for Mrs. Grantham, instead of minding where I was walking; and then a voice said—
‘There you go again, as violent as usual, doctor;’ and in the dim mist I saw Mr. Shaw, the solicitor, to my great surprise.
I was going to say something, but at the moment I was nearly knocked down again, by some one brushing past me. A gleam of sunshine came out, and the mist began to clear away, when a most singular scene presented itself. A few yards off was the grave of Mr. Jordan, and kneeling by it was Mary, his first love, with her child by her side. Mr. Shaw stood to my left, and at his feet there knelt a respectable looking young man—I recollected him as Mr. Shaw’s clerk.
“Good God! Richards,’ said Mr. Shaw, ‘is that you? What is the matter?’
‘Oh! sir,’ said Richards. ‘I have come to ask your forgiveness. The spirit of my poor old father stood by my bedside all night. Oh, God! oh, God! it was dreadful; and I knew what it was for. Oh! sir, forgive me. I—I peeped into the will, sir, while you went out to dinner—Mr. Jordan’s will—and—and I went round to all the relations, and sold the secret for two pounds a-piece, and—and—’
Mr. Shaw gave a jump that astonished me.
‘Doctor, doctor,’ he shouted; ‘for God’s sake run down the London road and bring the man with the gravestone. Oh! good gracious. Oh! d——n you, Richards. Ha! ha! ha! Oh! here he is. Oh! bless you for a prudent stone-mason; you shall get well paid for this job. Hip! hip! Hip!—hurrah!’
I thought, to be sure, that Mr. Shaw must have gone mad. There was a man looking over the railing of the church-yard, with a spade on his shoulder; to him Mr. Shaw said—
‘Five guineas for that spade.’
The man thought he was mad, and tried to run away; but he dropped the spade; and in another moment Mr. Shaw’s coat was off, and he was digging away like fury.
‘Where’s the stone!’ he cried: ‘bring the stone. That’s right. Poke it in—prop it up. That’s the thing—all’s right. Here we are. Another knock. All’s right—all’s right.’
‘Lor!’ said the stone-mason, as he lifted up his hands; ‘look there!’
I looked in the direction he indicated, and there, to my astonishment, I saw arriving, carts, coaches, cabs, and wheel-barrows, and each containing a tombstone. A regular fight ensued at the entrance of the churchyard; and engaged in the fight I recognized the relations of Mr. Jordan. Heavens, how they cuffed each other!
‘Hold!’ cried Mr. Shaw; ‘you are all too late, although you had information you ought not to have had. There is already a stone on Mr. Jordan, and placed, too, by the only one who knew not what you all know. Listen to the conclusion of the will—‘And to that one of my relations who will erect a tombstone to my memory, I bequeath my blessing and forgiveness, and eighty thousand pounds in bank stock.’ ‘Madam,’ to Mrs. Grantham, ‘I congratulate you.’
‘And there’s your ring.’ said I; ‘Mr. Shaw, let us shake hands; I understand you now.’
‘Ha! ha!’ said Mr. Shaw, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you had better all of you keep the tombstones for yourselves. You can get the name altered, for if you don’t, I’m very much afraid you will not find them
SOMETHING ADVANTAGEOUS.’
The Cincinnatus, Vol. 1, 1857: pp. 31-40
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil does so like a happy ending…. Except, possibly for Mr Shaw’s clerk, who will, it seems likely, lose his situation. And possibly for the greedy relatives, although, to be fair, tombstones can be easily altered or even re-sold to recoup their losses. One predicts that some of the tombstones will be soon needed, as Mr Jordan’s volatile relations succumb to chagrin-induced apoplexies.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
The shocking story reported from Greece about a woman thought to have died of cancer, screaming from the grave, brought to mind the many stories of burial alive from the 19th- century press. This was something of an obsession for many people. Some even requested that their throat or veins be cut or that their heart be pierced or removed to ensure that they would not be buried alive. Today we look at one man’s fears and pitiful ante-mortem request: to have his sisters stab him to the heart.
INTO HIS HEART
The Remarkable Ante-mortem Request of a New York Druggist.
He Dreamed That He Would Be Buried Alive, and His Sisters Were Asked to Pierce His Heart With a Dagger After Death
How the Request Was Carried Out in Every Particular.
New York, Dec. 11 One of the most weird and tragic scenes ever witnessed in a chamber of death was the one which was enacted yesterday in the room where Druggist George W. Fay died. It took the form of the execution of a dying request, which called for a keen pointed poniard being thrust into his heart, so that all doubts as to his burial alive should be removed. This precaution was also taken with the full acquiescence of the deceased’s three sisters, who up to the last moment could hardly realize that their brother was dead, so life like did he appear as he lay in his casket. They were, therefore, fully determined to allay their apprehensions and resorted to the heroic method of an application of a steel blade.
Mr. Fay died thirteen days ago. He was a well-known druggist in the ton of Hammonton, N.J., and was proprietor of one of the largest pharmacies in that place. He was taken sick Nov. 12. He was a widower, his wife having died several years before, leaving him a child, a little girl, who is at present in a convent.
Two nights before his death Mr. Fay suddenly sat upright in bed. He glared wildly about him and clutched the bedclothing. Large beads of perspiration stood out on his brow, and his breathing came thick and fast. His elder sister, who had dozed off in a chair near the bedside of her sick brother, was startled at the loud and rapid gasps for life. She was terrified at his appearance for an instant, but recovered from her fright when he beckoned to her to approach. She asked him what was the matter. It was several minutes before he could speak, and then in a disjointed way the patient told her that he had just had a terrible dream. He said that the dream pictured him as having fallen into a trance. He remained in this condition he said, for days, and his friends and sisters thought he was dead.
He described how in his dream he was laid in his coffin, and he heard the preparations made for his funeral. “O, Matilda,” said the dying man to his sister. “It was a most dreadful dream. I was conscious of all that was going on about me. I could hear your sobs as you bent over my dead body, when taking a last farewell. I realized everything that was going on around me, and that was what made it more terrible. I distinctly heard every word that was said, and yet I was powerless to help myself or move a muscle to betray the fact that life still remained in my poor, wasted form. I heard the minister’s words when the services for the dead were read the day of my funeral. I seemed to experience a choking sensation when the undertaker screwed down the lid upon the coffin. At that moment I made an almost superhuman effort to cry out, but could not utter a sound. I felt the coffin raised and borne away. I fairly shuddered as I was lowered into the grave prepared for me, and again I tried to make known the fact that I as alive, but I could not do so. I was like an image of marble. I could not even give vent to a wink or a nod.
“When the grave diggers began to throw down the sods of earth upon the coffin I again tried to cry out. I felt myself growing weaker, while my mental faculties began to fail me. At that moment a sudden desperate impulse possessed me, and with an effort that I had not been able before to summon to my aid, I burst open the top of the coffin and sat bolt upright in my funeral shrouds. I heard the shouts from the above, and then I fainted away.”
After reciting his awful dream the dying man sank back in his bed. He asked his sisters to satisfy themselves that he was dead before they buried him. He was fearful lest the dream was a premonition of his approaching fate. The following night he had a similar dream, which he recounted to his sisters, and it proved to be even a more thrilling experience than his former one. Then it was that he called them to his bedside and begged them to thrust a dagger into his heart before they buried him.
“My death is to be a hard one, I believe,” said he. “Those horrible dreams are full of meaning, and I have always had a horror that I would go into a trance, and be buried alive. It is not at all improbable that these terrible dreams were superinduced by these thoughts, but I cannot throw off the feeling that I will be buried alive if some precaution is not taken to guard against it.
“Now, dear sisters, I feel I am about to die. I feel that I will go into a trance from which I shall never awaken, so as my dying and last request promise me that you will faithfully carry out what I am about to request of you. It is this: Do not bury me if you have the slightest doubts as to my death. Keep my body until signs of dissolution are apparent. Keep me for weeks if necessary. If then you have reason to believe that I am still among the living, end my terrible sufferings by thrusting this dagger through my heart and leave it there.”
The dying man held up a keen, pointed, new pearl handled dagger, which he passed to his sisters and then sank back to the bed. In a few minutes he apparently died, but not before his sisters had promised him that they would carry out his last wish.
The body was kept until yesterday in order that Druggist Fay’s dying request might be observed to the letter. Ever since his death the body has rested in a rich casket in the front room. The sisters watched it day and night. In his coffin Fay looked like a man in robust health. His cheeks were full of color and his whole appearance was that of a person calmly sleeping. His sisters refused to permit his body to be buried. At the end of a week the life-lie appearance of the body had not changed, and even the physicians who examined it had doubts as to the presence of death. Great interest was manifested in the case by the residents of Hammonton, and it came to be regarded as one of the strangest phenomena of its kind that had ever occurred in the country. As the days went by and the body was kept above ground interest increased. The body still preserved all the appearance of life and the sisters resorted to electricity with a view of bringing about some kind of action in the body. At the earnest solicitations of relatives, the sisters agree last Saturday that if more distinct signs of life did not appear by the morrow they would carry out to the letter the dying wish of their brother. For the first time faint signs of dissolution began yesterday to manifest themselves and the sisters appeared to be reconciled. They also notified their friends of their intention of carrying out their brother’s wish, and would have the dagger he had handed them plunged into his heart.
Preparations were accordingly made for the tragic event. The physician who granted the death certificates signified his willingness to officiate. Word was sent to the immediate relatives and they came as witnesses. The dead man’s little daughter arrived from the convent in the custody of an aunt—and took a last farewell of her father. The body was lying in a front room between the windows. The top of the casket had been removed and the shroud had been thrown on one side so as to make the region of the heart accessible. An aperture was made in the under garments with a pair of scissors, and the severed flaps held back by pins, exposing the surface of the skin directly above the heart. The skin was of a faint red color. After all the friends and neighbors had taken a last leave of the deceased, only the immediate relatives and the physician remained, and the others left the room.
The street outside the house was lined with hundreds of persons who had assembled out of curiosity. Their gaze alternated between the windows of the room in which the body lay and the piece of black crape which had fluttered form the handle of the doorbell for thirteen days.
In the meantime the sisters and relatives congregated around the casket and wept. The bright dagger, which was to allay their doubt lay upon the dead man’s breast. The physician came forward and unhesitatingly picked it up, and placing the point directly in the center of the exposed space of the skin, with a quick thrust the keen point was plunged downward into the dead druggists’ heart. The physician said that not a drop of blood came from the wound made by the dagger.
The little dagger was left in the body, the pearl handle protruding. The sisters breathed a long drawn sign of relief when their brother’s last wish had been executed. The undertaker then stepped forward and closed down the lid. The relatives and friends retired to the carriages, which followed the body to the cemetery. Here services were read, and all that was mortal of Druggist Fay was laid away to rest.
Kansas City [MO] Times 12 December 1890: p. 9
What a thoroughly melodramatic tale! So much so that I wondered if Mr. Fay existed at all. Additional news items confirm that the events above are likely to have taken place very much as they are related.
THEY THINK HE’S IN A TRANCE
A Very Lifelike Appearance Returns After Death to Mr. Fay’s Face.
May’s Landing, Nov. 23. About ten or twelve days ago George W. Fay, who is a druggist of Hammonton, about twelve miles from here, was confined to his bed with an abscess of the brain. Later dropsy appeared, and on Tuesday evening last he undoubtedly died. He was pronounced dead by the attending physicians. His limbs were then much swollen and his face much discolored. On Thursday morning members of his family were much surprised to find that the swellings had almost entirely disappeared and a lifelike look had come back into his face. His cheeks became red and under his left ear a small bright red spot appeared. The family concluded to postpone the funeral until Friday. On that day, as no other signs of life had appeared, the body was taken to the cemetery for interment. The funeral sermon was preached and the coffin was opened for the friends and relatives to view the remains. At this time the face appeared so lifelike that the family refused to allow the burial to take place, and insisted on the body being taken back to the house again. This was done, and now the family anxiously await further developments. Many are of the opinion that Mr. Fay is in a trance.
Mr. Fay kept a large rug store in Hammonton. Once he had to serve a term in the county jail for illegal liquor selling. He was so popular that on his release the Court House bell was rung and hundreds flocked to escort him to his home. The Sun [New York, NY] 24 November 1890: p. 2
Spirits Didn’t Work.
Mays Landing, N.J., Dec. 4. The body of George W. Fay, a prominent druggist of this place, was buried in Green Mount cemetery about two miles from Hammonton, this afternoon. Fay died 16 days ago, but his three sisters, who are spiritualists, would not consent to his burial, believing that he would return to life. The corpse still retained its life-like appearance, the cheeks being as red as roses. Not for one moment during the past 16 days have the sisters left the corpse They took turns in watching the lifeless form of their brother, and have not doubted or lost faith in the spirits. The other spiritualists of the place had long ago given up the idea that Fay was alive and were anxious for the burial to take place. Vancouver [BC] Daily World 4 December 1890: p. 1
It is rather unusual to ask family members to do the dire deed; more often the family doctor was called in. One can only shudder at the thought of a loved one coming to life too late at the point of a knife. Other stories of coups de grâce gone wrong? Sharpen well before sending to Chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.
A Peculiar but Profitable Mode of Gaining a Livelihood.
A reporter met a crape-chaser the other day for the first time to know who and what he was. It was in a local florist’s shop. A rather seedy and lugubrious individual entered. In his hand he carried a small wire frame with wire lettering. It was apparent that it was one of those frames used by florists in preparing wreaths and the like on the occasion of funerals.
The florist seemed to know the newcomer, and he saluted him familiarly.
“Well, Jim, what is it?” he asked.
“Just a few scraps,” said the melancholy one, “funeral’s this afternoon.”
“Well. I can’t do much for you to day, Jim,” said the florist Then he rummaged among his flowers for a few minutes and finally handed Jim a few bunches of withered flowers and fern. “It’s the best I can do,” he said.
“’Never mind,” said the melancholy one, “I reckon I can make ‘em do!” Then he went away as lugubrious as he was when he came.
“Lost some of his family?” the reporter asked.
“Gracious, no, answered the florist with a laugh. “Jim never had any family that I’ve heard of. Jim is a crape chaser, you know.” The reporter didn’t know, and then he was enlightened as to crape chasers. These gentlemen seem to have shown a very considerable degree of originality in their selection of a calling.
They form a portion of that army of persons who in one wav or another make a living out of the fact that men must die. Some of the original members of the army have dropped out of the ranks for good and for all. The professional mourner, for instance, is no longer to be seen. He is no longer an institution respected even by the small boys in the streets.
The crape chaser is another sort of a tradesman. If he was vain-glorious he might call himself a florist, although that would be rather stretching the matter, since he bears about the same relation to a florist proper that a penny cake stand bears to a full-fledged bakery.
The crape chaser’s mode of procedure is simple. He reads the death columns of the daily papers every morning, hangs about undertaker’s establishments in the tenement districts waiting for accounts of deaths. He pays no attention save to those that occur in poor families. He is at the scene of death as soon as or before the crape is hung on the door. He goes armed with frames that are appropriate for floral pieces.
By the exercise of any wile that may seem to fit the occasion he manages to secure interviews with some member of the bereaved family. The crape-chaser displays his frames. He argues that he can supply floral pieces much cheaper than any florist will, and this is true, although he does not tell why he can.
Sometimes he fails to obtain orders, but many more times he succeeds, and in his way does a more or less profitable business, for although he sells so much cheaper than a florist with the flowers he uses for wreaths and the like are the odds, ends and outcastings of the florist’s stock. So his profits are fully in proportion to his outlay.
The trade has its ramifications too. Near one of the local cemeteries there is a man who makes a business of buying up the rusty old frames when the graves are cleaned from time to time and the wrecks of floral pieces taken from them. He cleans and repaints the frames, and then sells them for a song. The crape chasers are his best customers. And so this queer business is carried on. N. Y. Mail and Express.
The Victorian Book of the Dead 