The Irish standard., 1901-09-21

to believe all we hear in rural Eng
land to-day. 1t is doubtful whether
an old custom ever quite dies out all
over the world, and human beings will
be sold, no doubt, as long as there are
human beings to sell them and hui
man beings to sell them to. But we
may be sure that the trade in wives
will meyer be revived again in England
as it was a hundred years ago.
There are sere and yellow files in
Printing House Square which take
usNback into strange England which
none Of us have ever known, and few
of us can dream of. -Four years be-
fore the nineteenth century dawned,
in March, 1896, the Times announced
the sale of wife in Sheffield for six
pence, and little while afterward the
same paper solemnly informed the
public that the price Of wives had
risen dn Smithfield Market from half a
guinea to three guineas and half.
They were good old times, indeed, for
the man who wanted to get rid of
the woman he had sworn to cherish.
In 1903. it is recorded, a man led his
wife by halter into the cattle market
at Sheffield and sold her for a guinea.
The market value of wife seems to
have dropped as the century grew
older, for in 1920 worthy husband at
Canterbury placed his wife in a cat
tie pen and disposed Of her for shil-
lings. The century had run through
more that half its course when the
good people Of Derby had the opportun-
ity of buying the wife of one of thei,
fellow townsmen. The woman was
led to the market place with a halter
round her waist and was knocked
down for 10 pence and a quart Of
beer.
That was in 1855, but we need not
go back nearly so far for evidence Of
the wife-trade. Thirty years later-in
the eighties-a collier sold his wife at
Alfreton, in Derbyshire, for four pence,
and in the same decade, in the year
Of grace in which the bells rang for
the Jubilee Of the Victorian Era, two
Sheffield men agreed to the buying and
selling of wife in a public house in
the smoky city. cat the Royal Oak,
Sheffield" the agreement ran, 81, Abra-
ham Boothroyd, agreed to sell my
wife, Clara, to William Hall, both of
Sheffield, for the sum of five shillngs."
There ds not even the relief in these
cases Of consoling ones self with the
reflection that the sale Of the wife is
n thing Of impulse. Often enough
it Is deliberate commercial transac.
ton in cold blood, as in the case that
came to light a few years ago in which
the wife, with her parents and two
friends, met to arrange the terms Of
the sale. The price was fixed at 30
shillings, and the bill Of sale ran: "Mr.
- to have my wife, Elizabeth -
free from me forever, to do as he has
mind, this day, Dec. II, 1893"
The notion that a man may sell his
wife and marry again is incredibly
common among certain classes of the
population. A prisoner at Leeds on
his trial for bigamy pleaded that the
charge could not stand, as he had sold
his wife for 3 shillings sixpence, and
was therefore entitled to marry again.
The case is barely six years old, and
about the same time another instance
was reported from village near Don
caster, the circumstances coming to
light in the police court. IT, Enoch
Childs," the agreement ram, "is quite
willing to take your wife and children
rs mine, that is. your wife, Ellen Tart,
and Sarah, John, Henry and Eliza."
The paper was signed by the wife of
the purchaser, and dated "New Conis-
borough, March %, 1896"