The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-09
WIFE-sELLING IN ENGLAND.

There are more things in England in
the twentieth century tnan are dreamt of
in all our PHILOSOPHERS. One of them was
revealed in bankruptcy court yester-
Gay, where a Worcestershire farmer de-
clared that he had purchased a neigh
Dor wife for pipe of tobacco. Such
Lungs LINES We're common enough when the
world was three generations younger,
and are common enough if we are to
bel1eVe all we hear in rural England to-
day. 1t is doubtful whether an old Gus
tom ever quite dies out all over the
world, and human beings will be sold 10
DOUBT, as long as there are human beings
TO sell them and human beings to sell
them to. But we may be sure that the
trade in wives will never be revived again
IN England as it was 100 years ago
mere are Sere and yellow files in
Prlntlng house square which take US
PACK INTO strange England which none
OF US nave ever known, and few of us
can dream Of Four years before the
nineteenth mn century dawned-in March.
wife in Sheffield for six pence. and a
little While afterward the same paper
soiemnly informed the public that the
price OF wives had risen in SmithfeId
market from half guinea to three
gulneas and a half. They were good old
times, indeed, for the man who wanted
10 get rld of the woman he had sworn
TO cherish. In 1S0S it is recorded. man
leu ms wife by a halter into the cattle
market at Sheffield and sold her for a
guinea. The market value Of a wife
grew older, for in 1920 a worthy husband
at Canterbury placed his wife in a cat
Tie pen and disposed of her for ) shiIIings
Ing ne century mad run through more than
nan IT'S course when the good people Of
Deroy had the opportunity of buying the
M lte of one of their fellow townsnen
, nHG woman was led to the market place
with a halter round her waist. and vas
Of beer. anu q quart
That was in 1856, but we need not 90
for.
Wlfe trade. Thirty years later-in the
elghties-a collier sold his wife at AFR S,eo
Ton 10 III IN Derbyshire, for four pence, and
IN the same decade, in the wear of grace
IN which the bells rang for the iubiiee 6f
Ine victorian era, two Sheffield men
agreed to the buying and selling of a
W. ht IN III puohc house in the smoky city.
AZ the Royal Oak, Sheffield the agree
Hlent ran, i, Abraham Boothroyd, agreed
70 sell my wife, Clara, to William Hall
S Soin OF ), SShIeeheld, for the sum of five
IN these cases of consoling ones self
with with the reflection that the sale of the
~ MiIe Is th!ng OF impulse. Often enough
II is deliberate commercial transac-
ton in cold BLOOD, as in the CASE fbs+
came to light a few years ago in which
me Wl1e, with her parents and two
e saId Isl met to arrange the terms of the
sac. me price was fixed at 80 shiilings
auu the Dill of sale ran: Mr.. - tn
nave my wife, Elizabeth -. free fror3
tbis forever pe' to do as she has a mind,
NNJb DNS. IL 1855.
Inc notion that a man NAV sell bis
Wl1e and marry again is incredibly COM
mon mon among certain classes of the popu-
tation. A prisoner at Leeds on his trial
for bigamy pleaded that the charge could
not stand, as he had sold his wife for
D snlIIngs pence, and was therefore
entltied to marry again. The case is bare
~ SIX years old, and about the same
time another instance was reported from
a village near Doncaster, the circum-
stances coming, to light in the police
ran, is quite willing to take Your wife
and children as mine. that is your wife
Ellen Tart. and Sarah. John. Henry and
Eliza. The paper was signed by the
W1te OF the purchaser and dated New
Conisborough, March 2S, 1896. st. James