The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1901-12-04
Vile Selling In England.

There are moro things in England IN
the twentieth century than are dreamt of
IN all our PHILOSOPHERS, says the St. James
Gazette.
Ono of them was revealed in a bank
ruptcy court yesterday. where a Worcest-
ershire farmer declared that he had puc-
chased q neighbours wife for a pipe OF
tobacco. Such things Were common
enough when the world was three gene
rations younger and are common enough
If we are to believe all we hear in rural
England to-day. II is doubtful whether
an old custom ever quite dies out all
over the world, and human beings will
be sold. no doubt, rs 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 neve. be
revived again in England as it was a
hundred years ago
There are sere and vel wv files in Print
ing-HOuse Square which take us back into
a strange England which none Of us have
ever known, and few of us can dream
Of. -Four years before the nineteenth
century dawned-in March, 1796-the Times
announced the sale of wife in Sheffield
for sixpence and a little while afterward
the same paper Solemnly informed the
public that the price of wives had risen
In SInithhelds Market from half a guinea
to three guineas and a 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,
man led his wife by a halter into the
cattle market at Sheffield and sold her
for a. guinea The market value of a wife
seems to have dropped as the century
grew older. for in 1920 a. worthy nus
band at Canterbury placed his wife in a
cattle pen and disposed Of her for five
slIillinEs. The century had run through
more than half its course when the good
people Of Derby had the opportunity OF
tow-nsmen. The woman was led to the
market-place with a. halter round her
waist and was knocked down for eighteen
pence and a quart of beer.
That was in 1865, 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 Alfre-
ton, in Derbystire. for fourpence, 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 a
wife in a public house in the smoky city.
"At the Royal Oak. Sheffield the agree
ment ran: Il. Abra ham Boothroyd, agreed
to sell my wife, Clara, to VIM. Hall. both
of Sheffield, for the sum of five shl-
lings. There is not even the relief in
lEeSe cases OF ConSOllnS one sell WIFI
the reflection that the sale of the wife is
a thing of impulse. Often enough it is
q, deliberate commercial transaction In
cold blood. as in the case that came to
light 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 80 shillings. and the bill Of
sale ran: MIR: to have my wife,
Elizabeth -, free from me forever, to
do as she has mind, this day, December
II. 1893
The notion that a man may sell his
wife and marry again Is incredibly COM
mon among certain classes of the popu-
lation. A prisoner at Leeds on his trial
Cor bigamy pleaded that the charge could
not stand. as he had sold his wife for
shillings siSpence,. 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 Doncaster the circumstan-
ces coming to light in the Police Court.
II. Enoch Childs.' the agreement ran.
SIS quite willing to take Your wife and
children as mine. that is. your wife. Eli
len Tart. and Sarah. John. Henry and
Eliza The paper was signed by the
wife of the purchaser and dated New
Conisborough, March IS, 1896.