Читать книгу Mornings at Bow Street - J. Wight - Страница 9

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Mr. Thomas Turner was brought before the magistrate on a peace warrant, issued at the suit of his wife, Mrs. Eleanor Turner. There was a world of arguments pro. and con.; but we must content ourselves with a simple narrative of the principal facts.

Mr. and Mrs. Turner were married in September last, at which time he was not much more than seventy-three years old; and she was only fifty-six, the very day they went to church; consequently their experience was not so great as it might have been, had they been older. Nevertheless, they managed to get over the first six weeks, as Mr. Turner said, "pretty tightish." But after that time, his business began to fall off; and then Mrs. Turner, who was by profession a mangler, insisted on his turning the wheel of her mangle for her. Well, he did turn it; and turn it, and turn it, again and again, from six o'clock in the morning till nine at night; and if he did not turn it fast enough, Mrs. Turner boxed his ears; and often, when she had boxed his ears till fire flashed from his eyes, as it were, she would tell him, "though he was a turner by name, he was a poor turner by nature." On the other hand, Mrs. Turner alleged that he had "married her out of a kitchen, what she had lived in eleven long years;" that she had brought him as excellent a character as any man could desire; that she thought she could have done as well with him as she could with a man of twenty or twenty-five years old, but that she was sadly disappointed: for though she found him good for nothing in the world but to turn her mangle, he refused even to do that; or, if he did do it, he did it clumsily, and with grumbling; and he often left off doing it to beat her. Moreover, he had latterly threatened to sell her mangling apparatus; and, because she begged of him not to sell it—as his doing so would be their ruin—he "kicked her shins till they were all manner of colours."

The magistrate asked Mr. Turner what he had to say to this last part of the business.

He said, with his worship's permission, he would tell him.—"He had often promised Mrs. Turner, that he would make her a handsome present at Whitsuntide, if she would only keep her fingers to herself; and as Whitsuntide was now fast approaching, he went out one Monday evening and spouted[9] his watch, to raise funds for that purpose. With the funds so raised, he purchased a spick-and-span new straw bonnet, with ribbons all up a-top of it, quite beautiful to see—so beautiful, indeed, that the ribbons alone cost him a clear five shillings. And with this bonnet, so beautiful, he went home, rejoicing in his heart to think how pleased Mrs. Turner would be, and how happy they should live—for a fortnight at the very least. But he was mistaken. When he got home, he uncovered the bonnet, and, placing it on his hand, he held it up before her, nothing doubting but that she would be delighted at the sight of it; and he had no sooner done this, than she snatched it from his hand, and threw it on the ground, trampled its beautiful ribbons under her angry feet; and, seizing him by the scuff of his neck she bent him down towards the floor, whilst she pummelled him about the head and shoulders, till his very ears sung again. In this dilemma, he had nothing left for it but to kick backwards—donkey-fashion as he called it; and it was by the kicks so given in his own defence, that Mrs. Turner's legs were discoloured."

When Mr. Turner came to this part of his description, in order to show his worship more particularly the manner of his kicking, he kicked out behind with all his might, and in so doing he kicked an officer on the leg with such violence, that the poor fellow was obliged to go limping to a seat, and sit rubbing his shin for half an hour after.

Mrs. Turner strenuously denied having pummelled her husband in the way stated, or in any other way; and eventually he was ordered to find sureties to keep the peace towards her and all the king's subjects.