The Unexpected Benefits of Corsets

Throughout the Victorian period, many people inveighed against corsets for damaging women's bones and bodies - 'tight-lacing' was recognised as a vice, although widely-practised. Corsetry, however, made of whalebone, had one advantage you rarely hear about  [my italics] ...

HATTON-GARDEN. ATTEMPTED MURDER. George Bailey, a youth about seventeen, was charged with having attempted to murder Mary Prendergast, a young woman, by stabbing her with a large knife. It appeared in evidence that on Thursday morning, last, about five o'clock, the Prisoner, who sells fish in a basket near Portpool-lane, Leather-lane, Holborn, was standing before his basket when the Prosecutrix asked him the price of his fish. He told her, and she refused to purchase, but laughed at him and jeered him.. . . . In the course of the evening the Prosecutrix was passing by, when the Prisoner rushed upon her with a knife which he uses to cut up the fish and, while in a great passion, he pluinged the knife several times at her heart, and the last thrust the point of the knife dug into her clothes, and would have entered her body had it not been that the bone of her stays prevented it ...  [Morning Post, 1833]

MARLBOROUGH-STREET. - AN UNNATURAL SON - Alfred Grant, a lad about nineteen years of age, of sullen aspect, was brought before Mr. Dyer, charged with having attempted to stab his own mother . . . James Grant, the brother of the prisoner, about sixteen years of age, said the prisoner came home to Grafton-street, Soho, on Monday afternoon, and some words having ensued between him and his mother, he seized a knife and made a stab at her. Fortunately the bone of his mother's stays turned the point of the knife ... [The Standard, 1837]

Catherine Connor, the person alluded to by the last witness, and who is in a state of pregnancy, deposed that she kept a fruit stall opposite to the Phoenix public-house and that on seeing the young man so savagely treated, she made use of the experssions just named, when Hill called her a --------, and kicked at her violently. Fortuantely for her she received two of the worse kicks aimed at her on the bone of her stays, otherwise they would, she had no doubt, have proved most serious to her from the situation she was then in. [The Morning Post, 1841]

Knifing cases involving corsetry are legion. Shootings, more rare - but you don't have to be a forensic scientist to suggest that, even in gun crimes, a corset might save your life:

Emil Fanselow, 24, a German waiter, was brought up on remand .... charged with shooting Clara Byford, his fellow-servant, at 1 Southwick-crescent, Hyde-park, with a revolver, and also with attempting to commit suicide . . . The injured woman was now in attendance for the first time, and, although the bullets have not been extracted from her body, she has almost entirely recovered . . . . On the evening of the 19th December she went into the prisoner's pantry for something, and he came up to her and kissed her, without a word being said. She said, "Be quiet, I am very cross with you," and went into the kitchen and laid the tea. A quarter of an hour after she went into the pantry to get some cups an saucers, and the prisoner came up to her, and she pushed him away. She was turning round to put some cups on the tray when he fired at her again [sic]. She heard the report and felt a pain in her side. She turned and looked at him, and he fired at her again. She said, "Oh, Emil, you have shot me!" He made no reply. She ran upstairs, and her mistress took her to the bedroom. She was conscious all this time. The stays produced were those she wore at the time. The two burns of them round the bullet-holes were made by the shots. [Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 1882]

So, ladies, if you live in a rough neighbourhood ... think whalebone!

Bang! You're dead!

BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!

One of the things I'm always trying to tell people about the Victorians, is - contrary to our traditional view - how much they liked to have fun. Public entertainments of all types flourished in the Victorian period, and one that is largely forgotten is the shooting-gallery. There were no restrictions on fire-arms ownership, and I suspect they weren't even licensed. These establishments were, I think, predominantly small side-show type experiences with air-rifles by the end of the century (cf. the shooting-gallery described in 1850s Bleak House, which is a larger, more professional affair). I'm thinking of including one in my next book, and I've been trawling the press. They were very common places of amusement, and - yes, you guessed it - rather dangerous. Here's two examples of accidents (many can be found!):

 

Samuel Porter, 38, a gentleman described as an engineer of Magheramorne, Ireland, was charged on Tuesday with unlawfully shooting Charles Cresswell, an attendant at one of the rifle saloons of the Royal Aquarium, Westminster. Mr. E. Duncan Rymer, solicitor, who appeared for the accused said he wished at the outset to say that no one regretted this sad occurrence more than his client did. It will be shown that it was a pure accident. - Mr. Safford, the chief clerk, mentioned that the injured man was in Westminster hospital, and he was informed progressing favourably. - Inspector Noviss deposed that at a quarter to nine o'clock on Monday night, he was on duty at the Aquarium and was called to the shooting-gallery, where he found one of the attendants named Cresswell, lying on his back with a bullet-wound in the left breast. The defendant was pointed out as the person who had shot the man. Mr. Porter, who appearance greatly distressed, said he was handed a pistol by Cresswell, and it went off accidentally. He (the inspector) had examined and produced the pistol. He found that there was no trigger guard, and scarcely any trigger. The slightest pressure would discharge the weapon. - Mr. Rymer observed that it was a most dangerous weapon to be used in a place of public entertainment. - The magistrate, after examining the pistol, said he quite agreed with Mr. Rymer's opinion. There was no guard to it, and if a man took it up with the least pressure it must explode. It appeared that the attendant handed the pistol to the accused with the barrel pointed at his own breast. It was a more deplorable accident, but the defendant was not to blame in the least. He was discharged.

POLICEMAN SHOT IN HOLBORN. - David Purcell, 44, confectioner, 39, Verulam-street, Holborn, was charged with being drunk and discharging an air-gun in Leather-lane, to the common danger of the public. Police-constable Scoveil, 471 G, said that on the afternoon of Good Friday he was on duty in Leather-lane, and noticed the prisoner at a shooting-gallery stall. On getting some twelve yards past the stall, he felt something strike the back of his helmet. He turned round sharp, and saw the prisoner with an air-gun to his shoulder, the muzzle pointing at witness. The prisoner, who was under the influence of drink, said he knew nothing about it. The pellet lodging inside the helmet. In defence, the Prisoner said he was having "four shots a penny" and was twisting the gun round, when it went off accidentally. It was stated that the prisoner had only come out of gaol on Thursday. There were several previous convictions against the prisoner for assaults. Mr. Horace Smith now sent Purcell to prison for six months for assaulting the constable.