21-04-2006, 09:06
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#1
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Resting in Peace
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Accrington
Posts: 12,472
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Notchel Crying
You might be wondering what the hell this is well i found out while doing my family tree and thought you would like to try it hehe
NOTCHEL CRYING
This was a particularly unpleasant custom by which husbands made public announcements through the bellman that they would no longer be responsible for debts contracted by there wives.
So late as 1859 the custom was observed in Accrington.
In march of that year the public bellman went round the town announcing that certain man from that day forward would not be answerable or accountable for any debts which his wife might contract.
On the afternoon of the same day the inhabitants of Accrington heard the other side of the story,the bellman being employed by the wife to announce that as she was upto that day straight with her husband ,
she would not be answerable for any debts he might contract.
She added that she had only been allowed five shillings a week by her husband to find herself and him food and lodgings,
also that he was not over-faithful,and that if he had brought home the money he had given to the other women they could have lived in confort.
Great crowds followed the bellman through the streets, and owing to the scandle the practice happily fell into disuse.
In some places small placards were pasted up on the walls of Accrington to the same ends.
I wonder if it would work these days hehe
Last edited by Mick; 21-04-2006 at 09:10.
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