Fall River Hoedown
I have, for years, sung a version of this song with no idea what the correct lyrics are, but now I know them complete, and you can too.
What a snob. I've heard it said she met her Pa and cut him dead...
What a snob. I've heard it said she met her Pa and cut him dead...
posted by Madeleine Robins at 11:46 AM
6 Comments:
Thanks to you and to Margaret.
I've beecome addicted to the Penguin *Famous Trials* series. One of the more lurid is that of Dr. Buck Ruxton, who in 1935 chopped up his common-law wife and his maid and dropped the bits into a ravine. The wife's remains were identified by superimposing her photograph on a photograph of the skull; the living photograph wore a tiara, which made for an even more eerie image than one would expect.
Did you mention liking historic dress? A friend passed on this link to patterns and kits for Victorian bonnets, hats, and caps. The "cottage bonnet" is what Madeleine Smith is shown wearing at her trial.
I'm trying to remember which trial it was (much loved and used by writers of "gothic" novels when I was a young person) at which the huband was accused of killing his wife--who had in fact done herself in inadvertantly by over-use of belladonna drops in her eyes (they dilate the pupils and make the eyes larger and more lustrous, and the poison builds up in the system, and can eventually be fatal--talk about "it's necessary to suffer for beauty!").
And yes, I love historic dress, but my interest is less Victorian and more Georgian/Regency. Still, it's a great bonnet.
I would find Madeleine's story more credible if she hadn't tried to buy prussic acid (a.k.a. hydrocyanic acid) to whiten her hands. There was an urban legend going around that arsenic, which she bought at other times, worked for this purpose, but *none* that prussic acid did the same. The lady had mayhem on her mind. (Is poisoning technically mayhem?)
Somebody put enough poison into L'Angelier to do him in -- there were 82 grains remaining in his stomach after he died, and the lethal dose is 3-8 grains. (Yes, I read the trial records recently at bedtime. For some reason, my husband has stopped drinking cocoa.)
I have to say I'm finding it a little disquieting to read about "Madeleine buying prussic acid." I haven't. Not even once!
Oh. Madeleine Smith. Never mind.
Where would one buy prussic acid in these parts, anyway? That's what's wrong with post-Victorian morals: your neighborhood pharmacist won't sell you the good stuff.
I don't know who your atropine poisoning victim is; if you do run into her, let me know. I've mostly been reading about murderesses lately. Mary S. Hartman's Victorian Murderesses is great fun.
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