"A grinder, named Calton, sold his wife publicly in the market place, Stockport, last Monday week. She was purchased by a shopmate of her husband for a gallon of beer! The fair one, who had a halter round her neck, seemed quite agreeable.—Blackburn Gazette."
The Times of May 24th, 1834, quoting the Paisley Advertiser, says—
"Sale of a Wife.
"Monday night a party of doughty neighbours met in a house in New Sneddon to enjoy a tankard or two of reaming swats, and to decide by which of the rival 'best possible instructors' they were, henceforth, to be enlightened. In the course of the discussion, one of them announced his intention of setting up a dram shop, and stated that there was only one article wanting. 'What was that?' 'A wife!' 'A wife!' exclaimed the host—whose name is as the name of the upper part of the garment in which the humble daughters of St. Mirren delight to conceal their beauties—'I will sell you mine for twenty pounds Scots.' Some higgling took place, in the course of which the virtues of the wife shone out with such conspicuous lustre that her price was raised to twenty pounds sterling. This sum the purchaser agreed to pay, a contract was drawn out, and signed by three witnesses, the conditions of sale being that the money was to be tabled, and the transfer completed by next day, at noon.
"Next day came, and found the seller, the purchaser, and their witnesses once more assembled, discussing at once the terms of agreement and a can of grog. Some of the witnesses seemed to think that the joke was carried far enough, and proposed that the whole proceedings should be nullified on the host forfeiting £1, to be 'melted,' in the house; but the host was too well up to trap to be wheedled out of his £20, and saddled with his wife to boot; he therefore persisted in the fulfilment of the contract, and, as the purchaser was equally averse to a rue bargain, arrangements were put in operation to complete the transaction.
"Meanwhile, the wife, whose good qualities may be judged of by the great rise which took place in her price, while the terms were under discussion, got a hint of the negotiations that were pending, and, being a good deal nettled that her opinion should not have been asked in an affair in which she was so nearly concerned, sallied out to a neighbouring court, known by the name of 'Little Ireland,' and sounded the tocsin of alarm. A much smaller matter than the sale of a wife was enough to agitate 'Little Ireland.' With ire akin to that which animated the bosom of 'Cutty Sark' and her compeers, as they sallied out of Alloway Kirk to avenge themselves on Tam o'Shanter and his mare Meg, sallied out the daughters of Little Ireland to avenge the insult thus offered to one of the best half of creation. Every damsel who could wag a tongue—mercy on us, how numerous a class!—every one who could wield a poker, fender, or pair of tongs, flew to arms, and resolved on a simultaneous attack; while the high contracting parties, and their assistant negotiators were within, discussing terms, wholly ignorant of the storm that was brewing around them. How the victory would have gone it is no way difficult to predict; but before active hostilities commenced, the police arrived, and conveyed the negotiators to the office, where they were detained until the vast crowds which had collected had dispersed, and until security had been given that appearance would be made next day. There the whole party were brought before the magistrates, and looked exceedingly foolish on the occasion. No such an affair as the sale of a wife seems ever to have been heard of in these northern latitudes, and, as the fiscal knew from the parricide case of old, that to prescribe a punishment for a crime was a powerful means to get the crime introduced, he resolved not to be privy to such a doing, and, therefore, restricted his charge to a breach of the peace. The magistrate did not find that a breach of the peace could be brought home to the parties; and, after animadverting in severe terms on the disgraceful nature of such proceedings, and addressing the salesman and purchaser in terms which, we dare say, they will not soon forget, he dismissed them from the bar. The purchaser, who is verging on three score years and ten, seemed to have come into court predetermined to appeal, and declared that a bargain was a bargain; but, with the whisky still buzzing in his head, he appealed at a wrong time, and tabled his shilling before the sentence of dismissal was pronounced."
The lady got the best of it on another occasion, according to the Halifax Express, quoted in the Times of April 4, 1836—
"On Wednesday, May Day Green, Barnsley, was the scene of an extraordinary encounter. A woman beat her husband on the face till the blood flew about; he, in turn, sent the bellman round to proclaim the sale of his wife by auction; but, when he appeared with a halter to sell her, the Amazon rushed upon him again with her fists, and put him to total rout."
As a last example,[24] I will give another, which occurred in London, and which is thus reported in the Times of August 2, 1836—
"Sale of a Wife.