SHOW NOTES:

(For complete show notes, including art and links, go to pennydread.com/discord and look in the Season 6 feed)

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01:40: HANGED TODAY IN HISTORY (June 2, 1621): Former fishmonger John Rowse came into a small fortune, which he squandered so completely that his wife and two young daughters were in danger of being made to beg. He decided that rather than going back to work as a fishmonger to earn a living for his family, he’d solve the problem by murdering them. (Special thanks to executedtoday.com, at which much more about this story can be found)

09:45: SWEENEY TODD, THE BARBER OF FLEET-STREET, Chapters 103-105: Todd returns to his shop all smiles, and Johanna is convinced he has murdered Mrs. Lovett. Meanwhile, over at that worthy’s pie-shop, she has hired a neighbour to watch the place, and put the captive cook off with a bottle of wine and a promise to free him within 24 hours after the 4:00 batch of pies goes up. The cook, after seeing the letter, eyes the pie elevator speculatively, seeming to be hatching a scheme … what’s he got in mind, do you think?

52:15: HORRID BROADSIDE: “The Execution of James Bloomfield Rush.” (April 23, 1849) The crime, trial, and execution of a murderer whose scheme to get title to his landlord’s property by murdering the whole family and blaming the relatives with which they were feuding collapsed when his would-be victims recognized him through his false beard and wig.

GLOSSARY OF EARLY-VICTORIAN SLANG USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• FLY MOTS: Cool chicks.
• MILLERS: Prizefighters.
• KNIGHTS OF THE BLADE: Swaggering companions who are boastful of their prowess and may also claim a military rank — Captain, Major, Colonel — that they don’t really have a right to.
• SNICKER: Large liquor glass.
• OLD TOM: Top-shelf gin.
• PRATE ROAST: A loquacious fellow.
• PINKS OF FASHION: Sharp-dressed men.
• GRAANUM GOLD: Old hoarded money.
• TIP OUR RAGS A GALLOP: Run away as fast as we can.
• GRABS: Law enforcement personnel.
• TOUCH, or PUT THE TOUCH ON: To arrest.
• HELL CATS: Dangerous ladies who frequent the “hells” (gambling dens).
• BLACKLEGS: Professional gamblers who cheat to win.
• SPICE ISLANDERS: Swindlers. A double pun: Mace is a spice; a mace-man is a swindler; so a Spice Islander is, as it were, a resident of Swindle Island.
• SPEELING-CRIB: A “hell” (gambling den).
• COVENT GARDEN: London neighbourhood that was, in the Regency and early Victorian, famous as a place where bloods, bucks and choice spirits went to sport their blunt. Upscale gambling hells and brothels were conveniently close by the Royal Opera and Drury-lane Theatre.