A Pageant of Precious Stones: 1894

A Pageant of Precious Stones.

Nothing could have been more brilliant than the recent pageant of precious stones which illuminated the streets of Brussels. The route followed by the novel procession was lined with dense crowds. As night set in the skies were seen to be clouded, and for a moment the weather threatened to put an unceremonious end to the program. A few drops of rain fell, but only to tantalize the spectators, for after a minute or two the downfall ceased. The procession had been formed in the Rue Ducale, and there, until nearly 8 o’clock, it remained a mysterious trail of shadows, the accoutrements of which dimly and mysteriously reflected the flickering lights of the streets. Precisely at 8 o’clock the figurantes lit their torches, the electrical apparatus was set to work and the whole street broke out into a blaze of multi-colored light. Amid enthusiastic cheers the procession was set in motion.

The first car represented Light, being an appropriate reminder that without the aid of the sun the most brilliant of precious stones would be robbed of its beauty. In a gorgeous chariot, covered with silver and blazing with light, the god Phoebus appeared in his most classical form. Following him was an escort of drummers, musicians and torch bearers, all dressed in white and silver, their tunics and casques ornamented with faceted silver plates.

Then came a troop of cavaliers representing the turquoise, the topaz, the amethyst, the sapphire, the diamond, the emerald and the ruby, serving as a sort of summary of the cars and chariots forming the main body of the procession. Of these cars the most admired were the diamond and the ruby. The brilliant white of the one and the glowing red of the other, together with the artistic grouping of the figures on both, formed pictures of real artistic merit. In each case the colors of the precious stones and their geographical associations were admirably represented.

The topaz, with its figurante in a palanquin, and its attendants flourishing gigantic yellow fans, formed an admirable picture of Asiatic luxury. The turquoise car, with its twenty beauties apparelled in blue, and its floating mass of cerulean bijouterie, was also much admired. A miscellaneous cavalcade, representing jewelry, concluded the procession. For nearly three hours this gorgeous display perambulated the boulevards and principal streets.

The Jewelers’ Circular and Horological Review 5 December 1894: p. 45

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: One would give much to have a cinematic or even photographic record of such a brilliant occasion. Normally one thinks of Brussels lace rather than her gemstones, but this cavalcade of gemstones, complete with “figurantes”–those picturesque ladies selected for their faces and figures–sounds perfectly enchanting.

Mrs Daffodil has written before about floral parades in the States, but any “float” adored with a “floating mass of cerulean bijouterie,” must surely surpass even the most lavish productions of nature. One wonders if there were any actual gemstones worn or draped about the cars; if so, the liability cover would have been prohibitive.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Duchess and the Maid: 1907

Cartier diamond tiara, 1908 https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/an-exquisite-belle-epoque-diamond-tiara-by-4196547-details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=4196547&sid=66ae8bde-9d1d-42ac-a709-de1332944877

The Duchess and the Maid,

Walter E. Grogan

Mary, Duchess of Birchester sat in her boudoir in the Birchester town house, which is on the west side of Berkeley Square. She was in a peculiarly dissatisfied mood. Circumstances had combined to ruffle what usually was a complacent personality. She had been on a visit to Burnay— sufficient cause for considerable ruffling. Lord Burnay was a cousin of Birchester’s. It is a well-known truism that the relatives with whom one is hampered by birth are bad, but the relatives forced into one’s reluctant bosom by marriage are infinitely worse. Burnay, in addition to being an acquired relative, was a Cabinet Minister with a theological bent, a cumulation of horrors sufficient to depress the lightest-hearted Duchess. And Mary, Duchess of Birchester was that growing anomaly, a well-born Peeress, and had no humour of the music-hall with which to leaven dull decorum. Bridge was taboo at Burnay—another grievous thing. And, above all, on the way down her jewel-case containing the famous Birchester tiara had been stolen.

The manner of the theft followed the usual custom. It had no spark of originality to relieve its crudeness. There was some bustle at the railway terminus; the footman whose duty it was to look after the precious case had had his attention momentarily distracted, a substitution had been effected, and nothing had been discovered until the arrival at Burnay. The substituted case was a marvel of exactness. The Duchess herself had no apprehension until it was opened in her presence by her maid. A few stones—not precious— were all it contained.

Burnay had contrived to see in this unoriginal theft an intervention of Providence not unconnected with bridge.

“My dear Mary, I hope it will be a lesson,” he had said. “No doubt it is intended as a warning.” Being unconvincing, he invariably spoke impressively.

There had followed interviews with detectives, alert men who persisted in suspecting the unlikeliest people and demanded particulars of her Grace’s occupations, which her Grace found very inconvenient to give.

“My dear Burnay,” she had said, “why do we fuss? The tiara is insured. The What-d’You-Call-‘Em Burglary Insurance people will pay the amount—it was insured for a little more than its actual value, in deference to our family pride. And that’s an end to it. The thing is not very old—not two hundred years. Besides, by now they’ve melted it down or cut it up or done whatever they do to these things.”

“Birchester is my cousin. His only claim to fame was in the possession of that tiara, for as Dukes go nowadays a jewel two hundred years in the family is a notable adjunct to rank. And I like to have famous relatives. That also is unique in the Cabinet.” So had Burnay remonstrated, with other references to bridge “absurdly beside the point,” as the Duchess thought. In conclusion he had evinced some shrewdness. “Besides, my dear Mary, you have not yet received the cheque.”

That fact remained unaltered now, and was largely instrumental in rendering Mary, Duchess of Birchester dissatisfied. To her uncommercial mind the transaction should have been so simple. You insured your jewels against theft, your jewels were stolen, therefore you should at once receive a cheque for the amount. That happy simplicity of procedure had not obtained. She had received not a cheque but letters, admirably typewritten no doubt, but otherwise unsatisfactory. They had a clue, they were making all inquiries, and matters were progressing, were the brief epitomes of the insurance company’s lengthy epistles. She had written in answer that the details of their daily occupations were not at all interesting to her, and she would esteem a cheque by return. By return they had sent her a more than usually alert detective, who had suggested Birchester as the possible conjurer of the case, and had been more curious as to her Grace’s habits and customs than any of his predecessors.

Her Grace had been indignant.

“You don’t know his Grace!’” she had cried. “This theft required practice—it was uncommonly well done. My husband is on the board of only one company, and that does not pay even directors’ fees. You see how impossible it is that this could have been his work. Certainly I play bridge—I daresay you play draughts. But I hardly see how our predilections affect this matter.”

This last alert man had vacated her boudoir only half an hour ago. There were therefore admirable reasons why Mary, Duchess of Birchester was dissatisfied.

A rather peremptory knock at the door hardly roused her. She supposed vaguely that it was another alert detective who would insist upon suspecting the butler. She would have to be firm there. Such a butler as Miggs was not to be replaced. Husbands may be replaced, good butlers never.

The door opened, and a quiet, self-possessed woman of thirty entered. She was dressed in black, and she wore no hat. Her face was more shrewd than pretty, and more capable than handsome. She had a determined mouth and chin, and a certain pride was denoted by the way she carried her head.

“Ah, Parker,” Mary, Duchess of Birchester said, “I thought you had gone home. Surely your mother was dead, or your niece was to be christened?  Something of a family nature, I know. It was on the eve of that annoying journey to Burnay, too, and I had to go without you. With a cousin-in-law’s maid one cannot–Positively, my complexion wore atrociously, Parker. Everyone remarked on my ill looks. And I gave you a fortnight’s leave. I remember I thought it a long time for a funeral or a christening: but I really know nothing of these functions in your sphere of life.”

“I am sorry that I inconvenienced your Grace. I do not think your Grace’s complexion is much the worse.” Her manner of speaking conveyed the impression that she was thinking of something else.

“Oh, my dear woman, I had it renovated directly I got back from that terrible place. Really, Parker, Cabinet Ministers grow more like Dissenting ministers every year. And their wives like Dissenting Ministers’ wives.”

“Never mind them, your Grace.” She spoke sharply.

“I don’t, Parker, I don’t. If I did, life would be unlivable.” Her Grace sighed. “The political woman of our set masquerades in the virtues of the lower orders, and the virtues don’t fit. If one might say it of virtues, they seem a trifle loose.”

“I wish to speak to your Grace.”

“Surely they haven’t suspected you, Parker? Ah, you have been away, but you have heard–?” She closed her eyes wearily.

“I have heard about your loss of the tiara.” There was a distinct note of acerbity in the maid’s voice.

“Ah, yes, you would. I was never in the newspapers before, Parker—never!” Her Grace became querulous. “I used to boast of my immunity from print. Now they have dragged in everything about me. One paper brazenly asserts that I am fond of muffins and eat three for tea. What has that to do with the theft? I ask you, Parker, what possible connection can it have?”

“I wish to speak to your Grace about it.”

“The muffins, Parker?”

“No, the theft. I have taken the liberty of telling Miggs that you are engaged, and will be so for an hour.”

“That was thoughtful of you, Parker. Really, I am being slowly talked to death by detectives.”

“It is a personal matter with me, your Grace.” An angry light gleamed in the eyes of the maid, generally so passively capable.

“Then they have suspected you!” cried her Grace. “Take no notice of it, Parker. It is a common affliction I assure you. They have suspected Birchester, and I am in hourly fear that Miggs will be the next.”

“No, they have not suspected me. I am the last person in the world they would suspect.”

“Why? I really don’t see why they should not. One man seriously suggested my brother Jack. He was so positive, and sketched out poor Jack’s probable course of action so graphically that I nearly believed he was guilty. I was quite relieved when I remembered Jack was dead.”

“The reason why they are not likely to suspect me is—that I stole the tiara.” The maid could not altogether restrain an accent of pride.

“You, Parker!” cried her Grace, in amazement. “Why?”

“It is my profession, your Grace.”

“But—but you are my maid! And an excellent maid.”

“In the same way that an actress is an excellent dairymaid. It is all a matter of professional training. I own that I have never before achieved so high a position as maid to a Duchess. My testimonials were hardly sufficient, I thought.”

“No—they were not.” Her Grace paused for a moment. “I think it was the name. It was so typical a name for a lady’s maid.”

“Your Grace has always been an admirer of the British drama.”

“Ah, was that it . . . But the tiara. Really, Parker, after what you have said I must ask you to ring the bell. I shall have to give you in charge. It’s all most annoying.”

“You will not give me in charge,” the maid answered confidently.

“If you are going to crave for mercy—”

“Oh, no ; I shall not do that.”

“You are a very remarkable person, Parker.”

“I am, your Grace.” The maid spoke modestly, but with a certain accent of honest pride. “Professionally, I have no equal.”

“As a maid?”

“As a thief. It is there that you have hurt me. When I think of it I feel so mortified that I could burst into tears.”

“I hope you won’t, Parker. Tears always depress me. On consideration, I think it is unwise of me to continue speaking to you. Please ring, Parker.” Her Grace became perceptibly severe.

“I really do not think your Grace appreciates the position. In the first place, I shall not ring; in the second place, I have given strict orders that you are not to be disturbed; and in the third place, you are—if I may respectfully say so—in my power. Above all, you have done me a wrong, and I know that your love of justice, inherent in all members of the hereditary ruling Peers—believe me, I insinuate nothing against those Scotch and Irish families which are unrepresentative—will insist upon your righting it.”

“I was under the impression that you had done me a wrong,” gasped Mary, Duchess of Birchester. “Surely the theft of the Birchester tiara—”

“Your impression is erroneous. I stole a tiara.–not the Birchester tiara. That is how you have humbled me—that is how you have hurt my professional pride.”

Mary, Duchess of Birchester would have grown pale if her recently renovated complexion had permitted such a feat. As it was, she fell back limply in the embrace of the cushions of her chair.

“What do you mean, Parker?” she demanded in a shaking voice.

“I stole a tiara from your case—or rather, I engineered it. The absolute details are, of course, left to subordinates. I arranged everything. I had the substituted case made to my own designs. I myself ascertained the exact weight of your jewel-case when packed. I am not sure whether you weighed the substituted case with the pebbles it contained. Possibly not. For my own sake, I could wish you had. It was quite accurate. The mere trick of substitution was carried out by my subordinates. You can imagine my extreme mortification when I found that a paste tiara had been substituted. I subjected the tiara to no tests—reprehensibly careless, no doubt; but I relied on you. I confess I have been deceived in you–grossly deceived.”

“I don’t—don’t understand, Parker,” her Grace said weakly.

“Shall I continue?’’ said the maid, firmly but respectfully. “I have ascertained that the Birchester tiara is pawned, and that the counterfeit was then made. That was some time before I came to you. Since then you have done pretty well at bridge. Had you been incurring losses I should have been more careful. You will perceive that it is useless to protest further, as I am acquainted with all the facts.”

Her Grace thought for a while. Then she sat forward a little. This action caused the maid something of uneasiness. She would have preferred dealing with a perfectly limp Duchess.

“The theft even of a paste tiara is a theft, and punishable, is it not?” the Duchess inquired. “I daresay you know more about such matters than I do, Parker; but I believe I am correct.”

“That is so. But the fact of the paste substitution would be made known.”

“It might—I throw this out as a suggestion, Parker—it might have been made by you for substitution.”

“That is ingenious—but it will hardly hold water. I am used to thinking these matters out. It is part of my professional equipment. You forget the pawnbroker.”

“It occurred to me,” said the Duchess, gradually becoming possessed of more backbone, “it distinctly occurred to me that Erickstein, having in his possession an article worth far more than the amount lent upon it, would respect my secret. Surely his business would suffer if he were known to betray family secrets?”

“There would be the difficulty of disposal. But I confess I do not rely upon this. Erickstein, no doubt, made the paste copy?”

“He did. I am not a business women, Parker, but—but there is no correspondence between us, not even an account. My father used to say it was beneath our position to write on business matters. A bad memory is then so useful.”

“So there is only Erickstein in the secret?”

“Exactly. And having no absolute proof of the transaction, he would hardly accuse me of—of ordering a substitute. You see, Parker, one can really trust no one nowadays. For all Erickstein knows I might say he had substituted the paste one for the real, which was sent to him for cleaning. The discovery of the real tiara in his safe might lend colour to the statement.”

The maid glanced at the Duchess with admiration.

“I do not think I ever appreciated your Grace at your true worth before,” she said. “If we could be partners—”

“No, no,” murmured the Duchess. “Noblesse oblige. Besides, it’s a risky business at the best. If I have to go into trade I prefer marriage brokerage.”

“Then–I grieve to say it, but I really have no alternative; the confidence of my subordinates is shaken, my position at the head of my profession is threatened—then I must remind you that his Grace does not know of this transaction with Erickstein, and that he will be informed.”

“Ah, my husband—I had forgotten him,” said the Duchess, “The habits of years are so difficult to eradicate quickly. Of course, Birchester would believe anything to my demerit. Such a gullible man otherwise. It is strange, is it not? Well, what do you propose?”

“You grant I have a strong card there?’’

“There are certainly reasons why at the present moment I am not anxious that Birchester should have the whip hand of me.”

“May I presume to guess at the reasons:” smiled the maid.

“It would be, as you say, presumption,” answered her Grace.

“You have done fairly well at bridge lately.”

“I have been fortunate in discovering some enthusiastic players. They have had little experience. I helped to correct that. This is an age of education, Parker.”

“Not always free, your Grace.”

“Well, well. There are no scholarships tenable at the University of the World.”

“Of course I could not ask you for the full value of the Birchester tiara. That is fifteen thousand, I believe.”

“You flatter me and it. Ten thousand is the outside price. Some of the stones are Brazilian.”

“What did you get on it with Erickstein?”

“Three thousand. It was all I needed just to tide over.”

“Are you in a position to redeem?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose we say that amount? I am really dealing lightly with you. In view of those reasons concerning your Grace and his Grace, about which it would be presumptuous to assert a knowledge, I think I am dealing very lightly with you.”

“I am right in presuming you have the counterfeit with you?”

“Yes. It is in a cardboard box done up in brown paper in the hall.”

“And that I shall retain it ”

“You will redeem it with the three thousand.”

“Very well. I must give you a cheque—I have no cash by me. Will you ring for Miggs and ask him to fetch the cardboard box and the brown paper?”

“I should prefer cashing the cheque first.”

Mary, Duchess of Birchester smiled as she rose slowly from her chair and crossed the room to a small davenport.

“Naturally. But I should prefer possession of the counterfeit first—also naturally. An exchange, Parker, will be an alteration of your methods, of course, for we are told it is no robbery. But you must do me the favour of pocketing your professional predilections for once.”

“Your signature to the cheque will be a safeguard.”

“You perceive I place myself in your hands,” agreed her Grace. “Please ring.”

The maid thought for a moment, then rang. When Miggs appeared, she gave the necessary directions. In the meantime, her Grace chose a pen with elaboration, and wrote a cheque with the deliberation characteristic of her. She blotted it carefully and thoughtfully, and then held it in her hand.

“Not until the exchange, Parker,” she said. “I am so unused to these little transactions that I force myself to be as careful as possible for my own protection.”

Miggs returned with a package, a slight expression of disdain at the plebeian brown paper visible upon his face.

“Thank you,” said her Grace and Parker simultaneously, both holding out hands. Miggs considered the demands with care, and deliberately chose the Duchess, for rank will tell, even with a butler. “Your Grace –” commenced Parker,

“Oh, Miggs,” said the Duchess, clasping the box thankfully, “you will be glad to hear that the tiara is quite safe. Parker has only just heard of my loss–-she has a cultivated distaste for newspapers quite remarkable in this age of literary dissipation–and has hurried to me at once. It appears that, owing to a misunderstanding, she returned the tiara to safe keeping.” Her hand closed more firmly on the box. “If any more alert detectives call, you may say that it was mislaid. You can go, Miggs.”

“Very good, your Grace,” said Miggs, and went.

“Oh, here is the cheque, Parker,” her Grace observed, laying it on the davenport, and stripping the cardboard box.

“There is a mistake, your Grace,” cried the maid. “You have made out the cheque for two guineas!”

“Exactly,” answered the Duchess—“in lieu of a month’s wages. You have taken great care of this, Parker,” she added, taking out the tiara. “Thank you so much. Good afternoon.”

The Sketch 30 January 1907: p. 88-90

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil is quite dizzy from the to-and-fro-ing of the above dialogue. It is usually the clever servant who prevails in these exchanges, so this is a refreshing change. Parker rightly deserved to have her professional pride humbled: any actual lady’s maid worth her pay would have known how to detect pastes by their temperature (paste is a poor conductor of heat) or their wear.  Mrs Daffodil also wonders if the cheque was actually a good one. Of course, a neat twist would be if, in the sequel to this tale, the Duchess hired a lady’s maid, sent by Parker in response to the advertisement. Her Grace was fortunate that the code of the jewel thief precludes murder.

The theme of pastes substituted for real diamonds in aristocratic tiaras is a hackneyed one. One wonders what a random sampling of the tiaras of the Peerage would yield to-day.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

A Necklace With a History: 1890

1890 necklace of sapphire, zircon, tourmaline, amethyst, garnet https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/fine-jewels/gem-set-necklace-circa-1890

A NECKLACE WITH A STORY.

Gems From the Engagement Rings of Thirteen Rejected Suitors.

[New York World.]

Engagement bracelets and bangles, hoops tied with knots of ribbon (one color for each adorer), are now surpassed according to a late story by a diamond necklace with a strange history. This necklace, set with thirteen stones, was confidentially declared by the wearer to be composed of the stones from thirteen engagement rings which she had worn at different times. Through a fine regard for the feelings of the thirteen “rejected addressers” this delicate-minded young woman had had them reset, and wore them suspended about her beautiful neck…. It is to be hoped for the sake of fair young womanhood that these “engagements” were like those in vogue at one time in Washington—simply a mutual arrangement by which a young man became for a certain time the acknowledged escort of a young belle, to whose service he felt himself bound, and to whom he furnished bouquets and bon-bons in return for the pleasure of taking her to receptions. In this frivolous but harmless kind of an engagements a young beauty of my acquaintance figured sixteen times, marrying at the end of her second season an army officer of culture and high rank. But she did not accept diamond rings or other valuable gifts from her soi-disant lovers.

The Enquirer [Cincinnati OH] 20 September 1890: p. 13

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Such ladies who trifled with the honest affections of gentlemen were shockingly common:

Emily: What are you crying over, dear?

Julia: Longfellow’s Evangeline! It makes me sad that women don’t appreciate love and constancy as they should.

(Servant enters with cards.)

Julia (after reading them): Chollie Jones and Freddie de Browne. Oh, how lovely! Come down with me and help in the fun. I am engaged to both of them.

Pittsburgh [PA] Dispatch 4 February 1889: p. 4

The old man laid down his newspaper. “My child,” he said to the fair girl in sables who had just come in, her cheeks pink and her eyes shining from the frosty air: “My child, I am unspeakably shocked and grieved. Your mother informs me you are engaged to five young men at once.” But. his daughter laughed and patted his shoulder in reassuring fashion.

“Dear old stupid dad, it’s all right,” she said. “They are football players, and at the end of the season I shall wed the survivor.”

“Oh,” said the father, and, his brow clearing, he resumed his reading.

Nelson [NZ] Evening Mail, 15 February 1908: p. 2

A young woman of Indiana keeps twenty seven engagement rings hung up in her boudoir, the spoils of five years.

Pittsburgh [PA] Weekly Gazette 25 January 1870: p. 1

First Ingenuous Maiden: “How do you like my engagement ring?”

Second Ingenuous Maiden. “Oh, it is the prettiest one you have had!” Tit-Bits.

Logansport [PA] Pharos-Tribune 21 January 1922: p. 4

The Summer girl was a particular offender:

“I have been engaged several times,” boasted the first summer girl, “to men whose names I did not know.”

“That’s nothing,” retorted the second summer girl. “I engaged myself last season to a stager [person of experience/ man of the world]who sig-wagged his proposal from a passing yacht.”

The Alamogordo [MN] News 28 July 1910: p. 7

This morning I was pouring out my lamentation to a young girl, the younger sister of a dear friend. She is at least seventeen, and rather beyond the kitten love period, but I thought it would do no harm to let her know the truth about this imitation of the noble passion by little chits. She quite agreed with me, she said, and then she went on:

“But I have a confession to make, Clara,” said she; “I am in a frightfully awful situation. You see I am engaged to be married in New York, and when I came up here I got engaged to a young fellow up here, you know, just for fun. He is rich, you know, and quite distinguished in appearance, but it wasn’t that which made me let him engage himself to me, so much as that all the other girls, that is, the nice girls, were head over heels after him. It was so pleasant to cut them out. Now, you see, I had done the same thing last summer. I was engaged to the same young gentleman in New York then (really engaged, you know) and I got engaged up here”

“For mercy’s sake!” I exclaimed; “what sort of a story are you telling me?”

“Why, it’s quite customary, Clara; that is, among girls of any life at all. You get engaged up here because it’s better all around. You select a

REALLY NICE, PROPER YOUNG MAN,

And you are both devoted to one another, and it takes up all your spare time; and then a parting you manage to quarrel (It’s quite easy to do it) and off he goes to Chicago or New Orleans, and you go home to your real beau. Well, as I was going to say, I managed it beautifully last season—quarreled all right, and never heard any more about it. But this year things are going to be different. I am in an awful scrape. This young man is a Southerner and he talks of shooting anybody that looks at me and of killing himself if I reject him, and oh, my! Oh, my! I can see that I’ll never, never be able to get rid of him.”

I did not sympathize with her. I might have suggested that she write to her New York young man to attend a shooting gallery and take lessons preparatory to an encounter with the Southerner, but I did not think it just exactly a fit subject for joking. But I am only telling you what success attended my effort to get away from the scourge of the summer resorts. To make it very short, it is just simply no success at all. Why, I strolled into the pretty and ancient grave-yard just at the edge of the village, and if there were not at least six couples tucked away on the grave-stones in the by-paths, and all courting at one hundred pounds pressure, I am no correspondent of yours.

Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 5 September 1886:p. 9

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

 

Worth Her Weight in Gold: 1896

Gold mesh purse set with diamonds and rubies, c. 1900 http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/art/explore-the-collection?id=20424892

SHE WAS A GOLD BUG.

And Knew So Much That She Gave Her Steady Company the Mitten.

Chicago Times-Herald.

“You are worth your weight in gold,” he ventured to remark to the girl he had wanted to marry.

“Am I, indeed,” she returned, “and how much is that?”

“I don’t know the exact amount,” he replied, “but it’s a good deal.”

“Well, I am just going to find out how much you value me at I have been studying the money question lately and I have some books that will tell me.”

And she went to the library and returned with a report of the United States treasury department.

“Here it is. Pure gold is worth $20.86 an ounce. That is troy weight, with 7,000 grains to the pound. Have you a pencil and some paper, Mr. Chapleigh?”

“Oh, Lord,” he groaned.

“What’s that?” sharply.

“I only said, yes, certainly.”

“Well, figure on the value of a pound of avoirdupois; you know people are weighed by avoirdupois. Only precious metals and precious stones are measured.”

“You’re a jewel.”

“No nonsense. Figure it up.”

For five minutes he wrestled with the problem, until he felt his collar climbing up the back of his neck.

At length she inquired:

“Well, what is it?”

“I can’t do it.”

“Give me the paper. Yet they say men are so much better than women at figures.”

In half a minute she read the result.

“A grain of gold is worth $0.043066, so a pound avoirdupois is worth $301.462. I weigh 110 pounds. I am therefore worth, in your estimation, $33,150.82–my weight in gold. In that case, Mr. Chapleigh, I think you had better marry Miss Greenwood; she is worth $50,000. She inherited it from her father. Good day, Mr. Chapleigh.”

Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester NY] 15 November 1896: p. 5

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil considers that Mr Chapleigh had a fortunate escape from the very literal-minded lady. Her contempt for his mathematical prowess would outweigh any good qualities he might bring to the marriage and before long, one would find him quailing under her censure and slinking off to his Club to drink alone in despair, all the while contemplating faking his own death and running off to South America. One even imagines the lady scornfully uttering the epithet “miserable worm!”

It is to be hoped that Miss Greenwood received the gentleman in a kindlier spirit.

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Wedding Ring: History and Superstitions

Gimmel ring 1575-1650 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O118570/ring-unknown/

THE WEDDING RING

Wedding rings have been worn in all ages; but no information respecting their origin can be discovered. It is known they were used by the ancient Greeks and Romans; but their use was then at the ceremony of betrothal, and not marriage. Pope Nicholas, writing of the ninth century, says that the Christians first presented the woman with espousal gifts, including a ring, which was placed on her finger; the dowry was then agreed on ; and afterwards came the nuptial service. These rings of the Romans were made of various metals, as iron, brass, copper, and old; and while betrothal and marriage were distinct, the rings were ornamented; but when formal betrothal became obsolete, the marriage ring took a plain shape, as at present.

The ancients wore the betrothal ring, as now, on the next least finger of the left hand. Many reasons are assigned for this, as the erroneous idea that a vein or nerve went direct to the heart, and therefore the outward sign of matrimony should be placed in connection with the seat of life: the left hand is a sign of inferiority or subjection: the left hand is less employed than the right, and the finger next least the best protected. At one time, it was the custom to place the wedding ring on the right hand of the bride. The Anglo-Saxon bridegroom at the betrothal gave a wed or pledge, and a ring was placed on the maiden’s right hand, where it remained till marriage, and was then transferred to the left.

During the times of George I. and II. the wedding ring, though placed upon the usual finger at the time of marriage, was sometimes worn on the thumb, in which position it is often seen on the portraits of the titled ladies in those days. It is now absolutely necessary to use a ring at the English marriage service. The placing of the ring on the book is a remnant of the ancient custom of blessing the ring by sprinkling holy water in the form of a cross. This is still done by the Roman Catholic priest. The Puritans attempted the abolition of the ring. The Quakers don’t use a ring at the service because of its heathenish origin; but many wear them afterwards. The Swiss Protestants do not use a ring either at the service or afterwards.

Rings have not necessarily been made of gold, in order to be used in the English service. They may be of any metal or size. At Worcester, some years ago, a registrar was threatened with proceedings for not compelling the use of a gold ring. At Colchester, at the beginning of this century, the church key took the place of the ring; and this has been the case elsewhere. A story is told of a couple going to church and requesting the use of the church key. The clerk, not thinking it lawful, fetched a curtain ring, which was used at the ceremony. The Duke of Hamilton was married at Mayfair with a bed curtain ring. Notes and Queries of October 1860 relates the cutting of a leather ring from the gloves of the bridegroom and the use of it at the service. An Indian clergyman stopped a wedding because the ring contained a diamond; and in Ireland all rings except plain gold ones are rigidly forbidden.

One of the earliest forms of rings was the gemel or gimmal ring. It was a twin or double ring composed of two or more interlaced links, when the two flat sides were in contact, the links formed one ring. Mottoes and devices were often engraved on the inner or flat side. At the time of betrothal, it was customary for the man to put his finger through one hoop, and the woman through the other. They were thus symbolically yoked together. The links were then broken, and the two kept a link until the marriage. Some gimmal rings with three links were made for the purpose of a witness keeping the middle one. There is a gimmal containing nine links still in existence. A old one given by Edward Seymour to Lady Katharine Grey had five links and a poesy of his own composition.

The Exeter Garland, written in 1750, contains:

A ring of pure gold she from her finger took,

And just in the middle the same then she broke;

Quoth she: ‘As a token of love, you this take;

And this is a pledge I will keep for your sake.’

Wedding rings, also, were not always worn plain, the common emblem being clasped hands or hearts. Two silver-gilt rings were used for the marriage of Martin Luther and Catherine von Borga. Luther’s ring is still in Saxony, and bears the following: ‘D. Martino Luthero, Catherine v. Borga, 13 Junii 1525.’ The other is in Paris, and has a figure of Christ upon the cross, and the Latin inscription as above. On the ring given by Henry VIII. to Anne of Cleves was inscribed, ‘God send me well to kepe,’ in allusion to the fate of Anne Boleyn. Lady Cathcart, on her fourth marriage in 1713, had the following: ‘If I survive, I will have five.’ Dr John Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln, 1753, had a similar inscription.

Many superstitions attach to the wedding ring, probably arising from the Roman Catholic custom of its receiving the blessing of the priest before putting it on. In Ireland, the rubbing of the ring on a wart or sore was sure to cure it; also, the belief still remains that by pricking a wart with a gooseberry-bush thorn through a wedding ring it will gradually disappear. In Somersetshire they say that a sty on the eyelid may be removed by the rubbing of the ring. The Romans believed a peculiar virtue lay in the ring finger, and they stirred their medicines with it. Another superstition is that if a wife lose her ring, she will also lose her husband’s love; and if she breaks it, the husband will shortly die. Many married women would not remove their rings, for fear of the death of their partners. As old saying is, ‘As your wedding ring wears, your cares will wear away.’

Chambers’s Journal, 6 February 1892: p. 95-6

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  To be Relentlessly Informative, the more common spelling of the rings pictured is “gimmel,” from the Latin gemellus or twin. And Frau Doktor Luther came to her marriage as Katharina von Bora, rather than a member of some cadet branch of the Borgias.

Let us have a few more wedding ring superstitions:

In Northumberland, the young girls prepare for the May feast the May syllabub, made of warm milk from the cow, sweet cake and wine. Into this a wedding ring is dropped, for which the girls fish with a ladle. Whoever gets it will be married first. Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences, Cora Linn Morrison, Daniels, Charles McClellan Stevens, 1904: p. 1541

A Wedding Ring Superstition.

A Yorkshire lady told me that, having lost her wedding ring from her finger, she had been told by the wise people of the place that she must on no account permit her husband to buy her a new one, but that her nearest male relatives must pay for the fresh ring and give it her. Notes and Queries 1 July 1882: p. 9

It is regarded as most unlucky is the wedding ring slips off the finger of the newly married wife either through accident or carelessness; another superstition is that when the wedding ring has worn so thin as to break in two, the woman or the husband will die, that the wedding ring and married life wear away pari passu. [“with even step.”] Perhaps, we have here an answer to the often-asked question of modern days, ‘Why do ladies encumber themselves with such heavy wedding rings?’ Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland, William Gregory Wood-Martin, 1902: p. 45

And, finally

HE FORGOT THE WEDDING-RING

A story has come to light regarding a former Earl of Crawford, Colin by name, who married a relative of the Prince of Orange. The lady, Mauritia de Nassau, was a very beautiful woman, and having fallen in love with the then-Earl of Crawford a marriage was arranged. But when the wedding day arrived and the bridal party were assembled at the church no bridegroom was forthcoming. A messenger was despatched in hot haste to fetch the missing earl, who was found at his house enjoying a late breakfast, attired in dressing gown and slippers, completely oblivious to the fact that it was his wedding day. Hurriedly dressing, the earl rushed off to the church, and the service began. In the middle of the ceremony he discovered he had forgotten the ring. This want being hastily supplied by one of the guests the marriage proceeded.

At the end of the ceremony the bride, glancing at her hand, saw to her unutterable horror that the ring with which she had been wedded was a mourning ring with skull and cross-bones on it.

“I shall be dead within a year!” she shrieked, and fainted dead away. Her words came true, and the earl himself had a most unlucky life.  North Otago Times, 31 July 1909, Page 2

Other wedding superstitions may be found in this previous post on bridal superstitions, as well as this one on bridesmaids’ superstitions, and royal wedding superstitions.

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Beads of Cherished Flowers: 1914

Beads made of red roses. You will find complete instructions on how to make these beads at this link: https://feltmagnet.com/crafts/rose-beads

Beads Made of Fondly Cherished Memories the Latest Fad

New York, May 9.

That precious first bunch of violets and the wedding bouquet that followed it need no longer be thrown away. Not that it ever was of course. But it need no longer moulder between the leaves of the biggest wedding present book.

A little New York art student has discovered a process by which she can turn the flowers into beads. They retain their color and most of their fragrance. And they will never wear out, for they are as hard as china.

“I began experimenting during my Christmas vacation,” says Miss Louise Wood, the inventor who lives in Cranford, N. J., and attends the Cooper Union classes in design. “I had read about the orange blossoms in California but they came out black. So I began to experiment to find a substance that would harden the flowers and give them body without spoiling their color. My mother helped me and at last we found a sparkling substance that could be boiled up with the flowers, and turned them into a mass of dough. I worked this upon a bread board, kneading it like the most careful housekeeper. Then I moulded the beads in the palm of my hand, some round and some pear-shaped. They were baked on pins to make them hard and give the opening to string them.

“I combined them with real beads, crystal of the same shade as the flower beads, to heighten the artistic effect. Sometimes I used contrasting colors. It was hard to get the flowers during the winter, but I found that faded ones would do just as well, so I made arrangements with the greenhouse at home to take theirs at wholesale.

“A month ago came my first commission A little neighbor won a prize in an oratorical contest and her mother sent over the bunch of salmon pink carnations she had carried to have them turned into beads. They came out the loveliest rose pink and the child was delighted with them. She can show them to her grandchildren They were like this.”

Sighs for White Beads.

She picked up a lovely string combined with pink and cut glass beadlets, with all the fragrance of the flowers. It is amusing to identify the strings lying on their white cotton beds in their little square boxes. The purple ones were violets of course. But what were these dark red pear-shaped ones strung with silver that look as if they were made to match the new mahogany gowns? Carnations–the kind Galsworthy talks about in the “Dark Flower.” And the grays that look as if they were meant for some dear old lady? French lilacs. Lilies of the valley are corn colored.

“We haven’t been able to make a white bead,” sighs the experimenter. “I’m sorry because wedding bouquets are almost always lilies of the valley–and a wedding necklace should be white! But the chemicals give them this cream tint. I think they are pretty, though, with the little gold beads. And I am making some hand-painted boxes that will be dainty enough for any bride. I have asked Miss Wilson for a spray of her bouquet so that I can make her some beads. I won’t need it all, so the lucky bridesmaid who catches it can keep most of it. But I should love to do it for Miss Wilson, for she was an art student, too.

“What are those green beads? Ferns. Some of them came with the flowers one day and I tried them. The maidenhair makes those soft green ones and the real ferns the bright ones. I use only the tip ends of the fronds. The dark purple beads are made of heliotrope and the mottled ones are pink and white sweet peas. Of course I have to work them up together in my hands like marble cake–but it gives the effect, don’t you think so? The saffron beads are jonquils.

“I’m sorry the suffrage flowers don’t come out a bright yellow.

“I can hardly wait for summer to bring the roses. I am so anxious to work with them. They are so expensive and in such demand that I haven’t been able to get hold of many. I had a few American beauties once and they made the loveliest beads–almost the same color. I strung them with black beads and they were bought at once.

“Could I make beads of mistletoe? If there were enough of it, though I am afraid they would come out gray. But holly ought to be lovely, the red and green beads together. Oh, I try everything. Mother does, too. She makes the beads when I am not at home.”

Mrs Wood who looks hardly older than her daughter, smiled brightly. “I used to try to write,” she said, but my typewriter is getting a long rest. I believe in doing the thing that comes to your hand. And every time I make a bead I think it is another coin toward Louise’s going abroad. She must if she is to be a successful designer.

The “Weezy-Wizy” Beads.

“We call them the ‘Weezy-Wizy’ beads from a childhood nickname of hers–her name is Louise Eliza. We had to have a name to patent, so we took that.

“It’s rather hard work, for every single bead has to be separately and carefully molded, and baked in a very hot oven. At first I had a queer feeling that it was Saturday all the week. But now I think more about the romance of it. I try to picture the bride who wore the lilies I am working over. I wonder what her dress was made of, and how her veil was arranged. And I am, oh, so careful not to mix in a single petal of some other bouquet.

“One little bride sent me not only her wedding bouquet, but a sample of her gray traveling suit for me to match. It was a blueish-gray, and I mixed French and purple lilacs, and got it exactly. I strung it with tiny black beads, so that it came down below her waist. We make them any length, of course.

“It’s fun to wonder what the postman will bring me every day, and to turn the faded flowers into bright new beads that will never fade. It’s like quickening a cooling love. But the flowers must be only faded, not dried. I can’t make over dead sentiment. That would take Cupid himself!

The Washington [DC] Post 10 May 1914: p. 6

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  One can still find instructions on how to make flower beads, such as at this site.

There was loudly-voiced scepticism over commercially produced floral beads, with many persons suggesting that actual flowers would discolour and that, to be attractive, beads must be made with added colour, corn-starch filler, and fragrance. This description of flower-bead necklaces given as party favours is candid about the materials used:

At his annual lawn party given by Mr John Lewis Childs to the little girls of Floral Park, three hundred guests. received a favour of “a necklace of beads, made of flowers grown on Mr. Childs’ grounds in California, including orange blossoms, roses and violets. Some of the beads are natural color, others colored with ground mineral, such as turquoise and malachite. In most cases the beads retain the fragrance of the flowers.”

Times Union [Brooklyn NY] 16 July 1915: p. 7

 

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Flower Jewel-case: 1893

Faux-rose jewel box https://www.amazon.com/Noble-Blossom-Ceremony-Proposal-Engagement/dp/B0831SXS1Z

A PRECIOUS FLOWER.

The Danger of Fashion’s Latest Fad for Jewel Cases.

Every one has heard of Lucretia Borgia, the lady who when she wanted to destroy a hated rival was in the habit of sending a rose “with Lucretia’s compliments.” The unsuspecting victim, pleased by the attention, generally sniffed the poisoned flower, and was a corpse before having time to realize the situation.

Nowadays, every one who receives a flower with so-and-so’s compliments is herewith warned to take it up tenderly and treat it with care. It is not by that meant to imply that secret poisoning is stalking abroad, but there may be more in the gift than appears at first sight.

If the flower on examination proves to be an artificial one, so cunningly made, that it almost deceives you into thinking that, like Topsy, it “growed,” be warned in time, and examine it very carefully. Press the petals of the rose. They will very probably fly asunder and reveal a diamond ring or a pair of eardrops reposing on a tiny cushion of white velvet.

It is one of fashion’s latest fads to conceal small but valuable pieces of jewelry in artificial flowers or bunches of flowers, but the practice is a dangerous one where the recipient does not know the trick. Imagine your despair if you threw away a flower and learned afterward that it had contained a diamond!

The mechanical flowers themselves are expensive luxuries, for the cheapest costs $5. Jewelers, however, will give them away with very valuable rings

The San Francisco [CA] Call 17 August 1893: p. 10

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil was disappointed that she could not find an illustration of this novel jewel casket. The best she could do was a faux-rose box from the “eBay” auction site. Not at all the same thing….

They must have been pretty trinkets. An 1879 groom gave something similar to his bride:

At a recent wedding the bride was the recipient of a novel gift from the groom—a “jewel box” made of Marechal Niel rose-buds, bound by a rim of tea rose buds, with a ring of violets for lid-lifter, lined with white satin, within which nestled two diamond ear drops.

Pittsburgh [PA] Post-Gazette 15 February 1879: p. 4

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Rings that are Fatal: Various Dates

Antique “poison ring” https://www.1stdibs.com/jewelry/rings/signet-rings/antique-victorian-18-karat-gold-emerald-enamel-snuff-poison-locket-ring/id-j_6673251/

RINGS THAT ARE FATAL.

Amazing Stories New and Old.

“A learned German physician,” says a well-known writer upon jewels, “has given an instance in which the devil of his own accord enclosed himself in a ring as a familiar, thereby proving how dangerous it is to trifle with him.”

The Germans are all learned, as we know, and I should not like to dispute a statement so admirable. Finger-rings henceforth should have a new interest for as. The idea that the devil is bottled up in one may not be pleasant to entertain but then we have the German’s word for it, and Germans know everything.

If I do not feel inclined, however, to enter upon such a controversy, as is here suggested, none the less do I, as a jeweller, realise the potency of the superstitions connected with precious stones. Until the last two years, the opal— most beautiful, most lustrous, most wonderful of gems was almost a drug in the popular market. As well might you have sent a woman a letter edged with black to congratulate her upon her marriage as an opal for her wedding present. The prejudice arose, of course, from the old superstition that the opal is fatal to love, and that it sows discord between the giver and the receiver unless the wearer, happily, was born in October. In the latter case the stone becomes an emblem of hope and will bring luck to the wearer.

Opal and diamond ring. https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2018/bijoux-pf1810/lot.161.html?locale=en

But, I hear you ask, is all this serious? Are you not rather joking, or speaking of the few and not of the many? I answer that I am as serious as ever I was in my life. Not only did we find it almost an impossibility five years ago to sell an opal at all, but the few women courageous enough to wear them in society contributed in the end to their unpopularity. I remember well a leader of fashion who for 12 months was conspicuous everywhere for the magnificence of the opals she wore, both upon her arms and her fingers. One day she came into my shop and bought an opal ring of immense size and singular magnificence.

“I am determined to kill this superstition,” she said, “and I am buying this ring because I am sure it will bring me luck.”

“I hope it will,” said I, “and if it should do so I trust that you will speak of it. The opal is sadly in need of a good word. I feel sure that nobody can speak that word to greater advantage than yourself.”

She promised that she would; and during the next three months she was loud in her conviction that the opal had been the best friend she had ever bought. Her husband doubled his fortune in that time. Her son obtained conspicuous honours at Cambridge. She backed the favourite for the Derby and he won. It really looked, even to the man of no superstitions, as though a freshet of fortune had flowed for her since the day she bought the ring.

Alas! how soon her hopes were to be shattered. Two months after her horse won the Derby her husband was in the bankruptcy court, a victim in a high degree of the Liberator [a famous race horse.]

Memento Mori ring, c. 1600-1700. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O118733/ring-unknown/

It would be absurd and ridiculous, of course, for any sane man to regard the case as a post hoc ergo propter hoc. The event was a pure coincidence; yet nothing in this world would induce the lady in question to regard that ring otherwise than as a fatal one. We may say what we like, but once a woman has dubbed this or that lucky or unlucky, the homilies of a thousand bishops would not change her opinion. Witness that remarkable story told in the “Lives of the Lindsays,” in which we are shown how the Earl of Balcarres, forgetting on the morning of his wedding his appointment to marry the grand daughter of the Prince of Oxaxute, went hurriedly to church at the last moment without the all-necessary ring. This, of course, was a sad position for anybody to be in, and the young man appealed pathetically to the company to know if the deficiency could not be made good. Happily, or rather most unhappily, the best man standing at his side suddenly remembered that he had a ring in his pocket, and he slipped it into the earl’s hand just as the service began. Was it not a strange thing that this should have been a mourning ring, and that, when the happy bride ventured to look down upon her finger, she saw a skull and crossbones grinning at her? So great was her distress that she fainted in the church and when she came to she declared that it was an omen of death, and that she would not live through the year. And did she? the matter-of-fact man asks expectantly. Alas! twelve months were not numbered before Lady Balcarres was in her grave!

Byron’s mother’s wedding ring, Newstead Abbey

It is necessary at this point to tell you a story with a happier ending, lest the superstitious man should have it all his own way. It is said of Lord Byron that he was about to sit down to dinner one day when a gardener presented him with his mother’s wedding ring, which the man had just dug up in the garden before a wing of the house. Byron was at that time expectantly awaiting a letter from Miss Millbanke a letter which was to contain an answer to his proposal of marriage. When he saw the ring which the gardener brought him, he fell into a fit of deep gloom, regarding it as a sign of woeful omen but scarce had this depression come upon him when a servant entered with a letter from the lady. She accepted the poet.

There is another story told by the late Professor de Morgan I think it appeared in “Notes and Queries” which relates an instance of a page who fled to America simply because he lost a ring which he was carrying to the jeweller. The stone was an opal, if I remember rightly. The lights of it had so impressed the lad when he saw it upon his mistress’s finger that he stopped upon the plank bridge crossing the stream in his town, and took the jewel out of the box to admire it. But his fingers were clumsy, and in his attempt to try the ring on he let it slip into the river. Two years after in America he told the story, and related how that the ring had driven him to the condition of a miserable serf in the plantations. He did not know then that his condition was soon to be changed, and that diligence and hard work were to carry him to such a position of affluence that at the end of 20 years he returned to this country and to his native town. On the night of his arrival be went with a friend. to the old bridge, and recalled his misfortune there.

“It was in that very spot,” said he, thrusting his stick into the soft mud of the river, “that I dropped the ring.”

“But look!” cried the friend, “you have a ring upon the end of your stick!”

Sure enough, incredible though it may sound, the very ring he had dropped into the river 20 years before was now upon the end of the muddy stick.

Some people may be inclined to take this story with a grain of salt. Personally I am willing to think that Professor de Morgan and “Notes and Queries” would not have fathered upon us a mere bundle of lies. For the matter of that, there are cases as marvellous of the recovery of rings in nearly every town in England. At Brechin they will tell you of a Mrs Mountjoy who, when feeding a calf, let it suck her fingers, and with them a ring she wore. When this animal was slaughtered three years after, the ring was found in its intestine.

In the year 1871 a German farmer, who had been making flour balls for his cattle, missed his dead wife’s ring which he had been wearing upon his little finger. He made a great search for the treasure, holding the ring in some way necessary to his prosperity; but although he turned the house upside down, he never found it.

Seven or eight months after, this farmer shipped a number of bullocks upon the Adler cattle ship. The Adler came to port all right, but one of the bullocks had died during the voyage and been thrown overboard. Strangely enough, the carcase floated upon the sea, and was picked up by an English smack— the Mary Ann, of Colchester— the crew of which cut open the body to obtain some grease for the rigging. Did we not know that every line of this story had been authenticated, we should laugh when it is added that the farmer’s ring was found in the stomach of the derelict bullock and duly restored to its owner through the German Consul.

Turquoise ring, c. 1840-1860 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O374212/ring-unknown/

Here are stories of luck if you like. I will give you one also of luck which has never been told except to me and to the members of the household in which the strange occurrence took place. A lady, whose husband was a bank manager, purchased at my house some six years ago a singularly fine turquoise ring. She came to me at the end of two years and declared that the jewel in question had completely lost its colour. I saw that this was so, and told her there was no secret about the matter, but that she had washed her hands with the ring upon her finger, The turquoise, as all the world knows, should never be dipped in water. Some of the finest stones will stand the treatment, but in the majority of cases it is fatal. You would think that this was not a case for any superstitious fears, but my client was sadly troubled from the start at the omen of the ring; nor could my assurances comfort her. And oddly enough, within three months of the date of her visit to me her husband was in difficulties and had fled to America.

But this is not the end of the story of the turquoise. I had, previous to this calamity, set a new stone in the place of the old, and this jewel, being properly treated, kept its colour very well. Yet, as though that ring must prove fatal to all who wore it, it was the instrument of the capture of the lady’s husband, and of the term of imprisonment which followed on his arrest. The thing worked out in this way. For two years the fugitive remained abroad, but with that love of country which sometimes will prevail above reason, the unfortunate man returned here at last, and lay in hiding at the house which his wife had taken near Reading.

This was a rambling old place, with a decaying wing, very convenient for hiding a man. One morning the servants, who were not in the secret, found a turquoise upon the floor of a bedroom in this side of the house. As they had reason to believe that no one except themselves had been in the place for some years, they carried the ring to their mistress as a wonderful and amazing discovery. She, in her feverish desire to protect her husband, made up some cock-and-bull story which did not satisfy them. Although they had promised absolute secrecy, they made haste to tell the story in the village, where by a colossal misfortune the detective who was watching the case was even then staying. Needless to say how he pricked up his ears at the information; arguing rightly that where a ring was there a man or woman must have been. Three days later he arrested the defaulter, who had been hidden in the house all the time and had dropped the ring upon the floor of the bedroom. He had worn it on his little finger as a memento of his wife when he fled from the country, but it proved a fatal ring to him and to her.

1838 poison ring https://www.etsy.com/sg-en/listing/747581379/1838-antique-poison-ring-18k-gold-garnet

It is scarcely within the scope of this article to write upon that vast branch of this subject which would properly come under the heading of poisoned rings. There was a story told in the French newspapers at no distant date of a man who bought an old ring in a shop in the Rue St. Honore, He was much interested in this, and was examining it closely, when he chanced to give himself a slight scratch in the hand with the edge of the ring. So slight was it that he scarce noticed it, and continued in conversation with the dealer, until of a sudden he was taken with violent pains in his body and fell in a fit upon the floor of the shop. The doctor who was summoned discovered every trace of mineral poison, and administered an antidote–happily with success, though the man suffered severely for several hours, and was at one time upon the very point of death. There is no doubt whatever that he had purchased what is called a “death ring,” a common weapon of assassination in the sixteenth century, and still to be found in the byways of Italy. The ring in question was made in the shape of two tiny lions’ claws, the nails being minute tubes from which the poison was ejected into the body. A man bearing a grudge against another would contrive to send him such a ring as a present and he would so manage it that he would meet the unlucky wearer very shortly after the present was received. It was the easiest thing in the world to give the victim a hearty shake of the hand, so squeezing the sharp claws into the flesh and administering a dose of the poison. And so skilled were the men in the manufacture of these rings that the day was rare when the victim of one lived even 10 minutes after he had received this death grip.

Otago [NZ] Witness 15 October 1896: p. 50

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil has written before on those useful poisoned diamond rings with little spikes and a cursed ring formerly the property of the Spanish royal family. Various royal personages have also possessed “lucky” and “unlucky” rings as magical talismans.

Mrs Daffodil cannot accede to the author’s suggestion that Byron’s proposal to Anne Isabella Milbanke was a story with a “happier ending.”  The ill-matched couple separated shortly after their one-year anniversary and may have never seen each other again before Byron’s death in Greece in 1824.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Fashion’s Goldsmith-A Visit to Lalique: 1900

Leafy Lalique aquamarine brooch, c. 1900 https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/jewelry/art-nouveau-glass-enamel-aquamarine-and-diamond-6197895-details.aspx?from=salesummery&intobjectid=6197895&sid=2af51e56-451a-4f32-867e-4521e24be801

FASHION’S GOLDSMITH.

He Creates Birds and Flowers of Precious Stones.

The most prized and splendid jewels that have found their way into the caskets of princesses and millionaires of late are from the studio of Rini [sic] Lalique, artist, inventor, and worker in gems, ivory, and the precious metals. Women of the “smart set” who had the good fortune to see the wonderful specimens of this man’s work given Miss Julia Grant by the Prince Cantaruzene at the time of their wedding enjoyed a new emotion as well as a revelation in the art of personal adornment. This Benvenuto Cellini of today is in no sense of the word a shopkeeper and the fashionable woman who takes her annual trip to Paris this year to find show cases filled with trinkets made to imitate his style, will at once observe what an immense influence his originality of method has had upon the trade. If she is determined to see the interior of Lalique’s studio and talk with a very interesting man, she must seek out someone who knows where he bides in the quiet side street, and go armed with an introduction to the grey house, which bears beside the entrance door a small brass plate inscribed Lalique-Joallier.

A French artisan in a long blouse seeks the master, while you look around the room. In the centre are two upright cases, like those seen in museums, and by the windows a few tables with glass tops, similar to those ladies affect for their drawing-room curios. There is no suspicion of the shopkeeper in anything here. This is an artist’s studio, and as Lalique’s work appeals only to the elect, his guests admire and choose their purchases after the manner of pictures. Here they can see his methods and understand why It Is that his work has been admitted to the Salon among the chef d’oeuvres of great painters and sculptors.

Soon a young man who looks very like Paul Bourget comes in with a pleasant greeting, and listens modestly to your enthusiastic admiration of the spray of fuchsias which nod like real flowers as your footsteps jar the floor and which look quite as fragile as the real flower.

Lalique began life as a painter, but his genius was for another branch of art, one much more rare than painting; therefore he soon deserted the brush for his present implements. He first did some designing for a great American firm but longing to execute his own bold and original ideas, and now with a host of followers (all Paris, in fact) crowding on his footsteps, he leads the goldsmiths of the world. Never before has a jeweler looked upon the metals and gems as nothing but colors for his palate, but to Lalique’s eyes gold, silver, precious stones, and enamels are but materials which bring to life the golden pictures of his fancy. He colors the metals, chips the stones, mixes the cheap gems with the expensive and makes therewith works of art. Enamels take on new hues under his skilled fingers, while ivory and bone lend their dull colors to heighten the effect of his creations.

He colors gold and carves the opal so marvelously, that a comb for a princess, made of dull grey horn, becomes a stunning frame for a graceful woman’s figure, which leans against the side holding a great bunch of drooping pampas In her hand. Woman, grass, and delicate foliage, in the background are all a miniature painting done in gold of many colors, opal, enamel, and ivory.

The imagination of the poet shows In every piece of this man’s work, drawing the line thus between the genius and the many talented designers who can imitate and follow him successfully. Rough opal is the material greatly used by Lalique. The golden sunset, the soft shine of the moonlight, the fleecy clouds beside innumerable flowers and living objects are wonderfully pictured by the way in which this artist uses this material. Diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, and turquoises are but parts of his design, and the way in which he employs amethyst as other jewelers use enamel is productive of amazing results.

One sort of ornament which Lalique particularly likes, because its shape and position on the dress allows his fancy great play, is intended for the front of a belt, a low corsage, or a neckband. A wonderful dragon shining with color and belching forth clouds of opal, is a design for one of these. A second is a landscape showing through the tree trunks of many colored gold the opal of the sunset shining in a pool of diamonds, and still another is a spray of beautifully colored roses with their leaves growing inside a thread-like frame of gold as though they were growing outside the window. A few rings, queer brooches, a rope of seed pearls finished by a tassel of rubies, a pendant or two, all fanciful, poetic, unique, and enchanting, are all Lalique has to show his visitor. The court of Russia is constantly snatching up his finest pieces as they come from his hands, and in England the great families who are so proud of their jewels are constant visitors to his quiet apartments. He works very slowly, and except for his yearly exhibit at the Salon, can make no display, his works are nearly always sold before they are finished.

Washington [DC] Times 8 April 1900: p. 19

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: While to-day the work of M. Lalique is highly prized and sells for fabulous sums whenever it comes to auction, the critics of the past were not so kind. For example, this author finds Lalique cloyingly pretty:

We confess to some hesitation in expressing frankly the impression produced on us by M. Lalique’s work, because in looking back on the history of modern art we find that whenever work has been condemned for its tendencies with the admission of its technical excellence, the verdict of a succeeding generation has always been in favour of the artist. It is, in short, dangerous to condemn on some high moral or abstract aesthetic grounds work of which the technical excellence is indisputable. And yet, if we are to be sincere, that is what we are inclined to do to M. Lalique’s jewellery. To us its prettiness is exasperating—its extraordinary effectiveness, its too obvious and assertive charm, cloying….Nor is his rendering of natural forms really impressive ; it lacks intimacy and intensity of feeling…And if the line is nowhere arrested, nowhere determined by architectural necessity, the colour schemes are equally vague and indeterminate…Where therefore, as here, a discord is out of the question, no very intense or moving harmony can occur, the colour never rises to beauty, it remains obdurately and annoyingly pretty.

The Athenaeum 27 May 1905: p. 664

Another found him lacking in style:

The chief thing lacking in M. Lalique’s’ jewellery, as in that of his imitators, is style. And it is for this reason that so many people, even those most devoted to that which is novel, refuse to regard his productions as other than vain and transitory things. Certain it is that the composition of some of M. Lalique’s work suggests haste—facile haste; this or that detail deserved closer study, demanded firmer drawing, stronger characterisation. Thus, while acknowledging fully our indebtedness to M. Lalique for having renovated and revived the art of jewel-working, one cannot but regret that he should too often have been content to make a direct copy of floral forms when a careful stylisation would have been far more effective. A natural flower is decorative of itself, and no jewel however precious can compare with it on a woman’s breast or in her hair.

The Studio, Vol. 23: p. 1901: pp. 27-30

Finally, this critic has a rather amusing, yet valid, reason for disliking Lalique:

At times even—most unjustly, I admit—one almost comes to hate the art of M. Lalique himself, so persistently is it badly imitated.

Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans, Charles Holme, 1902: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Three Gold Balls: A Visit to the Pawnbrokers’ Shops: 1872

THREE GOLD BALLS
A Visit to the Pawnbrokers’ Shops

To the Editors of the Evening Post:

A week or two since I had occasion to visit several pawnbrokers’ establishments in this city, to redeem some articles pawned by a friend who had once seen better days.

A brief mention of my experience may be instructive as well as entertaining. The redemption of my friend’s tools (he was a mechanic) as accomplished after no little trouble in visiting the principal establishments doing business under the sign of the “Three Golden Balls,” in a certain street, and redeeming one or two articles here, another there and a third or fourth somewhere else.

I had been told of the system of universal cheating which the proprietors of these places practice, and the enormous exactions made in grinding the faces of the poor. I had heard described their dexterity in the substitution of colored glass and crystals for gems, while pretending to examine articles brought for pledges, and was prepared to encounter all that was sinister and heartless. But the half had not been told me, and I soon found that my previous conceptions fell far short of the reality. I was detained at each place which I had occasion to visit by the delays in finding the article I was in search of, and for which the holders had doubtless flattered themselves no inquiries would be made. The press of business at all of the shops was another cause of delay. As I recovered my friend’s articles, one by one, it appeared at once that the most outrageous system of extortion had been practiced in every instance. The sums advanced had been pitiful in amount, and the rates of interest charged exorbitant beyond belief. At every one of these dens a crowd of victims was collected—a motley company indeed: blacklegs and would-be gentlemen—the cheater and the cheated; the widow parting with her disposable article of dress, to procure one more meal for her famishing children; a consumptive girl, with the hectic flush upon her check. The grasping misers—sometimes a woman—read the condition of the sufferers from their countenances with cool calculation. The pick-pocket, the thief, and the purloining servant were received with equal readiness, and the spoils were divided with the fullest understanding that no questions were to be asked.

AT MY UNCLE’S

I had scarcely made my business known at the first of “my uncle’s” establishments, No. ___ street, to which I had been directed, when a middle-aged man entered with a bundle on which he asked a small advance, and which, on being opened, was found to contain a shawl and two or three other articles of female apparel. The man was stout and sturdy, and, as I judged from his appearance, a mechanic, but the mark of the destroyer was on his bloated countenance. The pawnbroker was examining the offered pledge when a woman with pale face and attenuated form came hastily into the shop and with the single exclamation, “O, Robert!” darted, rather than ran to that part of the counter where the man was standing. Her miserable husband, not satisfied with wasting his own earnings, and leaving her to starve with her children, had plundered even her scanty wardrobe, and the pittance received was to be squandered at the rum-shop. A blush of shame arose even upon his degraded face, but it quickly passed away; the brutal appetite prevailed.

“Go home,” was his harsh exclamation; “what brings you here, running after me with your everlasting scolding? Go home and mind your own business.”

“Oh, Robert, dear Robert,” answered the unhappy wife, “don’t pawn my shawl. Our children are crying for bread, and I have none to give them; or let me have the money. Give me the money, Robert, and don’t leave us to perish!”

I watched the face of the pawnbroker.

“Twelve shillings on these things,” he said, tossing them back to the drunkard, with a look of perfect indifference. “Only twelve shillings,” murmured the heart-broken wife, in a tone of despair; “O, Robert, don’t let them go for twelve shillings. Let me try somewhere else.” “Nonsense!” answered the brute. “It’s as much as they are worth, I suppose. Here, Mr. ___ give us the change.” The money was placed before him, and the bundle consigned to a drawer. The poor creature reached forth her hand towards the money, but the movement was anticipated by her husband. “There, Mary,” he said, giving her half a dollar. “there, go home now, and don’t make a fuss. I’m going a little way up the street, and perhaps I’ll bring you something from market when I come home.”

The hopeless look of the poor woman as she meekly turned to the door told plainly enough how little she trusted the promise. They went on their way—she to her children and he to the next “corner grocery.”

A BENEVOLENT CUSTOMER

While this scene was in progress another had been added to the number of spectators. This was a young man, dressed in the height of the fashion. He had a reckless, good-humored look and very much the air of what is called “a young man about town,” that is, one who rides out to the Central Park in the afternoon, eats game suppers at Delmonico’s in the evening after the play, spends the rest of the night and his money at billiards. The moment the poor woman was gone, he twitched from his neck a gold chain, with a gold watch, and placing it in the hands of the pawnbroker, with whom he seemed to be on terms of acquaintance, he exclaimed, “Quick now, Mr. ___; thirty dollars on that? You’ve had it before, and needn’t stop to examine it.” The money was instantly paid; and the young man of fashion, crumpling the bills up in his hand, hurried off at full speed, first looking up and then down the street. I followed him to the door and saw him accost the poor woman who had just left the shop, thrust into her hand either the whole or part of the sum he had just received, and then turning away to the other side of the street without stopping either for thanks or for explanation.

The reverie of mingled surprise and admiration into which I was thrown by this unexpected manifestation of benevolence was interrupted by a loud outcry from Mr. ___, the pawnbroker, and by seeing him, with a look of wrath and horror, hurry round his counter and out through the door, upon the sidewalk, where he stood for a moment, straining his eyes down the street, as if in search of the kind-hearted youth, who had by this time disappeared up one of the cross-streets. “The villain,” he exclaimed, “the swindling scoundrel! Which way did he go? The ungrateful thief! Tell me,” he continued, turning to me, “tell me which way he went.” I point out to Mr. ___ the course taken by his late customer, and mentioned also what I had seen take place between him and the poor woman. “Ah, it’s no use,” he then said; “he’s got off clear by this time, and my thirty dollars is a ‘gone case.’ But I’ll find him yet, someday.” And thus soliloquizing, Mr. ___ returned into his shop. Taking advantage of the familiarity that had grown up between the broker and his chain, the young man had substituted an oroide chain for the gold one which had been so often deposited with the watch, and the deception had passed unnoticed until it was too late. The watch itself was a cheap one, and probably worth about the sum advanced.

THE STORY OF A RING

A touching incident occurred at the place of my next visit. A woman about thirty-five years old, in the garb of mourning, entered, evidently with reluctance; she could hardly make the object of her visit known on account of her emotion. She was of a delicate frame, of easy and rather graceful manners, and but for the ravages of care upon her face might still have been beautiful. At length she took a ring from a pretty little morocco case, upon the pledge of which she wished to realize such an amount of money as would sustain herself and children through the winter. The extortioner took the ring in his fingers, and holding it up to the window pretended to examine it—assuming at the same time an air of affected disappointed; he began at once to depreciate the article, declaring that it was nothing but an Alaska crystal, and that he would hardly take it at any price. He was inexorable and peremptorily refused to advance more than four or five dollars. Tears glistened in the woman’s eye.

I had seen, as the man studied the ring with secret satisfaction by the window, that the gem was valuable. I was determined that the unfortunate owner should not be imposed upon. Just before a bargain was completed, however, as I was about to interpose myself, another gentleman, who had also been watching the proceeding, stepped forward and declared that the beautiful ring should not be sacrificed…in that way. The broker at once endeavored to hasten matters, and declaring the bargain to have been completed, would have succeeded in thrusting the jewel into the drawer, but for the resolution of the gentleman who seized and saved it. The wretch muttered something about people’s interfering in business that was exclusively his own concern, but to no purpose. The widow was rescued from his fangs, and received a fair amount for her ring.

This poor lady, whose history I afterward learned, was an orphan, a daughter of a Virginia planter, who had been reduced to poverty before our civil war, so that his children were left portionless, and had been married when quite young. The husband of this daughter was killed in the late war, and she had learned the miseries and uncertainties of life.

Doubtless these examples which came under my notice are but a few of many, the mere relation of which is sufficient to make one blush for his fellow men.

W.L. STONE

Evening Post [New York, NY] 13 January 1872: p. 1

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Many ladies of this era were held hostage by drunken, improvident, and abusive spouses. Widows fared little better, if, as so often happened, the late husband lost the family fortune by imprudent speculation, went into a Decline, and died. The pawnshop, the sweatshop–or the street–were often the only recourse. Mrs Daffodil can only suggest to the attenuated spouse of the brute Robert, that she lay out part of the money thrust into her hands by the young man about town to secure an insurance policy on her husband. While the balance of the money should be well-hidden, enough should be retained to allow Robert to accidentally discover it and go on a spree so immoderate that it will inevitably bring a quick return on her investment.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.