Dreaming Death: Early Registration of Death March 5, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This appeared in the newspaper as ‘an extraordinary hallucination’: Beach had very tentatively put it in his list of Victorian urban legends until he verified the existence of Sheriff Balfour. It could alternatively be sure bloody chance; or a murder case (if you close your eyes and squint at it from an unusual angle): any views gladly received, drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Yesterday Sheriff Balfour had before him a man who had been the victim of an extraordinary hallucination. The assistant of a local registrar stated that the man had registered his wife’s death before she was dead, and asked permission to rectify the mistake. Having been asked what led to such a serious thing, the man said he was in the ‘blues’ one night, and while lying in bed a man with a tall hat appeared and said, ‘You must go to the registrar’s office tomorrow at half past ten, and register the death of your wife.’ When he awoke the following morning the vision of the man with the tall hat haunted him so much that he was impelled do to as he had been told. When he got rid of the delirium tremens he thought it was time to become a teetotaller, and he went and took the pledge. The registar then informed the Sheriff that the man’s wife died the following week. Sheriff Balfour said this was the most extraordinary case that he had ever heard of. He refused the application meantime, and asked the registrar and the man to appear before him again to-day.
A couple of thoughts here. The ‘blues’ seems to mean, ‘be rather drunk’: a completely unfamiliar sense to this blogger. Second, a man in a tall hat is presumably an undertaker: see the image at the head of this post. So not a man in black, a devil or a fairy, just a death’s head warning. Possibly the man was anxious about his wife’s health, dreamt her death in an alcoholic haze and then went and informed the authorities. She then died the week after. In this light the only unusual thing in the story is the strange sense of compulsion the man felt to register his wife’s death in a preliminary fashion. Did he do so as a kind of touch wood act, I’d rather be made a fool of than lose Dotty? There is, as noted above, also the sinister take. The man decided to ‘off’ his wife. Foolishly informed the authorities first. Then lost his nerve for a week.
Source: Dundee Evening Telegraph (29 Oct 1890), 2
