Death by Joke March 21, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
The historical practical joke tag has now reached almost a dozen posts and Beach thought that he would celebrate with a brief survey of a particularly unusual form of practical joke: jokes that ended in the joker or jokee dying. Beach limited himself to British newspapers from 1 Jan 1880 to Dec 31 1899 and came up in short order with almost forty cases of death by comedy blunder: not all are British but most are. The Victorians were great and rather cruel practical jokers but here are the most serious failures in the history of the late Victorian laugh. There are a lot of very stupid people below, but perhaps Beach’s favourite candidate for idiot of those score years when Britannia really ruled the waves goes to the three men who in August 1882 decided to see if they could throw their friend over a ten foot well for giggles. That one was never going to end well… Other deadly jokes: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Sep 1899: Joseph Hazell hit with a piece of oak in a practical joke gone wrong (Colchester)
May 1899: George Jones drowned while trying to drag a cat across a canal (Sheffield)
Aug 1897: False ghost drives servant mad and she ends up drowning herself (Kent)
Apr 1897: Charles Tasker fell backward and died after a tickle joke (Hove)
Sep 1896: Skull on stick kills an old lady with fright (Seville, Spain)
Aug 1895: One Jacobs killed in hanging horseplay (Paris)
Jul 1895: Pipe light infiltrated ear membrane of sleeping William Fielder in practical joke (London)
Jun 1884: Falling table in a joke causes internal injury for Mr Marshall (Stockport)
Oct 1895: Student drinks vitriol in joke (Monkwearmouth)
Feb 1894: Students killed a ‘negro chef’ after filling a dining room with chlorine gas (Cornell, US)
Aug 1893: William Platt killed when he was thrown from his bike in a practical joke (Nantwich)
Mar 1893: William Prosser dies in snow rolling joke (Cloddock)
Feb 1893: John Halliwell died of injuries after being manhandled in a practical joke by a butcher (Lincoln)
Jan 1893: Poison drunk in joke (Coventry)
Oct 1892: One Vincent killed when his machine connected to mains as joke (Kansas, US)
May 1892: George Evans killed in fight after a practical joke (Shrewsbury)
Nov 1891: Joseph Barber killed in a fight after a practical joke (Hollinwood)
Oct 1891: Poison drunk in joke (Dublin)
Aug 1891: Woman cuts wrist after false letter says fiancé leaving her (Berlin)
May 1891: Hanging joke (Darwen)
Jan 1891: Nephews pretending to be wolves shot by uncle (Castel, France)
Aug 1890: Fight over a fake rabbit joke (Market Harborough)
Mar 1890: Box joke goes wrong and crushes victim (Dorchester)
Feb 1890: Poison drunk in joke (Hants)
Aug 1899: Robbing joke ends in shooting (St Cuthbert)
Feb 1899: G. Helide killed after dressing as a ghost and trying to scare a passerby with an axe (Cornwall?)
Dec 1887: False monster scared child Mary Richardson into fire (Barnsley)
Dec 1887: Joking railway guard brained by bridge arch (Southsea)
Jul 1886: Shooting joke goes wrong in barracks (Curragh)
Dec 1885: Shooting joke goes wrong (Chumsely Location, US)
15 Nov 1885: Light suddenly turned off in jest scares Mary Ann Heggs to death (Leicester)
Jan 1884: Richard Thomas ducked to death in pond (Weston Super Mare)
Sep 1882: Practical joker crushed after jumping on man (Greenhithe)
Aug 1882: Thomas Meredith thrown over a ten foot wall (Sedgley)
Jul 1882: Rat poison kills a dwarf in a joke gone wrong (Co. Tipperary)
May 1882: Alcohol poisoning in a joke gone wrong (Loughborough)
Aug 1881: A false man-overboard cry ends up in two rescuers drowning (Plymouth)
21 Mar 2015: Chris from Haunted Ohio Books with this American selection:’ I have a feeling that the toll of insanity or “mania” from practical jokes was higher than that of death, but plenty of deaths were reported. Some of the “jokes” were incredibly ill-advised–like putting croton oil–a caustic poison in high doses, but also used as a purgative–into a friend’s drink; or pumping a young man full of air at 110 lbs per square inch–through an entrance orifice left unspecified.
The Frankfort Journal of Aug. 17th, has the following—In a school at Turin, superintended by the nuns of St. Joseph, the children having lately made a disturbance by uttering cries, the sisters threatened them with the apparition of the devil, if they continued to make a noise. Soon after, on a signal given, there appeared a chimney sweep dressed in a frightful garb, with horns and a fiery looking mouth. The children were so much frightened that some of them fainted. At the noise caused by this scandal, the house and street were soon filled with a crowd. At length the Rector of the parish came, and put an end to the shameful exhibition, but not till several of the children had died of terror.”
Washington [District of Columbia] Globe 5 October 1833 p. 3 [Frankly, this sounds like an anti-Catholic hoax.]
This story comes from “The Old Mansion” in Caroline County, Virginia:
There is a tradition that here an invalid wife was frightened to death by her husband placing a hideous mask at the window of her sick room, and that this husband, while enamoured of his housekeeper, affected great grief at his wife’s funeral, sitting his horse backward and demanding a sheet for his tears. Growing out of this tradition is another ghost story to the effect that the spirit of this woman haunted the house for many years and that groans, screams, stealthy footsteps and other fearful sounds, drove tenant after tenant away from the place.
The Weekly Vincennes [IN] Gazette 12 August 1857
MINER SCARED TO DEATH
Zanesville, O., Dec 25. Howard Mills, a miner living near Coaldale, was scared to death about midnight by some boys who rigged up a “ghost” which, with the aid of some thin paddles with hooks to swing through the air, was able to emit unearthly groans and shrieks. Mills was confronted with the machine while returning home late at night, and was so overwhelmed with the terrific noise and the suddenness of the apparition that he dropped dead in his tracks. He was a stalwart man, 47 years of age, and the father of six children.
The Ohio Democrat [Logan, OH] 2 January 1902: p. 1
Reading, Pa., Jan. 3 Franklin B. Goodhart, the gambler, who was the victim of a practical joke about two weeks ago; and became insane in consequence, died last night of nervous prostration. Some acquaintances, knowing that he was timid, got up a mock murder in his presence. Goodhart went to California in 1840 and came back a year later with $9,000 in dust. He lost it all at cards, then followed a circus as a three-card monte man, etc.
New Philadelphia Ohio Democrat 13 January 1887: p. 1
FRIGHTENED TO DEATH BY A COFFIN “JOKE”
Journal Special Service
New Orleans, May 15. Susan Washington, a young woman of Crowley, La., is dead of fright as the result of being locked up in a dark room all night with an empty coffin. The girl was at a party with a number of young men, and they concluded that it would be a good joke to lock her up with the coffin.
She entered into the spirit of the affair, but the boys failed to unlock her. The strain of staying with the grewsome object was too much for the girl and she died a few hours after being released.
The Minneapolis {MN] Journal 15 May 1906: p. 3
And, finally, a joke about a practical joke death among tramps:
Killed by a Practical Joke.
Weary William: Practical jokes ain’t right, Sandy. Der’s me old pard, Dusty Rhodes, dat died from de effects of one.
Sandy the Supplicant: How’d it happen?
“Well, you see, Dusty goes up to one of dese wayside cottages an’ asks de lady fer a pie. De lady says: ‘I ain’t got a pie in the house, me good man, but here’s a cake.’”
“What species of a cake was it, Billy?”
“’Twas, ‘twas a cake of soap, Sandy.”
Jackson [MI] Citizen Patriot 11 November 1899: p. 2
and here is a document from Chris (DEATHB~3) It might sound like a virus but isn’t!
