I like reading stuff from past centuries, as it can be different from what we read today. 18th Century newspapers were the inspiration for Squire Haggard's Journal where he kept a daily diary.
Oct. 2:
Rain. Elijah Doghouse d.from the Manifold Eruptions. Awoke late and
immediately rang for Grunge but there was a terrible wailg. from the corridor and he
burst into the room shouting and sobbing as if distracted with grief
'What's the matter.^' I cried and he replied: 'Matter enough! The worst news since they
raised the tax on gin. Slavering Sally, the favourite whore at Lower Sodmire, has died
from exhaustion as a result of plying her trade too freely at the Yeomanry Ball!'
On receipt of these Dread Tidings a paroxysm of distress smote me and for a moment
I could not articulate. At length I ejaculated, 'What happened.^' and Grunge, between
sobs, told me that when Perverted Polly, another whore at Lower Sodmire, was
stricken with a fever, Sally generously offered to oblige her customers as well as her
own.
Alas, the effort proved too much and she succumbed peacefully, blessg. all her clients
and returning any money taken in advance. 'She died like a true Christian,' declared
Grunge, 'in the service of others,' to which I cried, 'Amen!'
Oct. 3
Fog. Feeble Frederick d. from a surfeit of apple puddg. His wife threw it at
him, killg. him instantly. The dreadful news about Sally has struck me to the heart.
Many the time I have sent for her when life was unbearable.
I wept as I remembered her habit of bitg. each penny she recvd. to make sure it was
good. She had other habits too, which I shall not set down. She had no faults except a
tendency to smear her armpits with garlic against the Plague.
When the first paroxysm of grief was over I determined she should have a fitting
memorial and prepared the followg. funeral tribute, viz:
Elegy on the death of a whore who died doing her duty
Ye gods of Love! ye gods of War! look down
On one whom Love has cruelly o'erthrown.
Have mercy on this simple little whore
Who fell a soldier in the Paphian's War.
She died the noblest death that one could will
Serving mankind with all her subtle skill.
The warriors of Mars with her made free,
Number Five Troop, the Loamshire Yeomanry.
Alas, her favours were too freely given!
Her mortal frame succumbed, by Cupid riven.
Yet even dying spake she genVously:
'I'm sorry, lads, but I'll return your fee.'
For little Sal, ring out no mournful chimes.
She lives elsewhere in heaven's happier climes!
Where clients pay their money on the nail
And pox and clap are but a fairy tale.
When the poem was finished I shed a tear on the page and carried it to the Rector to
read it at her funeral but the cantg. hypocrite declined and said it was blasphemous
and I would do better to fall to my prayers. 'Then I shall read it myself at her
obsequies,' I shouted.
Oct. 5
Took my Elegy to the funeral of Sally; a huge crowd of three thousand souls,
all men, attended, exhibiting tokens of the deepest sorrow. Many appeared to be in the
last stages of disease but gallantly limped behind the cortege or were carried on litters,
moang. and beatg. their breasts. The Band of The Yeomanry played mournful airs.
The only discordant note was struck by sevl. wives who tried to spit upon the bier. As
the coffin was lowered I cried, 'Silence!' and started to read aloud the poem. Alas,
after the first verse I slipped on the wet earth and fell into the grave. The gravediggers,
however, were tenants of mine and the dogs pretended they did not see me. So they
lustily filled in the trench and I was half-buried before I could clamber out. item:
Clean raiment, £0.4s.2d.
N.B. I shall send my ode to The Gentlemans Magazine.
