The History of Oswestry: Comprising the British, Saxon, Norman, and English eras; the topography of the borough; and its ecclesiastical and civic history; with notices of botany, geology, statistics, angling, and biography: to which are added sketches of the environsCathrall, William
History
The History of Oswestry: Comprising the British, Saxon, Norman, and English eras; the topography of the borough; and its ecclesiastical and civic history; with notices of botany, geology, statistics, angling, and biography: to which are added sketches of the environs
Cathrall, William
Natural history -- England -- Shropshire; Oswestry (England) -- History
“DICK SPOT.”—A man figuring under this patronymic, but whose real name
was Edward Morris, flourished at Oswestry some years ago. He was
celebrated as a conjuror or professor of legerdemain, and pursued his
tricks with such marvellous success that the name of “_Dick Spot_” was
popular among the humbler classes throughout the district. He professed
to tell a love-sick damsel who was to be her husband; to detect thieves
by turning a key upon the Bible; and by other “craft and subtlety”
inspired his credulous visitors with hopes of coming grandeur and
overflowing fortunes, &c. At length death arrested Morris in his
deceptive career, and his remains were consigned to the earth in Oswestry
Church-yard. Hulbert, in a notice of Oswestry, in his “History of the
County,” refers to Dick Spot’s career, and says, “On requesting an
eccentric but ingenious inhabitant, now one of the Churchwardens, to
furnish me with some particulars of a pamphlet said to be the Life of
_Dick Spot_, he thus replied,—‘I know not who has got his life, but this
I know, that I am in possession of his mortal remains in Oswestry
Church-yard, having purchased the spot of earth which contained them,
from his grand-daughter. His skull, which I had in my hand the other
day, was treated with very little respect by the Hamlet-like grave
digger.’ If poor Morris had been blessed with the gift of foresight, he
certainly would have directed that his mortal remains should be deposited
in a more secure place of sepulture.” Who the eccentric Churchwarden was
the historian does not inform us. We are half inclined to believe that
his _grave_ discovery was a hoax, a species of pleasantry, somewhat
resembling what is called “Bolton Trotting,” and which two or three
well-known wags were wont to indulge in, many years ago, occasionally
with thoughtless imprudence and merciless severity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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