Friday 23 August 2013

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Garrotting?

Being a judge for the Crown Prosecution Service, you would think that the only contact I’d have with the criminal underclass would be when I’m sentencing them to death.  Alas, my plight is that I have become victim to their devilish machinations.

The streets of London in these modern times are rife with criminality.  Grave robbery is abundant, pickpockets rifle through our undergarments willy-nilly, and drunkards urinate openly onto orphans.  I declare this, the year of 1851, to be the most dangerous in all of our capital’s history.  And yet, there is a deeper threat to the civilised gent; one which today’s crook has a positive fetish for.  That, my dear chums, is garrotting.

As a morally respected fellow and upstanding pillar of the community, I find it abhorrent that I cannot merely walk down the street from my opium den to the local whore house without being garrotted.   Just last week one of these scumsocks garrotted me and stole 17 of my 20 handkerchiefs.  Those were irreplaceable hankies that only had several crusted bogeys on them.  Since this incident I dare not sneeze in decent company, lest I infect them with lurgi or other ailments.

An anti-garrotting device I am considering.


This is not a standalone incident.  Little less than a year ago I was accosted by a gentleman asking for the time.  Flipping out my pocket watch, I informed him that it was 11:39 PM and, if he didn’t hurry up, Red’s brothel would be fully depleted of stock.  It was then that I felt a leather strap tightening around my throat.  An unseen ruffian behind me had begun his garrotte, squeezing my Adam’s Apple and rendering me ineffectual.  Those scallywags took that pocketwatch, my purse, my top hat, and my moustache.  I was deeply upset by this incident.  That moustache took several months to cultivate.

I’m afraid to say that the situation is only getting worse.  On the streets of London, many a working class man has resorted to this particular style of criminality.  Garrotting is becoming more fashionable by the day, like hobnail boots.  Dandies are being pulled from their carriages and garrotted in the street, and yet nothing is taken.  Garrotting gangs are forming in the same manner that a man might watch the steam train at Paddington pull into the platform.  It is a fad that will hopefully fade away, but in the meantime we are to be left short of breath in the street by these naughty scoundrels.

 
Try and garrotte me now, bitches!


The question is what is to be done with the garrotter?  As a man at the apex of the law, I understand that this garrotting mania is only getting worse.  I see men enter my dock as thieves and come out as convicts daily.  A jail spell only allows the garrotter to hone his craft even further by practising on other convicts.  I hear they have contests in some prisons.

So, here’s my proposal.  Upon a convict’s first strike, garrotte them around the throat with a taught rope, suspended in the air.  Yes, hang them on their first conviction.  Then we’ll see how many reoffenders we get.

((Inspired by this wonderful page here:  http://www.victorianlondon.org/crime/representations.htm))

18 comments:

  1. If this was truly written in 1851 then I weep because still now, this problem persists. I was garrotted just the other day, as were my wife and children. They were garrotted so hard they felt it despite having the crippling illness known as Unexistance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, who was your garotter? They must be powerful to make nonexistent people feel it.

      Delete
  2. Yeah, but what if you return the favor by garrotting a garrotter while he was in the process of garrotting you? Would it be considered an act of self defense, or will you hang like any other garrotter? I suppose the only way you could garrote someone while being garrotted would be to form a circle of about 6 people minimum. So, on second thought, I don't think this issue would ever arise. Pardon me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To correctly garrotte someone, you must approach from the rear. If you are facing the person it just becomes a rather intense hug.

      Delete
  3. There's nothing wrong with hob nail boots. I own a pair and they are more than adept at keeping ruffions and the working classes in their place.

    A swift upswing to the unmentionables is just enough encouragement these ner-do-wells need in order to rectify the correct social standings in that a gentleman such as myself should always and forever look DOWN upon the great unwashed.

    The Empire, and indeed the World, would go to hell in a hand cart were it not for the threat of a sturdy back hander and clout with the bible towards young children, blaggards and the occasional wench.

    Anything else and it's just not cricket.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Too bloody right sir! I wholeheartedly agree with your hardline policy on ruffians. If it were down to me, you'd makes chief of police.

      Delete
  4. It all sounds so terribly frightening, i'd tell you to cry me a river but alas with a mere 3 handkerchiefs to your name! Its scandalous & if you opt for the first anti-garotting device then I guess you must have strong shoulders.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My shoulders are already strong. I carry around a burden that only a man with three hankies will ever know.

      Delete
  5. Garrotting is a treat I've yet to experience. I'm in no hurry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you sure? I reckon, for the right price, I could get one of the scoundrels I had sent down let you experience the sensation. I might open a tourist attraction based around it.

      Delete
  6. Doth this fine judge of persecution not fancy the garment that is the chain mail turtle neck or the scarf of steel? Surely either method of fashion forward statementry would negate the need for more absurd accessories as those pictured, as well as crafting the illusion of this upstanding citizen being akin to a supernatural entity deserved of praise. And why the noose? Hath ye forgotten the more humane method of punishment, being drawn and quartered?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good sir, your ideas intrigue me, and I wish to subscribe to your printed pamphlet. Being hung, drawn and quartered is obviously my preferred method of dealing with any rapscallion, even loiterers, but I fear the liberal Prime Minister may prefer the softer touch, such as a hanging or leaving the perpetraitor in the stocks the starve.

      Delete
  7. Sorry Mr Addman I have done it again, I have run out of time to read and respond properly to your post. It is life and stuff I will have another go tomorrow before it gets so late my brain packs in. . . . .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No worries chap. Just make sure you do read it. Then pass it on to five friends like those chain emails, or else a ghost will turn your bread mouldy.

      Delete
    2. DAMN my bread has gone mouldy, I hate it when that happens.

      I have speed read your post due to my work load, but I think I get the gist . . . .

      I dont see this problem lasting, people in general don't like vegetables, and carrots are detested by many so this terrible fad of Carrotting cant last. If anyone sneaked up behind me with a carrot I would be mortified so suspending all the carrots out of reach on a rope seems a good solution.

      Keep up the good work . . . . I am am sure I saw something about espionage but due to what appears to be espionage it has vanished. Well how odd is that.......

      Delete
    3. Yeah, something strange happened in that the Espionage post posted as scheduled, then when I went to look at it with the Blogger app later (on Android no less), it reverted it to draft. I had to wait until I was next at my PC before I could repost it normally.

      Confused? I was.

      Delete
  8. I agree my young fellow, Garotting is by far the worst throat based crime x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even worse than Christmas scarves, my dear!

      Delete

Leave me a nice comment or die trying.