HISTORY
So the rent's gone up. Again. Our landlord, Mr. Hopscotch, sent me a letter the other day, telling me so. Apparently, it's because his credit has “gone all crunchy”. That and to repair that wall Grill destroyed the other month, trying to find hidden treasure. Turned out the “treasure” was in fact a Gladstone bag, filled with old dental equipment. Covered in blood.
But I couldn't help but wonder how it all got there, and why. So I went to the library in Twentyford and searched through the parish records. Then kind of wished I hadn't...
Apparently, our house was once the surgery of a Mr Reuben Denby-Ashe, and between 1899 and 1909 he practised dentistry. The first few years passed without incident. But in 1907, Denby-Ashe seemed to have suffered some sort of episode.
The Skrutston Probe for May 9th in that year reports that he'd been involved in an altercation with a manual labourer by the name of Gilkes, accusing Gilkes of deliberately pickling his own molars to harden them, thus endangering his equipment. Gilkes was found 2 days later, in a hedge outside a local brothel, his face perforated with drill marks, and the words 'tooth pickler' crudely etched with a scalpel across his forehead. Denby-Ashe was taken into custody, and sent to the nearby sanatorium with “nervous exhaustion”, avoiding both a prison sentence, and the then customary 'bear ride', during which convicted criminals were strapped, in women's' garb, to a clockwork bear and rode through the streets. Denby-Ashe, however, avoided being struck off, owing to a legal loophole allowing the nephews of mariners to “pretty much do whatever as long as it doesn't involve dogs”. So within 9 months, he was reinstalled at his surgery. His reputation, though, had suffered greatly, and only farmers and members of the local underworld would use him.
Bare-Knuckle Biting was a popular, but illegal, sport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two naked combatants, or 'Chewymen' as they were called, would have their arms bound behind them and would bite each other until one of them bled to death, or was sick, or lost their keys. Needless to say these, desperate, sweaty men required frequent dental attention, and would go to Denby-Ashe to avoid arousing the suspicions of the authorities.
One infamous Chewyman, Jim 'Horsemeat' MacWhinney, approached Denby-Ashe with a proposition. For a cut of his winnings, MacWhinney contracted Denby-Ashe to fit each of his teeth with an intricate set of mechanised, retractable blades, one hidden behind each tooth, allowing him to gouge great chunks of flesh from his opponents. The effect would not be unlike being assaulted by Adrian Chiles with a pair of pinking shears.
Denby-Ashe was by now painfully addicted to his own anaesthetics, and would often forego food to afford the peculiar mixture of laudanum and tallow he'd become hooked on. With a growing habit to feed, he accepted MacWhinney's proposal. In a single drug-fuelled evening, he designed and built the gruesome device out of brass, small enough to fit inside MacWhinney's mouth.
However, all did not fare well. While fitting the contraption to MacWhinney, Denby-Ashe was distracted by a child at his window, dressed as his dead wife, and wound the device's springs too tightly. When finally opened, the force was great enough to tear MacWhinney's jaw from its sockets, leaving his lower mandible swaying in the cruel October wind. Enraged, MacWhinney beat Denby-Ashe to death with his own Gladstone bag, which he then crudely walled up to hide the evidence. Distraught that his days as Twknmnshire's most infamous Chewyman were now at an end, MacWhinney suffocated himself with a prize-winning marrow, and was found, next to Denby-Ashe, dead.
So, there you go. I'd imagine there's a moral there, somewhere. Don't let Grill look for treasure, probably...
But I couldn't help but wonder how it all got there, and why. So I went to the library in Twentyford and searched through the parish records. Then kind of wished I hadn't...
Apparently, our house was once the surgery of a Mr Reuben Denby-Ashe, and between 1899 and 1909 he practised dentistry. The first few years passed without incident. But in 1907, Denby-Ashe seemed to have suffered some sort of episode.
The Skrutston Probe for May 9th in that year reports that he'd been involved in an altercation with a manual labourer by the name of Gilkes, accusing Gilkes of deliberately pickling his own molars to harden them, thus endangering his equipment. Gilkes was found 2 days later, in a hedge outside a local brothel, his face perforated with drill marks, and the words 'tooth pickler' crudely etched with a scalpel across his forehead. Denby-Ashe was taken into custody, and sent to the nearby sanatorium with “nervous exhaustion”, avoiding both a prison sentence, and the then customary 'bear ride', during which convicted criminals were strapped, in women's' garb, to a clockwork bear and rode through the streets. Denby-Ashe, however, avoided being struck off, owing to a legal loophole allowing the nephews of mariners to “pretty much do whatever as long as it doesn't involve dogs”. So within 9 months, he was reinstalled at his surgery. His reputation, though, had suffered greatly, and only farmers and members of the local underworld would use him.
Bare-Knuckle Biting was a popular, but illegal, sport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two naked combatants, or 'Chewymen' as they were called, would have their arms bound behind them and would bite each other until one of them bled to death, or was sick, or lost their keys. Needless to say these, desperate, sweaty men required frequent dental attention, and would go to Denby-Ashe to avoid arousing the suspicions of the authorities.
One infamous Chewyman, Jim 'Horsemeat' MacWhinney, approached Denby-Ashe with a proposition. For a cut of his winnings, MacWhinney contracted Denby-Ashe to fit each of his teeth with an intricate set of mechanised, retractable blades, one hidden behind each tooth, allowing him to gouge great chunks of flesh from his opponents. The effect would not be unlike being assaulted by Adrian Chiles with a pair of pinking shears.
Denby-Ashe was by now painfully addicted to his own anaesthetics, and would often forego food to afford the peculiar mixture of laudanum and tallow he'd become hooked on. With a growing habit to feed, he accepted MacWhinney's proposal. In a single drug-fuelled evening, he designed and built the gruesome device out of brass, small enough to fit inside MacWhinney's mouth.
However, all did not fare well. While fitting the contraption to MacWhinney, Denby-Ashe was distracted by a child at his window, dressed as his dead wife, and wound the device's springs too tightly. When finally opened, the force was great enough to tear MacWhinney's jaw from its sockets, leaving his lower mandible swaying in the cruel October wind. Enraged, MacWhinney beat Denby-Ashe to death with his own Gladstone bag, which he then crudely walled up to hide the evidence. Distraught that his days as Twknmnshire's most infamous Chewyman were now at an end, MacWhinney suffocated himself with a prize-winning marrow, and was found, next to Denby-Ashe, dead.
So, there you go. I'd imagine there's a moral there, somewhere. Don't let Grill look for treasure, probably...
posted by Drill Boy at
23:20
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