Author: Susanna Ives

Romance author, onsignment fashionista, kdrama junkie, jazz type, occasional runner, coffee lover.
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Victorian Lessons: How to Flirt with Gloves, the Importance of Ring Position, and Writing Love Letters that Get You Married (or not)

Good heavens, it has been months since I last visited The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained by Henry J Wehman, published in 1890.  How my heart has missed its missives of love and longing. Tonight, I learned why I had so much trouble getting dates in my early 20s. It seems I was wearing my ring the wrong finger! I was telegraphing to men of wealth and station my intention to die unmarried.  Not only that, I was constantly biting the tips of my gloves not knowing that I was telling gentlemen to go away. I should been striking my gloves over my shoulder inviting men to follow me.

So, let us learn the proper ways to telegraph love with glove and rings, as well as how to write love letters to strangers, inconstant lovers and heavenly angels that you fell in love with at first sight.

Most of the images in this post come from Cassell’s Family Magazine.

Let’s get started….

Love’s Telegraph

If a gentleman wants a wife, he wears a ring on the first finger of the left hand; if he is engaged, he wears it on the second finger; if married, on the third; and on the fourth if he never intends to be married. When a lady is not engaged, she wears a hoop or diamond on her first finger; if engaged, on the second; if married, on the third and on the fourth if she intends to die unmarried. When a gentleman presents a fan, flower, or trinket to a lady with the left hand, this on his part is an overture of regard; should she receive it with the left hand, it is considered as an acceptance of his esteem; but if with the right hand, it is a refusal of the offer. Thus, by a few simple tokens explained by rule, the passion of love is expressed and through the medium of the telegraph, the most timid and diffident man may, without difficulty, communicate his sentiments of regard to a lady, and, in case his offer should be refused, avoid experiencing the mortification of an explicit refusal.

Letter to a young lady after seeing her in a store:

Madam:

 You will perhaps think it extraordinary that a young man should take the liberty of addressing you without even the formality of a previous introduction. I have to apologize, therefore, and I hope that you will at least forgive me if you cannot confer the favor which I would ask.  I have so far seen only through the window of ——‘s store, bit cannot explain to you how great a desire I feel that I should enjoy the very great pleasure of your acquaintance. I might perhaps obtain this, if you allowed me to do so, by means of some mutual friend, but I know of none. There is no alternative for me but a direct request, and I thought it more respectful to make it by letter. It would at this moment, be impertinent to allude further to the great admiration which I have for you, in begging you to give me an opportunity of introducing myself, and I must add of satisfying you of my respectability. I feel that I have already run the risk of causing you annoyance. To have done so would have been a source of deep regret.  I trust that you will be so kind as to give me even the slightest intimation of your wishes, and you may depend upon my intruding no further without your permission.

Respectfully,

HERBERT WHITE

Her reply

Sir:

Your note has very much surprised me. You are so entirely unknown to me that cannot guess what my correspondent’s appearance even may be. Under these circumstances I must decline saying more than that I can neither refuse nor comply with your request. I think indeed that I ought at once to refuse it.

ROSE

From a lady to an inconstant lover:

Dear C—-:

It is with great reluctance that I enter upon a subject which has given me great pain, and upon which silence has become impossible if I would preserve my self-respect. You cannot but be aware that I have just reason for saying that you have much displeased me. You have apparently forgotten what is due to me, circumstanced as we are, thus far at least.  You cannot suppose that I can tamely see you disregard my feelings, by conduct toward other ladies from which I should naturally have the right to expect  you to abstain. I am not so vulgar a person as to be jealous.  When there is cause to infer changed feelings, or unfaithfulness to promises of constancy, jealousy is not the remedy. What the remedy is I need not say – we both of us have it in our own hands. I am sure you will agree with me that we must come to some understanding by which the future shall be governed. Neither you nor I can bear a divided allegiance.  Believe me that I write more in sorrow than in anger. You have made me very unhappy, and perhaps thoughtlessly. But it will take much to reassure me of your unaltered regard

Yours truly

EMMA

Love at First Sight:

To Miss Rose Terry:

It is but a few short months since we met, and yet in that time I have come to regard you more in the light of a heavenly angel than an earthly mortal, and in thee, dearest, I have found the ideal I have so long pictured as the woman I could love and cherish for a lifetime. I have neither wealth or station to offer thee, but instead an honest, loyal and lasting love, which you will increase tenfold in brightness and glory if you will accept it. This is sudden – too sudden, I fear – but my excuse is the hope of winning a sweet, gracious wife, who alone can make me happy. Write me at the earliest moment, I beseech thee, dearest love, and tell me if I am to be the happiest man in all the world. With feelings of the highest esteem and the deepest, most loyal love, I am thine.

JAMES LEON

See more posts from The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained:

More Victorian Love Letters and the Basics of Postage Stamp Flirtation

Valentine’s Day Edition: The Language of Flowers, How to Write a Victorian Love Letter, and Parasol Flirtations

How to Write Victorian Love Letters

Handkerchief and Fan Flirtations

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A Georgian Murder Most Foul

The following images and descriptions of gruesomeness come from 

published in 1795

Circumstantial Account of JAMES HALL, who was hanged in the Strand for the Murder of his Master.

This malefactor, according to the account given by himself, was descended of honest parents, of Wells in Hampshire, who gave him such an education as might qualify him for any ordinary rank of life.

Being unwilling to remain in the country, he came to London, and lived some time with a corn-chandler; and after a continuation in this service, he married, and had several children; but not living happily with his wife, articles of separation were executed between them. After this he married another woman, by whom he had one child, and who visited him after his being in custody for the murder.

At the sessions held at the Old Bailey, in August 1741, he was indicted for the murder of John Penny, gentleman, and pleading guilty, received sentence of death.

Mr. Penny had chambers in Clements Inn; and Hall had lived with him seven years before he committed the murder; nor had he formed any design of being guilty of the horrid deed till within about a month of its perpetration; but having kept more company than his circumstances could afford, he had involved himself in difficulties, which made him resolve to murder and rob his master.

On the 7th of June, 1741, he intoxicated himself with liquor, and then determined to carry his design into execution. Mr. Penny coming home between eleven and twelve at night, Hall assisted in undressing him in the dining-room; and while he was walking towards the bed, the villain followed him with a stick which he had concealed for the purpose, and struck him one blow with such force that he never spoke afterwards; and continued his blows on the head till he was apparently dead.

Willing, however, to be certain of completing the horrid tragedy, and to avoid detection, he went into the dining-room, and stripping himself naked, he took a small fruit knife belonging to his master, and returning to the chamber, cut his throat with it, holding his neck over the chamber-pot. Mr. Penny bled very freely; for when the blood was mixed with a small quantity of water, it almost filled the pot five times; and three of the pots thus mixed the murderer threw into the sink, and two in the coal-hole. He then took his master’s waistcoat, which was lined with dussil, and bound it round his neck, to suck up the remainder of the blood.

This being done, he took the body on his shoulders, carried it to the necessary, and threw it in head foremost; and flying back immediately to the chambers, under the most dreadful apprehensions of mind, he took his master’s coat, bloody shirt, the stick that he had knocked him down with, and some rags that he had used in wiping up the blood, and running a second time naked to the necessary-house, threw them in at a hole on the opposite side of it.

The body being thus disposed of, he stole about thirty-six guineas from his master’s pocket, and writing-desk; and such was the confusion of his mind, that he likewise took some franks, sealing-wax, and other articles for which he had no use; and then he employed the remainder of the night washing and rubbing the rooms with cloths; but finding it no easy matter to get out the blood, he sent for the laundress in the morning to wash them again, telling her that his master’s nose had bled over night.

On the following day the guilty wretch strolled from place to place, unable to find rest for a moment any where; and all his thoughts being engaged in concealing the murder, which he hoped was effectually done, from the place in which he had secreted the body.

On the Friday following he went to Mr. Wooton, his master’s nephew, on a pretence of enquiring for Mr. Penny, who he said had quitted the chambers two days before, and gone somewhere by water; so that he was afraid some accident had happened to him.

Mr. Wooton was so particular in his enquiries after his uncle, that Hall was exceedingly terrified at his questions, and knew not what answer to make to them. After this the criminal went twice every day to Mr. Wooton, to enquire after his master, for ten days; but lived all the while in a torment of mind that is not to be described.

So wretched was he, that finding it impossible to sleep in the chambers, he got his wife to come and be with him: and they lay in Mr. Penny’s bed: but still sleep was a stranger to him.

At length Mr. Wooton had Hall taken into custody, on a violent suspicion that he had murdered his uncle. On his first examination before a magistrate, he steadily avowed his innocence: but being committed to Newgate he attempted an escape: this, however, was prevented; and a few days afterwards he confessed his guilt before some relations of the deceased.

He was hanged at the end of Catherine Street in the Strand, on the 15th of September, 1741 and his body afterwards hung in chains at Shepherd’s Bush, three miles beyond Tyburn Turnpike, on the road to Acton.