A Fashionable Death: A brief history of gowns, gloves and arsenic – Part IV

A Fashionable Death: A brief history of gowns, gloves and arsenic – Part IV

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The Death of Matilda Scheurer Matilda Scheurer was as an attractive, young girl who worked in a factory “fluffing” and dyeing artificial flowers with arsenic based dyes. In 1861 she died of arsenic poisoning. She was 19. The papers leaped on the gruesome details of Matilda’s death. They reported that before dying she vomited green water, the whites of her eyes turned green, she foamed at the mouth, and had frequent convulsions. An autopsy revealed that arsenic had invaded all…

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A Fashionable Death: A brief history of gowns, gloves and arsenic – Part III

A Fashionable Death: A brief history of gowns, gloves and arsenic – Part III

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Poisoned  Emma, Rose and many other middle and upper class women suffered from wearing toxic clothes and accessories. Girls shoulders’ erupted in sores after a night of wearing Paris Green (fake) flowers. Lady Lillian Grey found ulcers under and around her finger nails after she wore green gloves. Women developed headaches and stomach problems after sleeping day in and day out in bedrooms with walls papered with arsenic-laced wallpaper (arsenic is extremely soluble in water, and damp weather caused the…

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A Fashionable Death: A brief history of gowns, gloves and arsenic – Part II

A Fashionable Death: A brief history of gowns, gloves and arsenic – Part II

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Gossip is a social activity. If you’re enjoying The Discovery Lane Victorian Gossip Column, please use the icons above to share. A Deadly Dye In the late 1700s, a Swedish chemist invented a pigment called “Scheele’s Green.” In Victorian times, the color was known as “Paris Green.” “Paris Green” was such a popular color in Victorian England that it was used for everything. Women papered the walls of their homes with Paris Green Wallpaper, servants lit Paris Green candles, girls…

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A Fashionable Death: A brief history of gowns, gloves and arsenic – Part I

A Fashionable Death: A brief history of gowns, gloves and arsenic – Part I

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Gossip is a social activity. If you’re enjoying The Discovery Lane Victorian Gossip Column, please use the icons above to share. A Killer In Our Midst The ladies of Discovery Lane are flocking to Kaylah’s Tea Room. They are driven there by fear, and a need for companionship and consolation. A murderer, known as Jack the Ripper, is loose in the slums of London. The papers, and the inhabitants of Discovery Lane, can talk of little else.  With Whitechapel (the…

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Murder Is Good for Business – Part VI

Murder Is Good for Business – Part VI

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Gossip Column #30 Gossip is a social activity. If you’re enjoying The Discovery Lane Victorian Gossip Column, please use the icons above to share. Today there are endless ways to learn about Jack the Ripper. A website entitled Jack the Ripper 1888 encourages armchair detectives to study the details and cast their vote as to whom they think is the real killer.  Author Hallie Rubenhold has written an excellent book called The Five. In it she reveals fascinating details about…

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Murder Is Good for Business – Part V

Murder Is Good for Business – Part V

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Gossip Column #29 Gossip is a social activity. If you’re enjoying The Discovery Lane Victorian Gossip Column, please use the icons above to share. Lady Grey furrowed her brow and stared at Sarah Jane, seemingly attempting to process all that she had just said. Meanwhile, the others at the table suddenly busied themselves pouring tea, cutting another slice of cake or hiding their faces behind various newspaper articles.  Then, with a rather triumphant tone, Lady Grey announced “You’re quite right…

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Murder Is Good for Business – Part IV

Murder Is Good for Business – Part IV

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Gossip is a social activity. If you’re enjoying The Discovery Lane Victorian Gossip Column, please use the icons above to share. Gossip Column #28 Lady Grey’s friends were not entirely sure whether she was more afraid of being murdered, or of inadvertently hurting someone’s feelings. Regardless, she had gone so white that Kaylah found herself reaching for the vial of smelling salts she kept in her apron pocket. Fainting was a rather frequent occurrence in her tea room. “No Lillian, of…

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Murder Is Good for Business – Part III

Murder Is Good for Business – Part III

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Gossip Column #28 Gossip is a social activity. If you’re enjoying The Discovery Lane Victorian Gossip Column, please use the icons above to share. “I’m terrified to go out at night!” This came from Lady Lillian Grey, an elegantly dressed lady in her mid-30s. She was sitting at a table with a group of friends. They had covered every available space with newspaper articles about the latest Ripper killing. “Every night I make the servants triple check that all the…

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Murder Is Good for Business – Part II

Murder Is Good for Business – Part II

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Gossip Column #27 Gossip is a social activity. If you’re enjoying The Discovery Lane Victorian Gossip Column, please use the icons above to share. In August of 1888, all of England was on edge. In the coming years, the events that set the country buzzing would be known as “The Ripper Murders” or “the murders done by Jack the Ripper.”  Over the course of 4 months, from August to November, five women fell prey to The Ripper. The killer, whose…

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Murder Is Good for Business – Part I

Murder Is Good for Business – Part I

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Gossip Column #26 Gossip is a social activity. If you’re enjoying The Discovery Lane Victorian Gossip Column, please use the icons above to share! Ivy studied the crowd in Kaylah’s Victorian Tea Room. Almost every table in the place was filled with groups of chattering women. Most of them had newspapers spread out in front of them; the few groups without papers were rapidly handed pages from the tables that had them. “Miss Kaylah will be pleased at this turnout”…

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