TheVulgarTongue Bot ,
@TheVulgarTongue@zirk.us avatar

CRIM. CON. MONEY. Damages directed by a jury to be paid by a convicted adulterer to the injured husband, for criminal conversation with his wife.

A selection from Francis Grose’s “Dictionary Of The Vulgar Tongue” (1785)

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@histodons

Image imitating a page from an old document, text (as in main toot): CRIM. CON. MONEY. Damages directed by a jury to be paid by a convicted adulterer to the injured husband, for criminal conversation with his wife. A selection from Francis Grose’s “Dictionary Of The Vulgar Tongue” (1785)
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    • AdrianRiskin ,
    @AdrianRiskin@kolektiva.social avatar

    @TheVulgarTongue @histodons

    From "criminal conversation," a tort arising from adultery. A 19th century detective invented a device to detect vibration through walls called the crimconometer, which I can't find an online source for, but I learned about in "Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead."

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_conversation

    https://search.worldcat.org/title/18959531?oclcNum=18959531

    AdrianRiskin ,
    @AdrianRiskin@kolektiva.social avatar

    @TheVulgarTongue @histodons

    Found it! Not vibrations but the weight of the people in a bed.

    Taylor and Lyle rented a room in the next house, which happened to be adjacent to Mrs. Lyle’s bedroom. Taylor, according to his own testimony, then bored a hole in the party wall, but this was of no use, and he fixed up an apparatus, with an index attached to it, that would indicate when any person got into the defendant’s bed. (A laugh). He could tell by this apparatus whether one, two, three or four persons got into the bed. (A apparatus an “indicator.” (Laughter) On the night of the 18th of June, he was watching, with his ear to the hole, when the indicator acted. (A laugh) A lever fell according to the weight. (Laughter) It first informed him that one person got into bed, and then that a second person had done so. (Renewed laughter) He immediately proceeded to the roof, and entered by the trap-door, took the servant by the hand, opened the door of the defendant’s bedroom, tore down the curtains, and turned the bullseye upon them. (A roar of laughter) Mr. Herbert and Mrs. Lyle were in bed together. Mr. Lyle was at this time making the best of his way to the place. . Under cross-examination, Taylor acknowledges that he and the wounded husband had been blithely drinking gin-and-water while waiting for the device, which the judge, in his summing up, was to refer to as a “crimconometer,” to act...
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