SHOW NOTES

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MINISODE 22 (Season 5)

(March 12, 2026)

"THE SIXPENNY SPOOKIES"!

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00:30: THE TERRIFIC REGISTER: Five sworn witness descriptions of the haunting of the Portadown Bridge in Northern Ireland, the scene of a dreadful massacre of Protestant settlers by Catholic forces.

06:45: EARLY VICTORIAN GHOSTLY SHORT STORY, to-wit: MISS JEROMETTE and the CLERGYMAN, by WILKIE COLLINS, Part 3 of 3 parts: Our clergyman’s sleazy pupil gets a surprise letter, and leaves abruptly for London, claiming he has “business” there. Afterward the maid finds a photograph in his room … of Miss Jeromette. So HE was the unnamed rival, years earlier! But what is he going to do?

26:00: A SHORT GHOST STORY from the scrapbook of Charles Lindley, Viscount Halifax: “The Woman in White.” A short account of a small child who saw a spectral figure in white come into the garden at the same moment her father drowned, far away, while working in the river.

31:30: A FEW SQUEAKY-CLEAN DAD JOKES from the early-1800s' most popular joke book: "Joe Miller's Jests; or, The Wit's Vade-mecum."

GLOSSARY OF EARLY-VICTORIAN SLANG USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• VADE MECUM: Latin for "hand book."
• JOE MILLER: A player at Drury-lane, in the early 1700s, who was famous for a Leslie Nielsen style of stone-faced comedy. Mr. Miller was always so serious (and don’t call him Shirley) that he was hilarious on stage. When he died leaving some dependents uncared-for, the jestbook was created by Joe’s friends as a sort of inside joke, as a fundraiser to support his bereaved family.
• PIKE OFF: Run away.
• RED WAISTCOAT: Uniform apparel of the Bow-street Runners, an early London police force replaced by the New Model Police (who dressed in blue rather than red) in 1839.
• GAMMONERS: Swindlers or bullshitters.
• ROMONERS: Gammoners who pretend to have occult powers.
• SHARPS: Swindlers and confidence men, who prey upon the “flats” (marks).
• OLD ST. GILES: The most famous slum parish of London, also called "The Holy Land."