Episode Four of Season Three! — A Sunday-evening full episode (dropping early today!) IN WHICH —

0:04:25: TERRIFIC REGISTER ARTICLE:

• We hear of a cat who, standing watch over his mistress's freshly-murdered body, bristled and hissed when the murder suspect entered the room!
• Then we hear of an English traveler saved from the Spanish Inquisition by a priest he had befriended.

0:08:20: VARNEY THE VAMPYRE, Ch. 18:

• In this chapter, Admiral Bell and Jack Pringle arrive at the hall and meet the principal players. Mr. Marchdale and Sir Francis Varney appear to have an argument, and Sir Francis punches Marchdale. Admiral Bell wants to see Charles, and although obviously very fond of him, is trying to be severe and demanding an explanation about the vampire thing.

• So — will Admiral Bell put the kibosh on his nephew’s romantic prospects? If he does, what happens with Flora? And why does Sir Francis Varney want so badly to stir up trouble? We'll find out soon!

0:31:50: AN ACCOUNT OF SOME STRANGE DISTURBANCES IN AUNGIER STREET, by J.S. LeFanu:

• In which we learn the source of the ghostly footsteps padding down the stairs at 2 a.m. ... and we hear Tom's account of why he left the Aungier Street mansion so suddenly: he was convinced his life was in immediate peril, from a recurring vision of an evil-faced old man clutching a knotted rope... This is Part 2 of 3 parts (Part 3 will come next Sunday).

PLUS —

• We learn a new Flash song (starting around 0:27:20): "Moll in the Wad," full of fun highway-robber slang (see below). — And ...
• We browse through a few "recipes" for bad literature, published in Punch, the comedy magazine of the 1840s (starting around 0:47:20). — And ...
• We learn a few more Victorian "dad jokes" from good old Joe Miller!

Join host Finn J.D. John. for a one-hour-long spree through the scandal-sheets and story papers of old London! Grab a flicker of blue ruin, unload your stumps, and let's go!

FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

From intro and outro patter:

• PINKS OF FASHION:
• FLY:
• LUSHINGTONS:
• CRAB-SHELLS:
• PINS:
• DAFFY:
• NOB:
• AUTEM BAWLERS:
• BUGGABOES:

• PIKE OFF: Flee to avoid being caught
• RED WAISTCOAT: Uniform of the Bow-street Runners, London's first police force
• KNIGHT OF THE BRUSH AND MOON: Drunken fellow wandering amok in fields and ditches trying to stagger home

From comedy article in Punch Magazine:

• GAMMON: Literally a game; but in the early-Victorian it meant almost exactly what we mean by "bullshit" today.

From Flash poem, "Moll in the Wad":

• "When the fancy you hunt, the blush and the blunt" — Fancy means "sport" in this context; "blush" is a reference to friendly ladies; and blunt means money.
• "You spank it and sport, and Venuses court" — "spank it" meant to be sporty and stylish.
• "Then there away to Fancy shows/ To sport your odds and your evens you go" — fancy shows are sporting events (boxing, animal fights, etc.); odds and evens may be a reference to the "old one-two" or maybe billiards or roulette.
• "The Fives Court" means the boxing ring (a reference to a "bunch of fives," fingers wadded up in a fist).
• "At sixes and sevens" means in confusion.
• "If you don't get in Chancery somehow, it's odd" — a pun. Chancery-court was where one sued over financial affairs, but when a "miller" (boxer) got his opponent "in chancery," that meant with his arm locked around his neck so that his head might be pummeled with impunity.
• "Then hazard's your bane, and seven's the main" — a reference to the usual sentence for non-capital crimes: seven years' transportation to Australia.
• "You'll be sent up the spout" — hospitalized — "or be laid on the shelf" — transported to Australia.
• "Bang up the prime past" — "bang-up prime" means Absolutely Fabulous. (In the literal sense, not the Edie and Patsy sense.)
• "You goes to the Fleet" — either lodged in Fleet Prison, or murdered and your body dumped in the Fleet River.

EPISODE ART is from Varney the Vampyre, and shows Mr. Marchdale "fighting" with Sir Francis Varney.

A half-hour- long 'Hursday Horrors Minisode IN WHICH —

0:01:55: SPRING-HEEL'D JACK, Ch. 17, IN WHICH —:

• Richard Clavering tries to bluster his way out, but it’s not a good look, looming over his unconscious lady with a knife in his fist. Jack unmasks — and we learn he and Clavering know each other socially! So … did Jack overhear the part about the loaded dice? What will he do if he does? And what will happen to poor Jessie?

0:16:25: TRIGGER WARNING!

• This is a Ha'penny Horrid 'Hursday episode. "Horrid" as in "horror." Thursday is the day we do all the grimdark, grisly, horrifying stories, starting right after the chapter of the daily Dreadful! So: If murders, war crimes, parricides, and other awful stuff are not something you are interested in hearing about, even 200 years later — you should skip to the next podcast in your queue after the Dreadful finishes up. Don't worry, we'll be back this coming Sunday for the regular Penny Dreadful Variety Hour, when this podcast will be back to being a bright, sunny romp through Penny Dreadful stories!

0:16:55: TERRIBLE TIDBIT OF THE DAY for August 7:

• The story of a young mother of 10 who got drunk and tried to kill herself by jumping off Blackfriars Bridge, on Aug. 21, 1852.

0:19:05: THE BRUTAL MURDER AT ST. HELENS (a broadsheet ballad).

• When Sgt. Sewell of the city police tried to detain a young man whom he knew to be wanted on a warrant, the young reprobate whipped out a pepperbox pistol and shot him twice. Liverpool printer John White memorialized the crime with a mournful broadsheet ballad.

0:23:25: THE TERRIFIC REGISTER:

• A few examples from history of times when persons believing they were about to die, simply dropped dead without the intervention of the headsman's ax.

Join host Finn J.D. John. for a half-hour-long spree through the darkest and loathliest stories seen on the streets of early-Victorian London! Grab a flicker of blue ruin, switch off your mirror neurons, and let's go!

GLOSSARY OF FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• High spicer: Highway robber.
• Topping cove: Hangman.
• Mizzle: Take leave.
• Scragging: Hanging.
• Kiddies and kiddiesses: Flash lads and lasses
• Sherry off: To leave, in a tolerable hurry. A corruption of "sheer off."
• Flats: Suckers.

• Chaffing: Talking and bantering while taking a glass or two.
• Knight of the brush and moon: Drunken fellow wandering amok in fields and ditches trying to stagger home.
• "Dram-o-tick poet" (from the Joe Miller joke at the end of the episode): A pun. A dram, of course, is a glass of spirits. "Tick" refers to marking down a debt by making a tickmark, as in a pub when drinking on credit.

A "spicy" (-ish) Tuesday Twopenny Terrible minisode IN WHICH —

0:08:45: MYSTERIES OF LONDON, Ch. 6, IN WHICH —:

• Richard Markham meets Diana Arlington and is utterly smitten. Then a short, stout, vulgar-looking man enters the room. This is Augustus Talbot, and he is truly crass. He keeps trying to steer the conversation round to the subject of a corn he’s afflicted with on his little toe. Chichester and Harborough are clearly worried that Talbot might spoil their chances of making a favorable impression on Richard; why would they be so concerned? It’s increasingly obvious that they’re playing a game, and he’s a mark. Is Mr. Talbot another mark? What IS their game, anyway?

• Then a new guest arrives: Apparently another prospective mark, whom they met at the opera the previous week: Mr. Walter Sydney … an effeminate-looking well-dressed youth … whom we last saw being pitched down through the floor of a thieves’ crib into the Fleet River. But he’s different. He seems wise in a way nobody else is. Who is he? What game is he playing? We’ll see …

0:28:25: A SALACIOUS SALOON SONG:

• "The Dildoe! Or, The Amorous Maids," a frisky supper-club song from the 1830s, sung lustily by, um, gentlemen when there were no ladies about. This rather explicit one describes the amorous adventure of Giles, the country lad, upon learning his three maidenly neighbors were starved for male carnal attention.

Join host Finn J.D. John. for a half-hour-long spree through the scandal-sheets and story papers of old London! Grab a decanter and top off your glass, unload your stumps, and let's go!

GLOSSARY OF FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Beau traps: Well-dressed fortune hunters or swindlers (we more than a little suspect Hon. Arthur Chichester and Sir Rupert Harbrough to be such!)
• Fly angelics: Knowing or wise young women.
• Fly to the fakement: Aware of the tricks.
• Mace-man: Swindler.
• Cutish: Clever.

• Knight of the brush and moon: Drunken fellow wandering amok in fields and ditches trying to stagger home.
• Chaffing: Talking and bantering while taking a glass or two.
• Crib: House, room, or chamber (modern equivalent is "joint"). Originally and still also used to refer to a prostitute's bedroom.

• Pippin: A funny fellow (of either sex); also a friendly way of greeting: How are you, my pippins?
• Bolt the moon: Fly by night
• Beaks: Magistrates, law enforcement authorities
• The tippy: The very best