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A Sarcastic Thief

This item appeared in The Times of January 27th 1862.

The letter sent by the thief conveys a strong Yorkshire accent apparently unhindered by standard English. Can you identify the features of the writer's speech?

On the night of the 14th of this month Mr William Wood, of Stanningley, near Bradford, left Leeds in a third-class carriage on the Leeds, Bradford and Halifax junction railway. He had with him a small box, containing 24 watches, valued altogether at about 60/. The box was tied up in a red handkerchief.

Mr Wood got out of the train at the Stanningley station, but his box of watches had either vanished before he arrived there or else was left in the carriage. Some days afterwards a printed handbill was circulated in which a reward of 5/.was offered for the restoration of the missing property, which was stated to have been left in a third-class carriage of the train by which the owner travelled, a woman having given information that she saw a man of indifferent charcter, living at Pudsey, carrying the lost box away from the station, his house was visited and searched by the police, but without finding any trace of the watches, and nothing was heard of the property until Friday morning last, when the box and red handkerchief, enclosed in brown paper, were found in one of the waiting rooms at the Great Northern Railway Station, Bradford.

The parcel had upon it the direction: "Mr Wood, watch dealer, Stanningley, going to Leeds." On the box being opened the only thing found inside was a slip of white paper, with writing upon it, of which the following is a verbatim et literatim* copy:-

"i have sent box back and think on and keep better stuf when tha gets some more don't blame that Pudsey man becase he hasent got them, and twoman says that she saw him have a black box back on him. She coudent due so wen it were teed up in neecloth on it wor red. if i was man i would reight it we him. But thy watches will ner see em agean i nobbit gat 7 Pand for lot and tha mun think the sen weel of tha goten box."

*[ Word for word and letter for letter]

Note also the lengthy second sentence in the second paragraph of the article. How would you punctuate it differently to recognise modern practice?

What other language features do you observe in the article?

 

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