D1.8.41: [Untitled]

D1.8.41: [Untitled]

Newspaper Clippings

Bleek belatedly reflects on the landmark July execution of the Glasgow poisoner, Dr Edward William Pritchard, who poisoned his wife and mother-in-law (among others). The poisoner's misfortune-prone brother, Charles Augustus Pritchard, who was secretary to the Admiralty at Simon's Bay, has now lost two of his three children in the wreck of the Bernicia off Robben Island, upon their return from England with their mother (Anna Elizabeth Pearson). He contrasts the stoic nobility of Charles with that of his criminal brother, Edward. Bleek finds the Romish custom of the last confession predatory and bothersome for the innocent and cites Constance Kent when stating that coerced or self-persecutory confessions are untrustworthy. Religious stringency fosters a kind of psychosis in victims experiencing internal doubt alongside external blame. Confessionals are typical of High Church refinements that feed these delusions of guilt where people insert themselves into the perpetrating of alien crimes. These are torturous mediaeval vestiges typifying the inert English legal system. Admissions of guilt alone are insufficient. Pritchard and Palmer (a fellow poisoner) were motivated by money expectations. Life insurance places a bounty on a life, which demands stricter regulation.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

14 September 1865

One cut-out column of printed newsprint mounted on foolscap folio (warped).

Insurance (upon a wife's life)

Pressed clippings of Victorian current affairs opinion pieces by Wilhelm Bleek. Published in Het Volksblad on Thursday, September 14th, 1865.

Van de Sandt de Villiers & Co.