Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/220

 and stated, by way of additional information, that she had been allowed by him five shillings a week to find herself and him in meat and lodging; and that he was also not a very constant husband; and that if he had brought home the money which he had given to other women, he might have maintained them in very comfortable circumstances. Great crowds followed the bellman up and down during his oration. This ceremony is occasionally performed at the present time; but it is gradually giving way to the posting of small placards on the walls of the town or village where the unthrifty one resides. Not long ago a fair one retorted on her lord by a counter announcement, to the effect that as he had long been supported by her earnings, she would decline to keep him any longer, and tradesmen might beware accordingly.

WIFE SELLING. is not uncommon for wives to be sold by their husbands. There is a wide-spread popular error that this is a legal transaction, when the wife is brought into the place of sale with a halter round her neck, and when the buyer obtains a written receipt for the money he has ventured upon her. Some years ago, a case of this kind occurred near Haslingden; and, on one occasion, it was urged in a county court that the real husband was not liable for his wife's debts, since he had sold her some time before for half-a-crown.