Now! Then! 2025! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

On Monday an inquest was held on the body of James Conway, of the firm of Messrs Conway and Lonsdale, ale and porter dealers, who was choked on Saturday in the Station Hotel while eating some stewed tripe, which was prepared as a lunch by the landlord. A large piece of tripe became lodged in the windpipe, and though doctors arrived and made an incision of the throat the gentleman succumbed in a few minutes. The coroner (Major Arundel) said that it seemed a curious thing that many of the cases of choking when partaking of food were caused by the eating of tripe. He did not know why it was so, but it was a frequent occurrence. [Stewed tripe, like bananas, can adapt its shape to that of the pharynx.]

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Comment

An 1880s recipe for stewed tripe.

Roy Shipperbottom: tripe is mainly a Lancashire thing (Shipperbottom 1995).

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Original

CHOKED BY A PIECE OF TRIPE AT GOOLE.
On Monday an inquest was held on the body of James Conway, of the firm of Messrs. Conway and Lonsdale, ale and porter dealers, who was choked on Saturday in the Station Hotel while eating some stewed tripe, which was prepared as a lunch by the landlord. A large piece of tripe became lodged in the windpipe, and though doctors arrived and made an incision of the throat the gentleman succumbed in a few minutes. The coroner (Major Arundel) said that it seemed a curious thing that many of the cases of choking when partaking of food were caused by the eating of tripe. He did not know why it was so, but it was a frequent occurrence.

129 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Asphyxia (2) ·
• Choking (1) ·
• Death (12) ·
• Goole (8) ·
• Inn (4) ·
• Inquest (15) ·
• Pharynx (1) ·
• Respiratory tract (1) ·
• Tripe (2) ·

All tags.

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