SHOW NOTES for EPISODE 12 (Season Six)

(July 26, 2026)

Join host Corinthian Finn, a.k.a. Finn J.D. John 18th Baron Dunwitch,* for a one-hour-long spree through the scandal-sheets and story papers of early-Victorian London!

This show cycles through four themes over a monthly cycle, one show per week. This is the TWOPENNY TORRIDS-theme show, featuring a handful of chapters from BLACK BESS; or, THE KNIGHT OF THE ROAD, starring highwayman Dick Turpin, along with the more salacious bits of early-Victoriana such as racy songs and dirty jokes. It will be followed by ...

• The “Sixpenny Spookies” theme episode, coming next Sunday (the first Sunday of next month);
• The “Graanum Gothics” theme episode, coming two Sundays hence, on the second Sunday of next month; and finally—
• The “Ha'penny Horrors” theme episode, coming on the third Sunday of next month.

Then we’ll be right back around to the “Twopenny Torrids” again, for the fourth Sunday of next month!

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For COMPLETE SHOW NOTES, including art and links to resources, see ⁠⁠pennydread.com/discord.⁠⁠

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IN TODAY'S "TWOPENNY TORRIDS" EPISODE:

• 01:40: STREET POETRY: From a broadside ballad: “Something, a Parody on Nothing” (a funny ditty about contemporary Victorian life) and “William and Dinah,” a tragic ballad of forbidden love (1835).
• 06:30: BLACK BESS; or, THE KNIGHT OF THE ROAD (starring HIGHWAYMAN DICK TURPIN), Chapter 80-84: Fleeing from the dragoons down a beautiful peaceful country lane, Dick Turpin sees a beautiful young woman looking hopefully toward him. Then she springs forward joyously, kisses him and greets him as Percy. She’s mistaken him for someone else!
• He goes along with it, hoping to get a chance to slip away later; but then he learns something about the missing man Percy that complicates things. And then, just as he’s settling in, the dragoons arrive, looking for Highwayman Dick Turpin. Will the family figure out who he is?
• 48:10: INTRODUCING MISS BIRD: One of the “ladies of the evening” listed and described in Harris’s List of Covent-garden Ladies, a directory for bucks and bloods out on the town in the early 1800s. The writer of Harris’s List does not seem to have liked Miss Bird very much.
• 51:20: TWO RATHER NAUGHTY COCK-AND-HEN-CLUB SONGS: "I’d Be a Little Flea” (in which our singer fantasizes about the lovely ladyparts that loathsome parasites get to roam about on at will; this one is pretty icky) and “The Slashing Big Drover-boy,” a cockney chaunt about a happy, sexually hyperactive young sheep merchant from Smithfield Market.
• 55:14: A FEW MILDLY DIRTY JOKES from what passed in 1830 for a dirty joke book: "The Joke-Cracker" by Martin Merryman, Esq.

GLOSSARY OF EARLY-VICTORIAN SLANG USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• AUTEM GOGGLERS: (from intro) xxx
• TATT MEN: (ibid) xxx.
• KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD: (ibid) Highway robbers.

• LOSE YOUR NOSE BY THE FROST: (from broadside ballad) Late-stage syphilis sometimes caused its victims’ noses to slough off, and to avoid admitting they had “the pox” victims sometimes would blame their disfigurement on frostbite.

• JACKY: (ibid) Gin.
• SLUICE YOUR IVORIES: (ibid) Take a big drink.
• LEARY: (from cock-and-hen-club song, “I’d Be a Little Flea”) Knowing, clever, canny.
• BLOWENS: (ibid) Whores.
• MOT: (ibid) Another word for “blowen.”
• GATTER: (ibid) Beer.
• SCHICKSTER: (ibid) A woman, with the implication that she is a little bit slutty.
• CRIB: (ibid) In 1834 “crib” did not yet mean a prostitute’s lair, and simply meant any house or residence.
• KINCHIN: (ibid) Child.
• THREE HOG: (ibid) Three shillings.

THERE'S MORE! But we're out of space here. For the rest of the flash-cant definitions, plus images, see pennydread.com/discord!