"Why not", he asks.

She answers back, "Because I'm dead".

The husband says to her, "What are you talking about? We're both lying here in bed together and talking to one another".

The wife says, "No, I'm definitely dead."

Her husband insists, "You're not dead. What in the world makes you think you're dead?"

His wife answers, "I know I'm dead because I woke up this morning and nothing hurts!"

The Times, Thursday, April 26, 1832, issue 14836. Page 4

On Saturday, the 7th ins., the inhabitants of this city witnessed the sale of a wife by her husband, Joseph THOMPSON, who resides in a small village about three miles from this city. He rents a farm of about 42 or 44 acres, and was married at Hexam, in the year 1829, to his present wife. She is a sprucely, lively, buxom damsel, apparently not exceeding 22 years of age, and appeared to feel a pleasure at the exchange she was about to make. They has no children to their union, and that, together with some family disputes, caused them, by mutual agreement, to come to the resolution of finally parting.

Accordingly, the bellman was sent round to give public notice of the sale, which was to take place at 12 o'clock. This announcement attracted the notice of thousands.

She appeared above the crowd, standing on a large oak chair, surrounded by many of her friends, with a rope halter made of straw round her neck. She was dressed in a rather fashionable country style, and appeared to some advantage. Thr husband, who was also standing in an elevated position near her, proceeded to put her up for sale, and spoke clearly as follows: -

"Gentlemen, I have to offer to you notice of my wife, Mary Ann THOMPSON, otherwise WILLIAMSON, whom I mean to sell to the highest and fairest bidder. Gentlemen, it is her wish as well as mine to part for ever. She has been to me only a bosom serpent. I took her for my comfort, and the good of my house, but she became my tormentor, a domestic curse, a night invasion, and a daily devil. (Great laughter)

Gentlemen, I speak truth from my heart, when I say, may God deliver us from troublesome wives and frolicsome widows. (Laughter) Avoid them the same as you would a mad dog, a roaring lion, a loaded pistol, cholera morbus, Mount Etna, or any other pestilential phenomenon in nature.

Now, I have shown you the dark side of my wife, and told you her faults and her failings; I now introduce the bright and sunny side of her, and explain her qualifications and goodness. She can read novels and milk cows; she can laugh and weep with the same ease that you could take a glass of ale when thirsty: Indeed, gentlemen, she reminds me of what the poet says of women in general -

"Heaven gave women peculiar grace,

To Laugh, to weep, and cheat the human race."

She can make butter and scold the maid, she can sing MOORE'S melodies, and plait her frills and caps; she cannot make rum, gin or whiskey; but she is a good judge of the quality from long experience in tasting them. I therefore offer her, with all her perfections and imperfections, for the sum of 60s."

After an hour or two she was purchased by Henry MONRO (MEARS?), a pensioner, for the sum of 30s and a Newfoundland dog. The happy couple immediately left town together, amidst the ribald laughter of the multitude, in which they were joined by THOMPSON, who, with the greatest good humour imaginable, proceeded to put then halter, which his wife had taken off, round the neck of his Newfoundland dog, and then proceeded to the first public-house, where he spent the remainder of the day.