Morritt was one of the most famous magicians of his time, Monson was a notorious criminal let off scot-free. What could possibly go wrong when these two household names join forces for a tour? In 1893, Charles Morritt was running highly successful nights at the Prince’s Theatre in London’s Piccadilly. Alfred John Monson was in the centre of the Ardlamont Murder, a famous case that took place in Scotland. The case inspired William Roughead, one of the pioneers of true crime writing, who provides some of the commentary in this episode. Also this week Jim takes a look at gender issues - 1949 style, and Sally’s sister has some scathing poetry.

Newspaper archives used in this episode:

British Newspaper Archive www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ TROVE (National Library of Australia) http://trove.nla.gov.au/

More on Morritt and Monson:

Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible by Jim Steinmeyer The Scotsman, 2005 http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/the-ardlamont-mystery-tragic-mistake-or-calculated-evil-1-466095

Full court transcript https://archive.org/stream/trialofajmonson00mons/trialofajmonson00mons_djvu.txt

 

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