Countless men and women go mad, kill themselves, kill each other. An alleged wife-murderer devours the springs of his prison bed. A boy is unable to speak above a whisper for 16 months, following a visit to a hypnotist. A widow is convinced that witches are persecuting her. Itinerants slash three cows' throats in a revenge killing. The writing, largely by the Banner's English-born editor Frank Cooper and his son George, tells a different story, one that sometimes defies belief.
The photographs - from a collection of 30,000 glass plate negatives - tell one set of stories, preserving for posterity local worthies, bucolic rituals and floral tributes to the dead of all ages.
