Thomas Saverland sued Miss Caroline Newton for biting off his nose after he attempted to forcibly kiss her at a party.



In 1837, a British man named Thomas Saverland sued Miss Caroline Newton for biting off his nose after he attempted to forcibly kiss her at a party. The overseeing judge ruled that "When a man kisses a woman against her will, she is fully entitled to bite his nose off if she so pleases."

Additional details on the case were provided in The Bell's New Weekly Messenger from April 30, 1837. The complainant, whose face bore incontestable evidence of the severe injury inflicted, with the fleshy part of his left nostril completely gone, stated that on the day after Christmas Day, he was in a tap-room where the defendant and her sister were present.

The sister laughingly mentioned that she had left her young man down in Birmingham and had promised him that no man should kiss her while she was absent. The complainant took this as a challenge, especially given the holiday time, and he caught hold of her and kissed her. She initially took it as a joke, but the defendant became angry and expressed her desire not to engage in that kind of fun.

The complainant told her that if she was angry, he would kiss her as well and attempted to do so. A scuffle ensued, and they both fell to the ground. After they got up, the complainant went and stood by the fire, and the defendant followed and struck at him. He once again attempted to kiss her, and in the ensuing scuffle, he was heard to cry out, "She has got my nose in her mouth." When they separated, he was bleeding profusely from the nose, and a portion of it, which the defendant had bitten off, was seen to be spat out of her mouth onto the ground.

Painting: "The Kiss" (1840) by Otto Friedrich Theodor von Möller.

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