The terrifying tale of titty mouse and tatty mouse

A few days ago Debbie and I sat down to read Dominic a story from the quite respectable looking "The Classic Purnell Edition Great Children's Stories (1975)". The first story that caught Debbie's eye was the tale of Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse. We began to read it to Dominic, but didn't get past the first page.

We should have been warned. The story ought to have a disclaimer at the start.

The full text of this children's classic is available on the internet here. I shall give you a quick summary, allowing you to be forewarned about the horrors of the tale.

1. Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse live in a house together. They are hungry, so they go pick some corn.
2. They come back and each make a pudding on the stove, but when Titty Mouse puts her pudding into the pot "the pot tumbled over, and scalded her to death."
3. Tatty Mouse is sad, and the furniture asks her why. As each piece of furniture learns the sad news, it nuts out in some way.
4. The tree, bird, and little girl outside each find out about the death, and nut out (losing leaves, shedding feathers, spilling milk).
5. The old man next door who is thatching his roof finds out. “Oh!” said the old man, “then I’ll tumble off the ladder and break my neck,” so he tumbled off the ladder and broke his neck."
6. The tree falls over, destroying Tatty and Titty's house, and Tatty is buried under the rubble.

The end.

Seriously, what happened to Joseph Jacobs to make him lose it so badly that he wrote this 'children's tale'? What exactly is the message? Don't share bad news, or else people will randomly kill themselves and you'll be crushed under their corpses? Don't grieve in public or you'll upset the neighbours? Mice, even the pudding-making anthropomorphised ones, are all evil and bring nothing but trouble to the idyllic countryside?

What. the. hell?

Here's a cute photo as a palette cleanser: