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New Ways To Die

Carriage drivers then couldn't read or write.

Ryo did say 'trying' to read! ;)

Most people in Britain could read and write at least a little in the 19th century. Even the children of the very poor were taught enough to read a bit of the Bible: there were church and Sunday schools for the children who had to work.
Being illiterate was seen as a shortcoming likely to lead to other vices such as drunkenness and immorality.

The big Education Act in 1970 made school compulsory and finally took children out of everyday employment. Local Education Boards took over all the existing local provision. (New schools were called 'Board Schools' because they were set up by the 'Board'. You can still see word 'board' in lettering over the front doors of some Victorian schools. There's one near me, to which I must draw attention on the town's local history Facebook page before it's pulled down!)

Many schools at the time were provided by Christian religious bodies. To pacify the churches, who feared having their influence diminished in what had heretofore been their own schools, all British state schools by law had to start each day with prayers and offer religious education as part of the curriculum. This still stands today but is usually liberally interpreted.

Anyway, carriage/wagon accidents were certainly a danger, especially on dark country roads where a vehicle itself was unlit. Saw a TV documentary years ago about old cemetery land in London being 'repurposed', possibly for a new Docklands rail link, and the skeletons were examined eagerly for research.

Many subjects had sustained hip and pelvis fractures which had healed in life. They'd most likely been sideswiped by the hubs of wheels. How painful, not to mention debilitating. They'd have lost their mobility for a while and probably walked with a limp afterwards.

(I'd spotted this source of injury right away, having read enough accounts of Holmes and Watson dashing to the scene in a speeding Hansom, scattering all before them!)

The roads have always been a danger to the unwary!
We're about to have electric cars unleashed on us. At least the internal combustion engine is sporting enough to make a noise before it mows us down.
 
His poor wife! :eek:

Yup, although he had two wives so just the one didn't have to do all 20 lots of sprogging.

Why, one wonders? Surely 'they' had contraception back then, especially among educated people like the Bachs?

There were probably several reasons. It might have been seen as wrong to stop God's creation of children. A knowledge of contraception might have been seen as indicative of immorality in young newly married people, as if they were too experienced in the ways of the world. (This problem is dealt with in certain cultures by having the groom and his mother consulting on birth control, e.g. in India.)

But you'd think a woman'd look around and see her mates producing baby after sickly bay, burying half of them, dying themselves in childbirth or soon afterwards, and think er, that's not for me, how can I have fewer children?
The knowledge was already out there but it wasn't for respectable people.
 
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Could we please not?

This is the third thread to which my attention has been directed because of comments of an unpleasant tone.

I'm sure that either Viz or the Roy Chubby Brown Fan Club has a forum more suitable.
 
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Could we please not?

This is the third thread to which my attention has been directed because of comments of an unpleasant tone.

I'm sure that either Viz or the Roy Chubby Brown Fan Club has a forum more suitable.


Could we please not what? Discuss historical attitude story contraception? OK, sorry if I bored you!
But I did do a dissertation on it.
 
Falling off cliffs while taking selfies seems to be a new trend.
 
Could we please not?

This is the third thread to which my attention has been directed because of comments of an unpleasant tone.

I'm sure that either Viz or the Roy Chubby Brown Fan Club has a forum more suitable.

Yith, Max has deleted his comments. might be best if you also deleted it in your quote above.

Yith: have done so.
 
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Falling off cliffs while taking selfies seems to be a new trend.

Also standing on railway lines. Steam train runs have been cancelled because of people doing that.
 
Yup, although he had two wives so just the one didn't have to do all 20 lots of sprogging.

Why, one wonders? Surely 'they' had contraception back then, especially among educated people like the Bachs?

There were probably several reasons. It might have been seen as wrong to stop God's creation of children. A knowledge of contraception might have been seen as indicative of immorality in young newly married people, as if they were too experienced in the ways of the world. (This problem is dealt with in certain cultures by having the groom and his mother consulting on birth control, e.g. in India.)

But you'd think a woman'd look around and see her mates producing baby after sickly bay, burying half of them, dying themselves in childbirth or soon afterwards, and think er, that's not for me, how can I have fewer children?
The knowledge was already out there but it wasn't for respectable people.
Maybe they had so many children because so many would die young? Have a footie team and you know some will survive to become adults....glad I am born now
 
Childbirth is still risky, unfortunately. I had a very hard time last year, and one thing that made recovery harder was how unprepared many people were for an outcome other than 'baby has arrived and both are doing fine'.

In my case, baby was fine but I almost didn't make it. It was a close run thing. I was lucky, extremely lucky, to survive but it was shocking to realise that the same events even up until about 5 years ago, would have led to a very different outcome. Or if I had not been in one of the largest and most equipped maternity hospitals in the country.

Deaths in childbirth - infant and maternal - do still happen even in twentifirst century Britain. It's no longer part of the culture though, as thankfully it's no longer as common as it once was.
 
The big Education Act in 1970 made school compulsory and finally took children out of everyday employment. Local Education Boards took over all the existing local provision. (New schools were called 'Board Schools' because they were set up by the 'Board'. You can still see word 'board' in lettering over the front doors of some Victorian schools. There's one near me, to which I must draw attention on the town's local history Facebook page before it's pulled down!)

Pedant that I am... 1870 surely? :) Otherwise I'm pretty sure a lot of 'the olds' where I grew up would have been a damn sight thicker than they actually were... Which was often pretty thick!
 
Pedant that I am... 1870 surely? :) Otherwise I'm pretty sure a lot of 'the olds' where I grew up would have been a damn sight thicker than they actually were... Which was often pretty thick!

Yup, you're right, it was 1870. Schools made a big fuss about it back in, er, 1970!
 
It's not Life On Mars-time any more.
 
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8wd3eVWsAAGTzA.jpg
 
I do wonder how many people in the 18th and 19th centuries were killed by carriages whose drivers were trying to read/write letters from/to their acquaintances.
Austen's "Northanger Abbey" has an episode where a snobby suitor drives his trap and horses recklessly in front of girls and brags on their newness and speed. Really hilarious, and you could easily substitute "Porsche" or "Camaro" for his trappings and have an instantly modern scene.
 
Elephant Cemeteries - Bolivian Suicide Hotels For Alcoholics Who Want To End It All

Elephant cemeteries are a type of clandestine hotel/bar where alcoholics go to drink themselves to death when they have given up on life. These miserable pits of despair are the antonym of glamorous. Most offer nothing more than a dingy unlit room with cold cement flooring, bare brick walls, and a tattered old mattress for the wretched to lie on as they slowly pass away.

Obviously illegal, elephant cemeteries trade entirely underground. Some Bolivians still dismiss them as being an urban legend – perhaps unwilling to accept the fact that such macabre places do exist in civilized society. But a 2014 report by Telemundo put any doubts to rest with shocking footage revealing their inner workings, and with interviews from those unfortunate enough to want to visit. The report states that alcoholics ask the proprietor to lock them inside until they have passed away. Those who change their mind can ring a doorbell and leave, only to end up sleeping on the hard concrete streets right outside.

A short story entitled Los Cementerios de Elefantes (The Elephant Cemeteries) by Victor Hugo Viscarra describes what goes on in gruesome detail. The story is based on his own personal experience investigating this phenomenon. He explains how clients often shake so badly from decades of alcohol abuse that they’re unable to drink from cups or bottles. A bucket full of pure alcohol is offered instead, along with a large dipper to scoop it straight into the mouth. Some places reportedly function as bars with a cemetery out the back, while others are dedicated suicide hotels. Here clients can either choose a private room, or they can opt for a shared space where their final days become a communal event.
 
Whoa. That's dark.

As are the links EnolaGaia adds.

I can remember a conversation I had with the head of a remedial unit when I was in teacher-training many years ago. I had made some vaguely hopeful or optimistic comment about the value of the work they did. He thought I ought to know the truth: these were their best days, for sure. Outside the school environment, there was little or nothing between these young people and the gutter. Addiction, exploitation, petty crime, abuse lay ahead.

I think he meant we should carry on, despite it. Yet never in denial of the reality.

The Wet House thinking reminds me of that, though we tried to keep the dangers outside. :(
 
As are the links EnolaGaia adds.

I can remember a conversation I had with the head of a remedial unit when I was in teacher-training many years ago. I had made some vaguely hopeful or optimistic comment about the value of the work they did. He thought I ought to know the truth: these were their best days, for sure. Outside the school environment, there was little or nothing between these young people and the gutter. Addiction, exploitation, petty crime, abuse lay ahead.

I think he meant we should carry on, despite it. Yet never in denial of the reality.

The Wet House thinking reminds me of that, though we tried to keep the dangers outside. :(

That rings a bell with me. When I worked in kids' homes with naughty teenagers, sometimes in lock-ups, some of them were only safe when 'inside'. There were children whose own families had sent them shoplifting or pimped them out. They had no hope of a normal life once out of the care system.
 
Alarming as it was, one couldn't help but be glad that the infectious childhood illnesses of old were no longer rampaging.
Measles, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, various forms of diarrhoea and lung disease, even chicken pox, all under control through a combination of public health works, vaccination and antibiotics. What a fantastic achievement.

Yep, one of my (too) many hobbies is researching my family tree. As a result I often spend a lazy afternoon poking around remote cemeteries looking for stones that bear family names. To be honest I did this before becoming interested in genealogy - call it morbid curiosity.

I frequently come across stones such as this one:

Cowe stone1.jpg

Just how people coped with infant mortality on this scale (and the above example is of course by no means unique or even extreme) beggars belief.

A more prevalent and stronger belief in religion must have been of solace, but I can't help wondering just how people managed to function when any childhood cough or fever might be something run of the mill or could be the harbinger of an illness that would cut through your family.

Something that I've mulled over from time to time since it first occurred to me; when I was studying death records whilst at university, is how much the high infant/child mortality rates of, for example, the Victorian era desensitized people. I've often had trouble putting this into words - even to myself, but here goes. If you've grown up seeing siblings, cousins, friends, etc. dying for one reason or another, only in adulthood to see the same thing occurring to your neighbors children, those of workmates, your nephews and nieces and so on - did people come to almost accept these deaths?

I don't mean to suggest that they didn't grieve or mourn the deaths - but it must have had a profound effect? To what extent was it even expected that a certain number of your offspring would pre-decease you? That would have had an impact on your view of your children, I'd have thought. I almost feel that simply to maintain a modicum of sanity in the face of such a high potential childhood mortality rate that a parent would almost need to consciously or sub-consciously maintain a level of emotional detachment.

No, I haven't been able to put into words quite what I mean:( I just can't imagine (and I'm not even a parent) how people could keep functioning given the prevalence of deaths among the young in the 19th century.
 
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