Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-04-08
SOCIAL LIFE UNDER QUEEN ANNE.
Ire LGlcteSsneSS of Her Time Not I'm.
equGted 6y Oar Otc1a.

IRE LGlctesSnesS of Her Time Not On.
eq"dted 6g Oar Otcs,.
Everybody seems agreed that the liter
airy and social history of Queen Anne's
reign is one the few things which still
remain to be written; yet nobody under
takes the task. From a social point of
view there is, in fact, no period of history
which Is so we'll known and yet so little
known. From Addison and Steele we
nave learned the follies, foibles, and fash
&ons OF that generation; from Swift we
nave learned a great deal of the daily
household life of the time, and have gath
ereo that in what we should call the best
society there was found coarseness of
speech and manners which appears
incredible until we remember that
the picture is certainly a gross ex-
aggeration. What a frightful picture
might be drawn of our generation, and
without the least exaggeration, of the
things which 60 On daily in our streets.
the millions of men who never open their
mouths without an oath, and who never
utter single noun substantive without
PreuNng one and the same ugly and
meaningless adjective; the shameless vice
which hides not its head even at high noon;
the Embankment, where men are nightly
set upon, robbed and thrown into the
rlver-jUst as used to happen in the Fleet
ditch; the gambling clubs, the suburban
races, the roughs and thieves of this place
and that place; the courts in Marylebone,
Soho. Nhitechapel, into which no decent
person may venture by day or night; the
music halls and the senseless, stupid.
and michievous songs; the drinking and
wIie-klcklng and the starvation. We're all
things written down picture might be
produced, true in everything but the pro-
portion, which would make the London
Of Victoria compare not only with the
LoadOn Of Anne, but with the Rome of
Nero.
As regardes crimes and punishments,
The sessions for trying criminals we're held
eight times year, and there were some
times twenty taken out to be hanged at a
time. Five Or six were put in a cart to-
getaer. The executioner stops the cart
under one of the crossbeams OF the gibbet
and fastened to that ill-fdvored beam one
end Of the rope, while the other is round
the wretch's neck. This done, he gives the
horse q lash with his whip; away goes the
cart and there swings my gentleman
kicking IL the air. This was elementary.
The writer goes on to say that it was left
for the friends of the criminal to put him
Out Of pain by pulling his leg and beating
his breast. Capt. Kidd, the
pirate, went to his death
drunk: Tom Cox, highwayman, kicked
chaplain and executioner both out of the
cart: one Anne Greene, condemned for
numbering her child, which was afterward
found to have been still-born, was hanged
with the assistance of her friends in the
humane manner above described; and on
being taken to the anatomlst's, actually
recovered. Those who refused to plead
were still pressed to death. Highway rob-
bers and pirates were hanged in chains.
There were good many highwaymen
about the roads, and near London the foot
pads were troublesome. Gypsies might
be hanged as felons after the age of four
teen. The pillory was, SO to speak, in the
height of It's popularity, and the ducking-
stool was still considered necessary for the
maintenance of sound disciDline