The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1883-05-05
SOCIAL LIFE UNDER QUEEN ANNE.
The E.awsessness OF Her Time Not
unequaiea by Our Own.
tLonthan Spectator. J

Everybody seems agreed that the lit
erary and social history of Queen Anne's
reign is one of the things which still re-
main to be written; yet nobody under-'
takes the task. From social point of
view there is, in fact, no period of his
tory which is at once so well known and
yet 80 little known From Addison and
Steele we have learned the follies, foibles
and fashions Of that generation; from
Swift We have learned great deal of the
daily household life Of that time, and
have gathered that in what we should
call the best society there was coarse
ness of speech and manners which appear
incredible until we remember that the
picture is certainly gross exaggeration.
What frightful picture might be drawn
OF our own generation, and without the
least exaggeration, of the things which 60
on daily in our street, the millions of
men who never open their mouths with.
out an oath, and never utter single
noun substantive without prefxing one
and the same ugly and meaningless ad-
jectiye; the shameless vice which hides
not its head even at high noon; the EN-.
bankment where men are nightly set
upon robbed and thrown into the river
just as used to happen in the Fleet ditch;
Al Il. IL
the roughs and thieves of this place and
that place; the courts in Marylebone,
Soho, Whitechapel, into which no decent
person may venture by day or by night:
the music halls and their senseless, stupid
and mischievous songs; the drinking and
the wife-kicking and the starvation.
Were all these things written down, a
picture might be produced, true in every
thing but the proportion, which would
make the London of Victoria compare
not only with the London of Anne, but
with the Rome of Nero
As regards crimes and punshments,
the ses ions for trying criminals were
held eight times year, and there were
sometimes twenty taken out to be hanged
at a time. Five or six were put in a
cart together. "The executioner stops
the cart under one of the crossbeams OF
the gibbit, and fastens to that ill-favored
beam one end of the rope, while the other
is round the wretchs neck This done,
he gives his horse lash with his whip;
away goes the cart, and there swings my
gentleman kicking in 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 pull.
ing his legs and beating his breast.
Captain Kidd, the pirate, went to his
death drunk; Tom Cox, highwayman,
kicked the chaplain and executioner both
out OF the cart; one Anne Green, con-
demned for numbering her child, which
was aiterward found to have been still.
born, was hanged, with the assistance Of
hcr friends, in the humane manner above
described, and, on being taken to the
anatomist's, actually recovered. Those
who refused to plead were still pressed
to death. Highway robbers and pirate,
were hanged in chains. There were
good many highwaymen about the roads
and near London the footpads wer,
troublesome, Gypsies might be hanget
as felons after the age OF fourteen. Th,
pillory was, so to speak, in the hight o
its popularity, and the duck ing.stoo
was still considered necessary for tn
maintenance Of sound discipline.