10/08/2012 By 3 Comments

Once again, since my contribution to the Eclective’s Haunted Collection is a Victorian horror story, here are some Victorian factoids from a post I wrote in 2011…

Cold air and foul smells caused illness.  Or so most believed.  This was the “miasma” theory.  Because disease was carried by bad smells, surgeons felt free to operate while wearing the same coat, growing ever more stiff with blood and body fluids, for years.  Joseph Lister, inventor of aseptic technique (the notion surgeons should wash their hands, don gloves, and avoid cross contamination while poking about in peoples’ innards) once famously rebuked a physician who, after each surgery, wiped his scalpel on the bottom on his boot before going on to the next patient.  I doubt the offending doctor listened.  Many of Lister’s fellow physicians considered him a neat freak, a scold, and a bit of hysteric.  But he still got “Listerine” named after him.

That Victorian character described as having a “squint” or a “cast to the eye”?  Nowadays, we’d call he or she cross-eyed.   In the 1800s, there was no surgical intervention possible, so society was far more accepting of those with an eye that turned in toward the nose or drifted out toward the wall.  It wasn’t even a detriment to romance.  Once I read a novel which mentioned a pretty blonde girl “with a cast to her eye” dancing with all the eligible young men.  Misaligned eyes, like cataracts or sudden blindness (probably from glaucoma or retinal detachment) were just part of life.

The leading cause of death in the nineteenth century was … Tuberculosis.  A female between the ages of 15 and 35 had a 50% chance of dying of consumption.  (Just like Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!)  But around mid-century, Victorians won a huge victory against another scourge, smallpox.  In an astonishingly inclusive move, Parliament soon acted to make vaccination free.  But human nature being what it is, they eventually had to make not getting vaccinated against the law.


Victorian novels, personal diaries, and letters are filled with complaints of headaches.  Some believe those headaches came from all the ARSENIC.  Even a gracious home was filled with it — in the carpet, the wallpaper, and the upholstery, not to mention books, paint, cosmetics, and toys.  Makes you wonder if two hundred years from now, folks will marvel how we managed to live so long while consuming high fructose corn syrup and walking around with mobile phones pressed to our skulls.

Opium was readily available, legal, and stamped with the British Imperial seal.  Which was probably good, considering whatever ailed you wasn’t likely to be cured, only endured.  The Victorian Era had an interesting libertarian slant.  People felt free to lecture you about vices — tobacco, prostitutes, gin, and the hookah.  But all were still legal.

The uterus made females acutely prone to melancholia, mania, and of course — hysteria.  “Female hysteria” was a catch-all phrase for almost anything, including sadness, defiance, angry outbursts and disobedience.  Eventually some doctor decided the appropriate treatment was — wait for it — south-of-the-border massage.  The only problem?  Many docs felt the process was extremely time-consuming, not to mention tedious, bringing their patients to that climatic finale.  (Is it any wonder some of these ladies kept behaving badly and returning to their physicians for treatment?)  By 1870, someone finally invented a vibrating machine, sold only to doctors, to satisfy the female hysterics more quickly and increase patient turnover. Read The Technology of Orgasm for more.

Men never showed weakness.  Which probably subtracted as many years off their lives as anemia and overwork combined.  The rules for a man were mostly emotional.  He could be bright but not smart.  He could be neat but not foppish.  He couldn’t show too much interest in his children (effeminate) or expect his wife to welcome his attentions in the bedroom.  He could never show fear or shed tears, even when injured.  And a man who disgraced himself through bad investments or public humiliation had only one recourse: to shoot himself.  Remember during the stock market crash of 1929, all those ruined Wall Street executives — mostly middle-aged men — tossing themselves out of windows?  They were the sons of Victorians.  In general, I hope the idea that financial ruin necessitates suicide died with them.  Though I wouldn’t have minded if Bernie Madoff had decided to carry on the tradition.

Filed Under: Eclective, Emma Jameson, facts. victorian, London, victorian, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Grave Robbing, or The Resurrection Men

10/05/2012 By 6 Comments

Before Great Britain’s Anatomy Act of 1832, which allowed medical schools to legally obtain a sufficient number of cadavers for study, getting a corpse to dissect was no simple matter.  The Murder Act of 1752 stipulated only the bodies of executed murderers be used for such a purpose.  As medical science improved, the need for fresh cadavers began to rapidly exceed the supply of executed murderers.

Enter the Resurrection Men

In the late Regency period and the early Victorian era, grave robbing paid quite well and wasn’t particularly risky because it wasn’t a felony.  All the grave robber had to do was make certain he didn’t help himself to any valuables buried along with the dead, such as an expensive piece of jewelry, and he had no fear of being executed for his crime.

Mort-Safe in Greyfriars Kirkyard to discourage grave robbing

Naturally, the bereaved fought back with vigils, watchmen, metal coffins, and even iron cages like the “Mort-Safe” above.  Others may have quoted Shakespeare’s own admonition to body snatchers:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,"
"To dig the dust enclosed here."
"Blessed be the man that spares these stones,"
"And cursed be he who moves my bones."



Taking It to the Next Level: Burke & Hare

In 1828, Dr. Robert Knox hired Brendan Burke and William Hare to procure cadavers for study.  But grave robbing was hard physical labor, especially when it came to getting a nice fresh corpse suitable for study.  (After all, this was before the advent of good embalming techniques or refrigeration.)  Burke and Hare decided it would be easier to create fresh bodies than to dig them up.  Their technique, to suffocate weak or inebriated victims, came to be known as “burking.”  Their imitators in the city called themselves the London Burkers.

Up the close and down the stair,
But and ben with Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
Knox, the boy who buys the beef.
—19th-century Edinburgh jumping-rope rhyme

Eventually the duo was brought to justice and hanged.  But the idea of Resurrection Men continued in popular culture for a long time after, and was referenced by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist.

Modern Day Resurrection Man?

Think ghoulish stuff like this only happened in the bad old days, or is just a matter of urban legends?  Click here to discover what happened to the body of the late Alastair Cooke, best known as the host of Masterpiece Theater.

If you’re intrigued, you can read my story Safe (writing as Emma Jameson) about a Victorian grave robber who opens the wrong crypt, for FREE while the Eclective’s Haunted Collection is offered at no charge on Amazon!

 

Filed Under: facts. victorian, Past Lives Series, Stephanie Abbott, victorian

Real Places in Victorian London: Rotten Row

02/07/2012 By 1 Comment
Hyde Park and Rotten Row in 1833

To our modern (and especially American) ears, “Rotten Row” sounds like a desperate place, somewhere haunted by cut-purses and fallen women.  But to prominent Victorian ladies, it was THE place to be seen on horseback in the afternoons and early evenings.  Originally established in the seventeenth century as the King’s private road, this long horse track along the Serpentine River in Hyde Park came to be known as “Rotten Row” — apparently a corruption of the French, La Route du Roi.

No Hacks Allowed

Hyde Park was an exclusive place; only those who kept their own horses and carriages were allowed.  “Hacks,” or hackney cabs, had been forbidden since 1695.  Rotten Row was the place to show off your fine horses, your expensive phaeton, your new feathered hat and riding habit.  And when it came to fashion on Rotten Row, the acknowledged trendsetter was Catherine Walters, better known as “Skittles.”

Possibly the most famous Victorian courtesan

“Skittles”

When it came to style, flash, and all-around admiration, Catherine Walters ruled Rotten Row.  Ironically, if not for her scandalous occupation — serving as the mistress of wealthy and titled men — she would have been one of those ordinary souls the “no hacks” rule shut out.  Well-born, respectable ladies copied Skittles’ “Princess” riding habit to the smallest detail; during the 1860s, huge crowds of sight-seers stood by the railing to watch her ride by.  Her classic beauty was matched by her skill as a horsewoman.

This letter to the Times is thought to describe Skittles, though it does not name her:

“Expectation is raised to its highest pitch: a handsome woman drives rapidly by in a carriage drawn by thoroughbred ponies of surpassing shape and action; the driver is attired in the pork pie hat and the Poole paletot introduced by Anonyma; but alas!, she caused no effect at all, for she is not Anonyma; she is only the Duchess of A–, the Marchioness of B–, the Countess of C–, or some other of Anonyma’s many imitators. The crowd, disappointed, reseat themselves, and wait. Another pony carriage succeeds – and another – with the same depressing result. At last their patience is rewarded. Anonyma and her ponies appear, and they are satisfied. She threads her way dexterously, with an unconscious air, through the throng, commented upon by the hundreds who admire and the hundreds who envy her. She pulls up her ponies to speak to an acquaintance, and her carriage is instantly surrounded by a multitude; she turns and drives back again towards Apsley House, and then away into the unknown world, nobody knows whither.” — The Times, 3 July 1862, pg. 12 (Wikipedia)

 

The horse-track today

With the rise of the car, the social importance of Rotten Row faded away.  But today the track is still used by the Royal Household Calvary.  Celebrities like Skittles no longer frequent it, but not far away in another part of Hyde Park another iconic beauty and trendsetter, Princess Diana, is also remembered.

Princess Diana’s Memorial Fountain

 

Filed Under: facts. victorian, History, London, Past Lives Series, Stephanie Abbott, victorian

Doré’s Victorian London (and proof of reincarnation?)

02/01/2012 By 1 Comment
An iconic image of a Victorian slum

Paul Gustave Doré

Gustave Doré (1823-1883) was a French artist best known for his engravings in wood and steel.  Two of his most famous works are his illustrated Bible and London: A Pilgrimage.  You can view much of his work at Project Gutenburg.

 

A peddlar
Note each backyard has its own outhouse.

 

Terrible traffic congestion and ad copy everywhere; in some ways, Victorian life wasn’t so different
And finally, if they made a biopic…
… I know who should play him … Proof of reincarnation?  Hmmm….
Filed Under: facts. victorian, Fun Stuff, Past Lives Series, Stephanie Abbott, victorian

Grave Robbing, or The Resurrection Men

01/31/2012 By 1 Comment

Before Great Britain’s Anatomy Act of 1832, which allowed medical schools to legally obtain a sufficient number of cadavers for study, getting a corpse to dissect was no simple matter.  The Murder Act of 1752 stipulated only the bodies of executed murderers be used for such a purpose.  As medical science improved, the need for fresh cadavers began to rapidly exceed the supply of executed murderers.

Enter the Resurrection Men

In the late Regency period and the early Victorian era, grave robbing paid quite well and wasn’t particularly risky because it wasn’t a felony.  All the grave robber had to do was make certain he didn’t help himself to any valuables buried along with the dead, such as an expensive piece of jewelry, and he had no fear of being executed for his crime.

Mort-Safe in Greyfriars Kirkyard to discourage grave robbing

Naturally, the bereaved fought back with vigils, watchmen, metal coffins, and even iron cages like the “Mort-Safe” above.  Others may have quoted Shakespeare’s own admonition to body snatchers:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,"
"To dig the dust enclosed here."
"Blessed be the man that spares these stones,"
"And cursed be he who moves my bones."



Taking It to the Next Level: Burke & Hare

In 1828, Dr. Robert Knox hired Brendan Burke and William Hare to procure cadavers for study.  But grave robbing was hard physical labor, especially when it came to getting a nice fresh corpse suitable for study.  (After all, this was before the advent of good embalming techniques or refrigeration.)  Burke and Hare decided it would be easier to create fresh bodies than to dig them up.  Their technique, to suffocate weak or inebriated victims, came to be known as “burking.”  Their imitators in the city called themselves the London Burkers.

Up the close and down the stair,
But and ben with Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
Knox, the boy who buys the beef.
—19th-century Edinburgh jumping-rope rhyme

Eventually the duo was brought to justice and hanged.  But the idea of Resurrection Men continued in popular culture for a long time after, and was referenced by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist.

Modern Day Resurrection Man?

Think ghoulish stuff like this only happened in the bad old days, or is just a matter of urban legends?  Click here to discover what happened to the body of the late Alastair Cooke, best known as the host of Masterpiece Theater.

Filed Under: facts. victorian, Past Lives Series, Stephanie Abbott, victorian

The (Victorian) Experts Have Spoken

01/30/2012 By 1 Comment

Part of plotting the Past Lives series was figuring out which steampunk inventions the Order created and used.  Fortunately I came up with a specific use for goggles first!

Can’t do steampunk without goggles

I tend to be skeptical of new technology, so it was hard to put myself in the place of Cassandra Masters’s uncle Harry Fullbright.  Harry, a very forward-thinking Victorian, has a home in Belgrave Square that’s filled with blueprints, inventions, and prototypes.  Writing about Harry made me wonder how the breakthrough inventions of the Victorian Era were viewed.  Here’s some of what I found:

  • “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.  The device is inherently of no value to us.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876.
  • “Drill for oil?  You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil?  You’re crazy.”  — Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.
  •  ”Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” — Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.
  • “The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.” – Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinare to Queen Victoria, 1873.
  •  ”X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” — William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, 1899.
  • “Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.” — Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison’s light bulb, 1880.
  • “Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” — Dr. Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College, London
  • “Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time.  Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison. American inventer, 1889 

In the course of compiling these quotes, I discovered a rather well-known story about Queen Victoria refusing to believe in lesbians (“Such creatures do not exist”) is a complete fabrication.  Many of my older reference books list it as fact.  But click herefor the real scoop.

Filed Under: cats, facts. victorian, Past Lives Series, Steampunk, Stephanie Abbott, victorian

Conspiracies and Cabals in Victorian Britain

01/25/2012 By 2 Comments

Everyone who knows anything about English cabals and secret societies knows the Order ceased to exist in October 1870.  But most think of the Order along the same lines as the Hellfire Club — old men groping saucy tarts in a gaslit, damask-upholstered setting, thick with cigar smoke.  Others envision a league of extraordinary gentlemen — and a lady or two — who sought to improve mankind’s lot by popularizing new inventions, like the auto-mobile, eliminating dependence on the horse, and the telephone, a means of speaking to anyone, anywhere.

But the truth is the Order was both of those things and much, much more.

The Order was, first and foremost, a group of about three hundred master telepaths and another two hundred lesser telepaths — class two or below, per the Order’s internal ranking.  It went as follows:

Class One:Telepaths capable of receiving thoughts.
Class Two:Telepaths capable of receiving and sending thoughts.
Class Three: Telepaths capable of receiving and sending thoughts, creating illusions in susceptible individuals, and throwing psi-bolts [jolts of pure mental energy].
Class Four: Telepaths capable of receiving/sending thoughts from great distances, creating detailed illusions, and throwing two or more psi-bolts at once.

The Order’s Council consisted entirely of Class Threes and Fours.  The Council first convened sometime around 1733, after the Order adopted its official new motto: Pleno iure – “With full right.”  Despite the dominant tenor of that motto, the Order had learned its lesson from the days of Malegant and Brigid. Psis — beings who manifested the Pinnacle talent, telepathy, or one of its subordinates, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, or healing — were wildly outnumbered by normal humans.  And one normal, unexceptional such person, Queen Elizabeth I, had joined forces with a rogue telepath, Brigid, to destroy Malegant and centuries of psi-rule.  The sorcerers of the Dark Ages had been unmasked as mere enhanced humans; the superstitious awe for each lich’s tower replaced with reverence toward St. Brigid, who had freed the Britons from their enslavement.  What followed was the Renaissance — a flowering of humanity.  Or, should we say, normal humanity.  The psis who survived St. Brigid’s purge took notice.


The Order was determined to never again  make the mistake of setting themselves up as rulers, and therefore targets.  If the official new motto was “With full right,” the unofficial motto was “Castellan, never king.”  You can even trace this in the surnames that emerged during the time, carrying through to the Victorian era.  The Order’s last Chairman was Nathan Castellan Chamberlain.  Both surnames suggest an adjunct to power rather than power itself.


But Nathan Chamberlain ultimately presided over the end of the Order.  Was he too weak?  Too accommodating?  Or did he overreach and meet his own St. Brigid?  


Filed Under: facts. victorian, Stephanie Abbott

Health and Medical Beliefs in the Victorian Era

01/23/2012 By 1 Comment

Cold air and foul smells caused illness.  Or so most believed.  This was the “miasma” theory.  Because disease was carried by bad smells, surgeons felt free to operate while wearing the same coat, growing ever more stiff with blood and body fluids, for years.  Joseph Lister, inventor of aseptic technique (the notion surgeons should wash their hands, don gloves, and avoid cross contamination while poking about in peoples’ innards) once famously rebuked a physician who, after each surgery, wiped his scalpel on the bottom on his boot before going on to the next patient.  I doubt the offending doctor listened.  Many of Lister’s fellow physicians considered him a neat freak, a scold, and a bit of hysteric.  But he still got “Listerine” named after him.

Got health problems? Tansy pills are the answer to everything!

That Victorian character described as having a “squint” or a “cast to the eye”?  Nowadays, we’d call he or she cross-eyed.   In the 1800s, there was no surgical intervention possible, so society was far more accepting of those with an eye that turned in toward the nose or drifted out toward the wall.  It wasn’t even a detriment to romance.  Once I read a novel which mentioned a pretty blonde girl “with a cast to her eye” dancing with all the eligible young men.  Misaligned eyes, like cataracts or sudden blindness (probably from glaucoma or retinal detachment) were just part of life.

The leading cause of death in the nineteenth century was … Tuberculosis.  A female between the ages of 15 and 35 had a 50% chance of dying of consumption.  (Just like Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!)  But around mid-century, Victorians won a huge victory against another scourge, smallpox.  In an astonishingly inclusive move, Parliament soon acted to make vaccination free.  But human nature being what it is, they eventually had to make not getting vaccinated against the law.


Victorian novels, personal diaries, and letters are filled with complaints of headaches.  Some believe those headaches came from all the ARSENIC.  Even a gracious home was filled with it — in the carpet, the wallpaper, and the upholstery, not to mention books, paint, cosmetics, and toys.  Makes you wonder if two hundred years from now, folks will marvel how we managed to live so long while consuming high fructose corn syrup and walking around with mobile phones pressed to our skulls.

Opium was readily available, legal, and stamped with the British Imperial seal.  Which was probably good, considering whatever ailed you wasn’t likely to be cured, only endured.  The Victorian Era had an interesting libertarian slant.  People felt free to lecture you about vices — tobacco, prostitutes, gin, and the hookah.  But all were still legal.

A fallen woman

The uterus made females acutely prone to melancholia, mania, and of course — hysteria.  “Female hysteria” was a catch-all phrase for almost anything, including sadness, defiance, angry outbursts and disobedience.  Eventually some doctor decided the appropriate treatment was — wait for it — south-of-the-border massage.  The only problem?  Many docs felt the process was extremely time-consuming, not to mention tedious, bringing their patients to that climatic finale.  (Is it any wonder some of these ladies kept behaving badly and returning to their physicians for treatment?)  By 1870, someone finally invented a vibrating machine, sold only to doctors, to satisfy the female hysterics more quickly and increase patient turnover.

Men never showed weakness.  Which probably subtracted as many years off their lives as anemia and overwork combined.  The rules for a man were mostly emotional.  He could be bright but not smart.  He could be neat but not foppish.  He couldn’t show too much interest in his children (effeminate) or expect his wife to welcome his attentions in the bedroom.  He could never show fear or shed tears, even when injured.  And a man who disgraced himself through bad investments or public humiliation had only one recourse: to shoot himself.  Remember during the stock market crash of 1929, all those ruined Wall Street executives — mostly middle-aged men — tossing themselves out of windows?  They were the sons of Victorians.  In general, I hope the idea that financial ruin necessitates suicide died with them.  Though I wouldn’t have minded if Bernie Madoff had decided to carry on the tradition.

And in the early part of the era, a few men still dueled illegally

Filed Under: facts. victorian, Past Lives Series, Stephanie Abbott

A Few Universal Victorian Truths That Aren’t Actually True

01/22/2012 By 1 Comment

 

Sometimes people were buried alive.   Not that anyone can discern, but there were rare cases of people who’d been declared dead reviving a few hours later.  Eventually the urban legend arose that folks were routinely pronounced dead, sealed in their coffin, and left to scream and scratch at the lid until they gave up the ghost for real.  This led to all sorts of anti-buried-alive devices, like a wire on the (presumably) deceased person’s finger that led to a bell above ground, so they could ring for rescue.  Many such devices were sold — it was a public obsession for awhile — but none were ever used.

Skeleton Key

 

The women saved themselves for marriage.  Of course, we’re talking middle and upper class women.  The lower classes did as they pleased, or as circumstances demanded.  But the idea that Victorian women all went to their wedding nights as virgins, like a 1970s Barbara Cartland romance, has been statistically disproved.  According to public record, the average firstborn arrived 7 months after the wedding.  Reminds me of the old proverb: Babies usually take nine months, but the first one can come anytime.

Marriage was forever.  Only if you were female.  It was virtually impossible for a woman to obtain a divorce.  Simply proving her husband cheated on her wasn’t nearly enough; she had to prove he also beat her excessively (ponder that) or was cruel in some other way.  If she succeeded in her petition, she would lose not only all social standing but also access to her children, who always went to the father.  But men could and did obtain divorces when their wives stepped out of line.  In general, however, many married couples did one of two things: (1) the man kept a mistress and the wife kept to herself or (2) they lived apart for the rest of their lives.  Sometimes in different houses.  Sometimes on different continents.

A real-life portait

Females deformed themselves with corsets.   In a few cases, they surely did.  (There are famous photographs.)  But in general, the terror of “tight lacing,” of unnatural wasp waists, of ribs and organs dislocated in the pursuit of perfection, was another urban legend.  More like an urban fetish, actually.  Pamphlets were written about it, describing the “natural” female form and then its “perversion” quite breathlessly.  The Victorians may have been hypocrites about sex, but they never missed a trick when it came to finding a new way to get off.

It was a simpler, more innocent time.  Review the following and decide for yourself.  Children over the age of eight were expected to work full-time unless their family (usually middle or upper class) kept them in school.  And work was necessary, since there was no such thing as Juvvie — a child could be hung for stealing, say, food if the judge deemed him or her “incorrigible.”  Certain services we take for granted, like the fire department, existed by subscription only.  In other words, if your house caught fire and you weren’t paid up, the brigade wouldn’t scramble and your house would burn down.  (But they would arrive on the scene and watch if you lived close to neighbors who were paid up, so they could spring into action for the subscriber.)  And if you were unlucky enough to be born with a disability, you were destined to be a beggar, even if your parents were middle or upper class.  Why?  Because they would send you away the moment your disability was known.  A “baby farmer” or some other lower class family would take your imperfect child and raise them up to be a beggar, or else lock them in a room or even hang them (by a harness) on a wall to keep them out of trouble.  Jane Austen (not a Victorian, I know, but the practice continued beyond the Regency) had a sibling who was mentally challenged and lived apart from the Austens all his life, too imperfect to be associated with them.

Gustav Dore's Victorian Beggar

Filed Under: facts. victorian, Past Lives Series, Stephanie Abbott, victorian Tagged With: , , ,

Some Fun Facts about Victorian England

01/21/2012 By 3 Comments

Now that Past Lives #1: Rachel is finally out, I’m revisiting some older posts from my Blogspot days.

Pollution:  Most homes burned coal in their fireplaces, not wood.  And in the grander houses, virtually every room had a fireplace.  This is why London fog was usually yellow. And sometimes it was so thick, a lady could arrive home after a day of shopping to find her dress “grayed” by a fine layer of coal dust.  Therefore the average man wore black, day in and day out.  Inside even the finest homes, the wallpaper had to be washed at least once a year (after a long winter of burning fires daily, spring cleaning was essential).  The ceiling plaster was frequently black.

Bathrooms: By the 1870s, most fine houses had indoor toilets, or “water closets.”  Because the most common version was designed by a man named Thomas J. Crapper, toilets and what went in them got a new name.  Tub baths, however, were still a luxury.  By the time the maid schlepped enough hot water upstairs to fill the tub, it was already going cold, and virtually everyone believed exposure to cold could make you sick, if not literally kill you.  So sponge-bathing and perfume often ruled the day.

Hair: Blonde was considered the ideal color; lady’s magazines of the time declared blondes were the only true beauties.  Red hair was the worst.  As someone famously said, referring to a lady as “red-haired” was tantamount to social assassination.  A woman with short hair was shocking; a man with long hair, eccentric.  By mid-century, going clean-shaven was out of style, so every man wore a beard, or at least “side-whiskers.”  (Think Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.)

Vermin: Most people won’t be surprised to hear rats were a big problem in middle and lower class homes.  But they were just as common in upper class houses.  Sometimes when nursemaids heard the baby crying, they found it bleeding from fresh rat bites.

Coming Out: The phrase meant something different back then.  Girls too young for courtship were referred to as “in the schoolroom”; to “come out to society” meant to enter the marriage market.  Often these girls were presented to the Queen at St. James — the Victorian equivalent of a Senior Prom spotlight dance.  The girls had to make the most of their first season.  After two or three “failed seasons” — no engagement — they could be considered an old maid.  By the mid-Victorian era, there were approximately 10 single women for every single man (statistics vary, but it was definitely lopsided due to disease, crime, and especially war) so the risk of being left an old maid was quite real.

Professional Mourners: The upper classes wanted everything to look just so.  Therefore, a good undertaker offered premium services, including the rental of attractive blonde “mutes” whose only function was to stand prominently by the graveside looking inconsolable.  After the service, the female mourners could purchase “tear bottles” to store their tears in and keep as a reminder of the deceased.

Filed Under: facts. victorian, Past Lives Series, Stephanie Abbott, victorian
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