For the last act in an operatic tragedy that was real life in the 19th century read this story from March 1888 of a husband, a wife and a business failure. The welfare state was brought into being by stories such as this, in the same way that Factories Acts sought to stop workers dying… Continue reading Those weren’t the days my friend
Tag: 19th century
Tehachapi to Tonopah
OK, now it can be told. I do not know too well my left hand from my right. Those that know me may take this as a metaphor for all-round incompetence. But no, I protest. However those classmates for whom I was navigator around the twisting lanes of Cornwall when we were but schoolkids with… Continue reading Tehachapi to Tonopah
The modern economy of time
You know nothing of progress until you know the 19th century. This was written in 1864. (‘Quicksilver on glass’ by the way is mirroring):-
Fracking is as old as oil
The Evansville Daily Journal of March 9 1865 has this report from the dawn of the oil and gas industry.
Just a graze…
Once upon a time the uncertainty and certainty of death hung over everybody, everywhere, all the time, as this brief report from the London Evening Standard in 1840 shows…
Giving it all away
On this day in 1852 there died a man who these days would have been given therapy for his condition. He was, in those unreconstructed times, called a miser. There is probably a pressure group somewhere railing as you read this that the terminally stingy and absurdly mean should never be referred to in such… Continue reading Giving it all away
Bull running in England? Why haven’t I heard of it?
Bull running in Lincolnshire? Why haven’t I heard of it? Thankfully because it was banned long, long ago. You probably don’t want to know what happened to each year’s Stamford bull on the feast of St Brice’s Day, but it wasn’t a happy day for el toro on November 13. Rules demanded that while the… Continue reading Bull running in England? Why haven’t I heard of it?
Celestial Mechanics
There are bad and less bad racial epithets and stereotypes. Yank or Limey does not hurt, but in a world of generation snowflake, where people melt into a puddle of offence taken at the slightest insensitivity or viewpoint that isn’t theirs, it is worth noting what it was that 19th century Americans labelled the Chinese, those indentured semi slaves dragged… Continue reading Celestial Mechanics