Tag: society

Injudicious and erroneous education

1837 -2018; Spot the difference.  I tend not to become exercised at the wilder fringes of this debate, but hey, give me a break — the discrimination in this photograph (below), is just wrong. But first, to set the context, is the tad patronising, sexist but so of its era introduction to an 1837 self-help book… Continue reading Injudicious and erroneous education

Between the lines

In 1864 a Cambridge gentleman farmer and agricultural scientist, Philip Howard Frere by name, wrote up his experiments in feeding various combinations of fodder. He shared with the readers of the Journal of the Bath and West of England Society that by spending £25 on an “American Grist Mill” (American in name only as it… Continue reading Between the lines

It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure

And the poor knew their place. This is the story from the Bow St Magistrate’s Court in 1862. It’s the tale of a cheapo toff who was embarrassed when a short-changed cabby chased him and shouted at him in the street for underpaying. Using his position in society the man turned the tables on the… Continue reading It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure

Those weren’t the days my friend

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

When science and religious cults collide

For good measure about the ‘climate change causes bad things… look, see it’s flooding, therefore it must be’ debate, and yes I know it’s from Breitbart, but it should give the more rabid and uninformed warmists just a teensy weensy pause for thought about whether stuff is cause and effect or just effect. Dr. Duane… Continue reading When science and religious cults collide

At the going down of the sun

World War One has been jogged back into the UK’s collective consciousness once more with the Third Battle of Ypres,aka Passchendaele getting its own Royal Command Performance on British TV. Two thoughts; one pretty much universal and the other pretty much local. The local first. There is a tiny village in Suffolk named Bildeston. A… Continue reading At the going down of the sun