Northern girl with a southern tongue.

It appears that in the Victorian era, long-standing tradition has it that a girl whose petticoats show beneath her dress was loved more by her father than by her mother. In other research, it stated that an unmarried lady who slept with one of her petticoats under the pillow would ensure that she would enjoy dreams about her future husband. In still another place, I found the following poem that was often recited by young ladies:

This Friday night while going to bed, I put my petticoat under my head, To dream of the living and not of the dead, To dream of the man I am to wed. The colour of his eyes, the colour of his hair, The colour of the clothes he is to wear, And the night the wedding is to be.

According to the Portuguese, meanwhile, a woman who fears she is threatened by the evil eye can escape harm by wearing seven petticoats at once.

An old wives’ tale stated that if a bride wore a yellow petticoat under her gown, it meant she was ashamed of her fellow: “To wear a petticoat of yellow, she is ashamed of her fellow.”

Speaking of the color yellow, it was considered one of the unluckiest of all colors. It was and perhaps still is generally associated with cowardice, sickness, and death (though some people connect it with the life-giving sun). Yellow leaves that appear on peas or bean plants are supposed to presage a death in the household, and even evil spirits are said to avoid the color. Even in today’s modern society, actors and actresses are sometimes reluctant to wear yellow. 

After the verbal challenge -- or perhaps “warning” would be a better word -- was issued, depending on the severity of the offense, the other might have a choice: he could either apologize or he could accept. Sometimes the apology would not be accepted, often if there was a third person who’d been wronged.

The next day, supposedly after heads had cooled, the wronged man who wished to duel would send his “second” with a written letter challenging the duel. The other may choose to apologize or accept the challenge. If accepted, he would choose swords or pistols, and name the time and the place. 

When the allotted day arrived, they met, probably in a remote place where they wouldn’t be caught by the law, and the seconds inspected the weapons to be used. A final opportunity for an apology could be given. If not, the seconds decided if the duel should be fought to (a) first blood, (b) until one can no longer stand, or (c) to the death. Once that was decided, the opponents dueled and the seconds watched to insure that nothing dishonorable happened.

If one of the duelers becomes too injured to continue, occasionally the second would step in and duel. Sometimes the seconds were hot-headed and ended up dueling each other as well.

By the Regency Era, dueling was outlawed. However, duels still happened more frequently than many people knew. The problem was, because courts were made up of peers, they were reluctant to charge another peer with murder as a result of a duel. There is a case where one nobleman was charged with murder and tried but used the defense that his behavior was gentlemanly and honorable, meaning that he acted within the proper code of conduct. He was acquitted by his peers.

As horrible as it sounds to our modern selves, these gentlemen took their honor very seriously and considered death preferable to living with the label of a coward, a label that would follow them and their families for years.

Maybe it’s me, but there a certain romance about a gentleman brave enough and protective enough to be willing to risk death defending my honor from another man who’d besmirched it. 

Blake was an odd character whom all the other Romantic poets found bewildering, and whom Wordsworth and Coleridge called "crazy Blake". Coleridge, reviewing Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, found fault with Blake's hand-drawn illustrations, in particular with the "I don't know whatness of the countenance, as if the mouth had been formed by the habit of placing the tongue, not contemptuously, but stupidly, between the lower gums and the lower jaw". Coleridge also disapproved of "the mood of the mind", i.e. the supposed sanity of the poet. Robert Hunt, a critic of the time, was highly upset that "the ebullitions of a distempered brain [were] mistaken for the sallies of genius... [in the] admirers of William Blake, an unfortunate lunatic, whose personal inoffensiveness secures him from confinement and, consequently, of whom no public notice would have been taken, if he was not forced on the notice and animadversion of the Examiner, in having been held up to public admiration by many esteemed amateurs and professors as a genius in some respect original and legitimate".

This amateur historian personally thinks that the best line from Hunt's review is as follows:

"The praises which these gentlemen bestowed last year on this unfortunate man's illustrations... have, in feeding his vanity, stimulated him to publish his madness more largely."

The fact that Blake amped up the crazy in order to get people who annoyed him to leave him alone probably did not help this impression.

This, of course, made her a martyr. The French despised her for her actions. A man even lifted her freshly severed head from the guillotine basket to slap her cheek. The English, on the other hand, idolized the murderess. As can be seen in this Gillray print, Corday is one of the few women to be portrayed in a positive light by the satirical artist. Her depiction is very similar to those of Britannia, a rare compliment for those not of English origin. Don't you just love how in this depiction, Charlotte address the assembly as "wretches"? Plus, I doubt Gillray ever put so much time into making a hairdo look nice as he did with this print. It should also be noted how incredibly un-French Charlotte looks. She looks more... hmm... British? Her depiction is notably in the British vogue.

The British, who have a tradition of enjoying a good rebellion (unless it is against them), felt France crossed the line with the execution of Louis XVI. Charlotte became, for them, a symbol of liberty, the exact thing France was fighting for. The French disagreed with this viewpoint and felt it was Marat, the guy who died taking a bubble bath, who was the true martyr.

In 1859, it was estimated a quarter of all women suffered from hysteria, as was reported in a seventy-five-page document of the time. By 1860, water treatments were widely used. The lady simply sat in a chair while being given a pelvic massage with a steady flow of water. The treatment was successful when she reached a state of hysterical paroxysm.

The prescription for said ailment was increased sexual activity for the married, marriage for the unwed. As a last resort, a vaginal or pelvic massage could be provided by a skilled medical provider.

The Victorians took this condition very seriously. By 1870, a clockwork vibrator was a tool used by doctors everywhere. In 1910, an advertisement assured, "Vibration is life." The vibrator became a vital tool to maintain a woman's health, and now it was available for home use!

Sears’ catalog advertised a vibrator and accessories in 1918. It was billed as a "very useful and satisfactory home device".

Thank Heaven, healthcare was finally in good hands!

Today, the vibrator is a multi-million dollar industry. So successful is this treatment that the syndrome is no longer included in medical texts.

That's a lot of happy women.

The departure of the mails was one of the most exciting sights in London. On its outward journey, each coach collected passengers from whatever inn the vehicle was horsed at and then dashed ‘round at 8 p.m. to St. Martin's le Grand to collect the mail. Coaches were called by name to receive their bags, and the crash of the lid of the boot locking down on the special mails was the signal for each coach to speed away. Fast stage and mail coaches made their journeys in about the same time. It took five hours to travel from London to Brighton, two more to Southampton, seventeen hours to Exeter, nineteen to Manchester and twenty-one to Liverpool. This worked out to an average speed of 10 miles an hour. The coaches, besides galloping against each other, were always running against the clock, for lateness was punished by heavy penalties and loss of credit. The half-thoroughbred horses were kept in peak condition and during their stage of seven or eight miles were worked at fever pitch. The steadier wheelers were meant to act as a check upon their leaders, but more often than not the driver gave the wheelers their heads and the whole team sped along at a gallop.

In truly severe weather, the sufferings of the outside passengers was terrible. Once, when the Bath mail changed horses at Chippenham one March morning, two of the outside passengers were found frozen to death, a third dying later. Post boys were frequently lifted out of their saddles near the point of death. The winter of 1836 was one of the worst on record, with Christmas storms closing all coach roads for several days. On December 26th, the Manchester, Holyhead, Chester, and Halifax mails were all stuck in snow drifts at Hockley Hill, near Dunstable, within a few yards of one another, and throughout the country, stories of overturned coaches and dogged heroism on the part of coachmen and guards were recounted. In one instance, a guard, leaving his snowbound coach, carried out instructions by taking the mails forward on horseback. Nine miles farther on he sent the horse back but pushed on himself. Next morning he was found dead a mile or two up the road, with the mail bag still tied round his neck. 

Change of horses at each fresh stage was made quickly. Hostlers and stable boys were allowed a minute in which take out the old horses and harness up a fresh team, though some could manage the job in fifty seconds. Seats on a coach had to be secured in advance at the inn from which it started or where it stopped on the road. The traveler's name was entered into a book and half the fare taken as a deposit. The fares by stage coach worked out to 2 1/2 to 3d a mile outside, 4-5d a mile for inside passengers. Mails coaches were dearer, averaging from 4 1/2d to 5d for outsides, 8-10d for insides.

The coachman wore beneath his coat a crimson traveling shawl topped by a long waistcoat of a striped pattern, and over that a wide-skirted green coat ornamented with large brass buttons. Usually he wore on his head a wide-brimmed, low-crowned brown hat. He wore knee cord breeches, painted top boots, and a copper watch chain. The real responsibility for the coach rested with the guard who, in the case of mail coaches, had the added care of guarding the letter bags. In their red coats, with the gleaming brass horn at the ready, they collected fares from those who joined the coach on the road, saw that the schedule was kept to, and were entrusted with the execution of commissions. In case of accident, the guard looked after the mails and the passengers, carrying the former by horse and arranging for a fresh coach for the latter if necessary. They were accustomed to journeys of up to 120-150 miles at a stretch and received about 10s a week in wages. Inside passengers were supposed to tip the guards 2s 6d, the outsides 2s, and the guard collected further tips for handling luggage or running errands.

Travelling post chaise was decidedly the favored means. The chaise was a light and comfortable vehicle with two, or more commonly four, wheels drawn by two or four horses ridden by post boys. For great haste, four horses with two postilions were used. As with a mail coach, the horses were changed at stages. There was room for only two passengers in a post-chaise, but most carriages had a dickey, or platform, at back for a groom. Principal turnpike gates out of London were found in Knightsbridge at the corner of Gloucester Road, in Kensington at the corner of Earls Court Road, at Marble Arch, Notting Hill, King's Cross, City Road near Old Street, Shoreditch, Commercial Road, Kennington Gate, and three more in the Old Kent Road.

An important London coaching inn was the Golden Cross in Charing Cross, near Nelson's Column before 1830, when it was moved to face Craven Street. Coaches left here bound for Gloucester, Cheltenham, South Wales, Chester, Liverpool, Hastings, Dover, Stroud, Brighton, Halifax, and other points. The Saracen's Head stood at the top of Snow Hill, next to St. Sepulchre's Church, with coaches leaving for many parts of England and Scotland. During the eighty years before its demolition in 1868, the inn had been kept by members of the Mountain family, the most prominent being Sarah Ann Mountain, who carried on after her husband's death in 1816. She dispatched thirty coaches from her inn each day and set a record with her Tally Ho! to Birmingham. She also built coaches for sale at 110 - 120 guineas each. The Tally Ho! served Canterbury, Liverpool, and Birmingham, and was one of nine coaches on the London to Birmingham route. Its team of four horses was changed at each of the ten stops made between London and Birmingham. The Tally Ho! normally made the 109-mile trip in eleven-and-a-half hours, traveling at an average speed of 9.5 mph. During the famous London to Birmingham race, which took place on May Day, 1830, the Tally Ho! made coaching history, setting a record by covering the route in seven-and-a-half hours, travelling at an average speed of 14.5 mph. It should be noted that the coach carried no passengers during the race.

The Swan With Two Necks was the hub of much activity during the 17th and 18th centuries, serving London as a coaching, parcel, and wagon office. The name is derived from Swan with Two Nicks, the nicks being the mark by which the birds of the Vintner's Company were identified. The inn was a terminus for northbound coaches, and stood at the corner of Aldermanbury, where the Guildhall was and is located, with the Wax Chandler's Hall being on the south side of the street. The inn was demolished in 1845 when Lad Lane, St. Anne's Lane, Maiden Lane, and Cateaton Street were all widened during the building of Gresham Street.

William Chaplin, the "Napoleon of coach proprietors," was born at Rochester, Kent, in 1787, son of a coachman-proprietor, and he himself started off driving the Dover Union. Marriage to the sister-in-law of James Edwards, “one of the largest proprietors on the Kentish routes,” proved useful. He and Edwards allied in many ventures in Kent. He came to horse more and more coaches until, by 1827, he owned between three- to four-hundred animals and the Spread Eagle, Gracechurch Street. By 1835, he owned twelve-hundred horses and the Swan with Two Necks. In 1838, he horsed sixty-eight coaches with eighteen-hundred horses, employing two-thousand men. He also acquired the Cross Keys and the White Horse, Fetter Lane, and opened the Spread Eagle coach office in Regent Circus. Chaplin was said to have had "immense energy, an equable temperament and great sagacity," and also, "a very good knowledge of the animals he governed as well as the bipeds with whom he was associated". Nevertheless, Chaplin one day had a run in with George Denman, toll collector at Kensington Gate, who issued Chaplin a toll ticket bearing the improper amount. A fight broke out during which Denman took hold of Chaplin’s horses, prompting him to use his whip upon the toll keeper. Chaplin was later fined 12s and court costs. As with most well-to-do businessmen, Chaplin was known to grumble about the actual profits he made, stating in 1827, "I have not a shadow of a doubt that, were the coaching account of the nation kept regularly, the whole is decidedly a loss and the public have the turn."

What Buster Jones created was a fairy tale cottage cum Aladdin’s cave, with nautical and ecclesiastical themes thrown in for good measure. He dragged tree stumps from nearby woodland, and either fashioned them into bar tops or used them as massive beams to prop up aging ceilings. The old Okehampton-to-Launceston stagecoach became a suitably eccentric entrance lobby. Old spindles, battered tankards, cartwheels, lanterns, and all manner of other bric-a-brac came to occupy every spare inch of wall, beam, or ceiling. Timbers and fittings from old ships, including the intricately carved door of the whaler Diana that ran aground in the Humber in 1869, were used to create the remarkable Galleon Bar, which has the below-decks ambiance of an 18th century pirate ship. Buster’s daughter, Sally, and her husband, Bruce, now run the inn, and take great care to ensure that his legacy remains intact. They have long grown used to sharing their bequest with one or two spirits of an ethereal nature that drop in every so often to keep an eye on the comings and goings.

Much of the ghostly activity occurs in the Galleon Bar, and it is mooted that it may be related to the eerie-looking door from the Diana. Between September 21, 1866 and March 17, 1868, thirteen members of the ship’s crew died when she became trapped in Arctic pack ice. “We will not have a moment’s peace of mind or body so long as we are in this awful ice,” one sailor wrote in his log. When the remaining crew finally managed to force the crippled vessel across the Atlantic to reach Shetland, the first reporter to board her was appalled by the sight that met his eyes. “Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner might have sailed in such a ghastly ship,” he wrote, “the main deck a charred house not to be described.”

Several psychic investigators have suggested that the apparitions seen in the Galleon Bar are the long-dead mariners whose spirits have remained earthbound in the fabric of the door. Such a theory might sound a little far-fetched, but a definite air of melancholy emanates from the relic.

To begin with, we must start with the 23-year-old Voltaire, who was then going by the name Francois-Marie Arouet and was merely a minor poet. Someone had recently published some extremely subversive verses about the sexual escapades of Phillippe d'Orleans, who was serving as regent of France until Louis XV was old enough to rule on his own.

Arouet, who was rumored to be one of the possible authors of the poem, got into a discussion of said poem in the Parisian inn where he was living. Arouet mysteriously asked one of his new friends, i.e. a random guest in the inn, if he liked the poem, and boasted that though he, Arouet, was very young, he had, in fact, written it and written many more like it.

His new friend turned out to be a police spy.

Arouet went to the Bastille.

While he was there, he befriended his guards and formed an instant dislike for his head inquisitor, Monsieur Ysabeau. Ysabeau asked Arouet for any and all subversive poems. Arouet said he had no knowledge of said poems (which was actually true, as he hadn't yet written any) and then "gave in" and said he'd left them at the inn. When Ysabeau failed to find them, Arouet feigned a fit of temper and "admitted" to throwing them down the toilet.

Ysabeau was forced to open up the sewage drain near the inn where Arouet had been staying, much against the wishes of the rest of the inn and all the people living around it. Ysabeau ought to have listened to the protests of Arouet's neighbors. The drain was made of old bricks and mortar, and collapsed as soon as Ysabeau tried to inspect it more closely. The sewage spewed forth, ruining everything in the cellars of the inn (the inn-keeper later got compensation for the loss of his entire collection of beer and wines) and forcing Ysabeau to pick through the collected waste in search of the poems. As Ysabeau wrote in his formal report, "It appears M. Arouet, with his active imagination. only pretended to have thrown away [the documents]... to create unnecessary work."

While this was going on, Arouet wrote his first famous play, an adaptation of Oedipus that became the theatrical success of the decade. While his eleven-month jaunt in the Bastille had been unpleasant, the lack of other occupation forced him to finish his play, and this play earned him popularity with audiences and critics alike. Philippe d'Orleans, apparently feeling Arouet (who had now chosen the pen name Voltaire) had learned his lesson, told him to keep up the good work, and gave him a gold watch and a large annual subsidy.

Voltaire thanked Philippe d'Orleans for paying for his food, but begged the regent to never again chose his lodgings.