So whats changed in 500 years?

The streets are more dangerous now.

It's only 250 years since Hogarth, BOAT.

You want a sobering thought (the irony, given the original painting)?

Ladbrokes are open more than Lidl

bitofatwat wrote:

we DO seem to have come full-circle with the drunken whores littering the streets though.

Things are not necessarily more violent, it was just more acceptable in the last 3/400 years.People did what they did to survive, because there was no cushion of welfare, benefits and charity was limited.There has always been a 'Moral Panic' mentality imo.

i would beg to differ MG.

there hasn't ALWAYS been teenage alcoholics,
if there were,i doubt if the percentage was so high.

and also,
middle class youths are making begging a career-option.

erixter wrote:i would beg to differ MG.

there hasn't ALWAYS been teenage alcoholics,
if there were,i doubt if the percentage was so high.

and also,
middle class youths are making begging a career-option.

in the pictire alcoholism was rife.the Victorians clamped down and there was a sort of pressure for people to be teatotal.now i agree that things are bad because alcohol is so easy and cheap to get.

Easier again in the gin "epidemic". It was more popular than water. We built an Empire on the principle that all our sailors were pissed up to the eyeballs as well.

Didn't sailors drink Rum and Ale then while gin was for the women?

Gin was for everyone, Tone - the streets were literally awash with it. London was averaging a pint and a half a month per head and it was men, women and children. The government at the time tried to suppress it with successive legislation and the fact the legislation was successive shows how successful it was.

The Navy would carry water, beer and rum. The water would be unfit for human consumption within a couple of days of leaving port. Beer and rum keep, though, because alcohol doesn't let bacteria and so forth accumulate. The daily ration was huge as well. Might look it up but it could put out a horse

Bert wrote:London was averaging a pint and a half a month per head and it was men, women and children.

1740 - daily ration was a half pint of 160% proof rum

Bert wrote:1740 - daily ration was a half pint of 160% proof rum

That's a 45-shot equivalent a day, Tone. We were "colonizing" two worlds at a time because we couldn't just see the one

Interesting that the Navy conquered the seas by being pissed but the Army had its successes because it didn't shit itself. Diarrhoea was what invariably stopped troops and once we'd worked that out and put steps in to address it, we were not side-tracked and carrying guns against either an enemy that was still shitting through the eye of a needle or was armed with dried grass and stuck-out tongues.

Bert wrote:against either an enemy that was still shitting through the eye of a needle or was armed with dried grass and stuck-out tongues.