Month: June 2020

A Rule and Instruction to Preserve Such as Be in Health, from the Infection

The plague hit London in 1603, and of course writers and printers were not slow to take advantage of the market for information that would prevent or cure the plague. In a blackletter tract, a physician explains the sound principle that you should stay away from infected persons as much as possible. Meanwhile, you can prevent the infection by making the world around you smell better. (Paragraph divisions have been added here; in the original there are none.)

When as (by the will of GOD) the contagion of the Plague is gotten into any place, Citie, or Countrey; we ought to have an especiall regard of the generall good, and by all meanes to study for their preservation who are in health, least they fall into such inconveniencie. First of all, therefore it behooveth every man to have speciall care that he frequent not any places or persons infected, neither that hee suffer such to breath upon him: but as Galen hath learnedly advised, in his Booke De Differentijs Frebrium, Chap. 2. Estrange himselfe as farre as hym lyeth, from their societie. The first and chiefest remedie then, is to chaunge the place, flie farre and returne late: Hipocrates, likewise in his Booke De Natura humana, saith: that wee ought to forsake the place whereas a generall sicknesse rangeth, according to the common Proverbe, Cito, longe, tarde.

And if necessitie constraineth us to frequent the infected, (either to be assistant to our friends, or otherwise:) every man ought to demeane himself in such sort that the sick mans breath doo not attaint him: which may very easily be done, if a man have the skill to choose & take the winde that properly bloweth towards the sicke & infected, and not from the infected to the healthfull: And therefore in that case the healthfull ought to keepe themselves under, not over the winde.

The first part of preservation, is to purifie and purge the ayre from all evill vapours, sentes, stench, corruption, putrifaction, and evill qualitie. For which cause, it is necessary to make good fumes in our houses, of sweet and wholesome wood, as Rosemarie, Iuniper, and Lawrell, or Bayes, and to perfume the whole house and chambers with the fume of Rosemary, Iuniper the parings of Apples, Storax, Beniamin, Incence, dried Roses, Lavender, and such like, both Evening and Morning. It is not amisse likewise at every corner of the street, (at least twice in the week) to make cleare and quicke Bonefires to consume the malignant vapours of the ayre, according as Acron the great Phisitian, commaunded to be done during the mortall plague in Greece: As Paulus Aegineta testifieth in his second Booke, Chap. 35.

It is good also to wear sweet savors and perfumes about us, such as in Winter time, are Marcorame, Rosemarie, Storax, Beniamin, or to make a Pomander after this sort that ensueth, and to weare it about us to smell too upon all opertunities.

Take of the flowers of red Roses, of Violets, of Buglos, of each half a little handfull, of the three Sanders, of each a Dramme, of the rootes of Angelica, Gentian, and Zedoary, of each four scruples; of white Encens, Cloves, Nutmegs, Calamus, Aromaticus, of each a dram, of Storax, Calumit, and red Beniamin, of each a dramme and a halfe, of orientall Muske a scruple, of Amber-greece halfe a scruple, of Ladaum infused in Rose-water one ounce, mixe all these together in Rose-water where in the Gum Dragacanth hath beene infused, and with a little of Rose-vinegar make a paste, of which you may forme certaine rounde Pomanders, to weare about your necke, and smell unto continually.

Or take of Rose-water three ounces, of white Vinegar, of Roses ij. ounces, of white Wine, or pure Malmosie two spoonfuls, of the powder of Cloves, of the roote of Angelica and Storax of each halfe a dramme, mixe them all together, and with this liquor it shall not be amisse to wash your hands, bedeaw your forehead & nostrils, and the pulces of your armes, for such an odour and of so wholesome a qualitie, vehemently repulceth the venome that assaileth the heart, and altereth the pestilence of the ayre.

——From A Treatise of the Plague, by Thomas Lodge. London: Edward White and N. L., 1603.

Making a Living as a Victorian Journalist

Is journalism a good profession for an educated young man who finds himself in need of an income? Anyone can do it, says our anonymous author. But that is the difficulty: anyone can do it, so everyone does.

As a mere money-coining pursuit, there is a good deal to be said both for or against journalism. It is emphatically one of those trades, aspired after by old Tulliver in the “Mill on the Floss,” which require no capital and are all profit. A ream of paper, a box of pens, a bottle of ink, a table, and a chair, are all the stock-in-trade required. You want no offices, no studio, no shop, to be a writer; you have no need, except in a very incidental way, to go to expense to keep up appearances; you require neither carriages nor horses, clerks nor servants, for the extension of your business. Indeed, access to a good library of reference, not in itself a very difficult or expensive object to accomplish, is about the only outlay absolutely essential to success as a professional writer. And, in spite of all that has been written about the difficulty of getting any sort of employment as an unknown aspirant to literary fame, we believe there is no trade in which it is so easy to get a start as that of journalism. To make a beginning is always difficult, but not more so, we hold, in literature than elsewhere. By the laws of trade, which no novice can defy with impunity, a briefless barrister cannot go and ask solicitors to give him cases to plead; a medical student who has won every honour and medal the faculty could bestow upon him, cannot solicit patients to employ his services; and young divines, burning with eloquence, cannot command the use of a pulpit, or enforce the attendance of a congregation. But a writer, without any breach of etiquette, may go and pester every publisher and editor in London to provide a market for his literary wares; and he must be singularly unfortunate if he cannot find any one disposed to give him a trial. Indeed, the facility with which any new recruit can get enlisted into the army of journalism is one of its defects as a permanent trade. Anybody may enter it when or how he chooses. We writers may conceive ourselves to possess an extraordinary aptitude for pleading a case, or curing bodies, or converting souls, but we can no more go and argue a case in court, or perform an operation, or preach a sermon, than we can fly without wings. But any barrister or curate or surgeon, or, for that matter, any apothecary, attorney, or minister, may come and poach upon our premises to-morrow; and if he can but hit his game, his services as a literary sportsman are as valuable as ours. But this accessibility of journalism to all comers, though it depreciates what we may term the net value of the calling, offers great attractions to young men in search of a profession, who have neither connection nor opening. No doubt if a man chooses to commence his literary career by writing epic poems, or five act dramas, or philosophical treatises, he may be a long time, whatever his merits are, before he finds a means of making his voice heard; but if he produces such articles as are fitted for general consumption, he will have no difficulty in finding a purchaser. Anybody, for instance, who wants employment as a journalist, has really nothing to do except to write letters to a paying newspaper on any subject of passing interest; and if his letters are good enough to secure insertion, he will be certain, sooner or later, to have the chance given him of trying his hand as a professional writer.

When the neophyte has once secured a periodical which admits his contributions, it rests with him to push his advantage. It is not as in other trades, where, whatever may be the talent of the student, years of toil are required before he can command the same remuneration as his older brethren. As in the parable, the workman who comes in at the eleventh hour commands his penny equally with those who have borne the burden and heat of the day. No doubt the experienced and practised journalist, with a known name, will at first obtain a higher rate of remuneration than an unknown aspirant; but this is only because he is likely to turn out a better article, and what is more, has given proof that he can continue to turn out such articles whenever they are required. No very long probation, however, is needed for a man to show whether he has in him the real making of a periodical writer, and when he has shown that, his position is secured.

From these causes we hold that there is no pursuit at the present day in which it is so easy to get a start, or to earn a moderate income in a short time, as journalism. Barristers, medical men, clergymen, civil servants, merchants’ clerks, architects, and naval or military officers, would as a rule consider themselves fortunate if they cleared a couple of hundred a year by their profession at the end of some years of hard work and practice. Now, a writer in newspapers and magazines can hardly fail, with decent application and fair fortune, to make that amount at least in his first year; and this very facility of earning an income at first starting is one of the chief dangers of journalism as a career. The money is earned with no excessive labour; it is paid promptly; and every young writer thinks the amount can be extended indefinitely without difficulty. If for a couple of hours’ work you can earn a pound, let us say, by writing an article,—it can be shown mathematically that with six hours’ work a day you can obtain a weekly income of some nine hundred a year. The calculation would be perfect if it were not for the fact that it is a great deal more than twice as difficult to write two good articles a day as it is to write one; and also that, even if you could produce any number of excellent articles per diem, without any deterioration in the quality of the article produced, you would find it extremely difficult to insure a market for your wares. We recollect a young writer talking to us once about his prospects, and saying he had no fear about wanting money, as he could always earn his two guineas a day by writing before breakfast such an article as he had just sent off to his employers. With the wisdom of older experience, we pointed out that, even if he could send forth such an essay every morning, the weekly journal for which he then wrote would certainly not place six columns a week at his disposal ; and that, failing the paper in question, there was not a single periodical which had any demand for the sort of serial essay he had just excogitated. Of course our advice was not attended to; and equally of course, we may add, when our acquaintance was forced by circumstances to take to journalism as a profession, not as an amateur occupation, he found he could not earn his bread.

In journalism, unlike most other pursuits, it is not the “premier pas qui coute.” About taking the first step there is no great cost or difficulty; it is the second and third steps which are so difficult to surmount. Most young men of good education and fair abilities can put together an article which, with a certain amount of editorial correction, will bear insertion; and we take it there are very few men of the class we describe who do not know enough about some one or more special subjects to write creditably upon them. But, then, the fact that most educated men can do this renders the talent of comparatively little value. What A does, however good it may be, B, C, D, and so on down to Z, can do equally well; and therefore it is not worth anybody’s while to pay A more than the market value of his article. It is, we should say from our own experience, very difficult practically for purveyors of ordinary literary matter to earn much more in their second year than in their first; and their income, small as it is, is necessarily a precarious one. So long as a writer of second-rate calibre happens to satisfy the proprietors of the journal for which he writes, he may draw his three, four, or five pounds a week regularly without much trouble or difficulty. He does his work as well as any one else of the class, and if he were not employed somebody else would have to be engaged in his stead for much the same salary. But if the periodical falls off, as periodicals will fall off, or if from any change in his relations with the owners he loses the engagement, he is almost as much at sea as when he first commenced his literary career.

——The Saint Pauls Magazine, December, 1867.

Treason in a Brandy Bottle

The Glorious Revolution had been accomplished; William and Mary were sharing the throne as England’s first and only joint monarchs. But the followers of the expelled James II had not given up. This broadside describes how treasonable letters might have been carried to their destination had it not been for the curiosity of a patriotic tradesman. This is the sort of thing that makes perfect broadside material. It seems that Lady Griffith escaped execution, but her husband the first Lord Griffith was imprisoned and ultimately executed for treason.

An Account of the Apprehending of Treasonable Designs discovered in some Papers found in the false Bottoms of two large Brandy Bottles, on the 21st. of October, 1689.

Licensed October 24th 1689. J. Fraser.

The Security their present Sacred Majesties now stand upon, and the Foundation the Protestant Religion receives from their Administration, seems so establisht that their Enemies are reduced to their last shift of Wile and Stratagem, under the Covert of Disguise and Night to work their dark and hidden Designs against Them. An Instance of which has very lately demonstrated the Subtilty and Restlessness of that unsatisfied Party, which take as follows. The Lady Griffin, Wife to the Right Honourable the Lord Griffin, A Lady that has some years layn under the Affliction of Blindness, living in the Pall-mall, employed one of her Servants to bespeak two large Pewter Brandy Bottles containing five or six Quarts each Bottle, with each of them false Bottoms; which when she had got finished, on the twenty second Instant, late at Night, between the hours of Ten and Eleven, she sent her said Servant in company with a young Page of hers with the same Bottles to a strange Pewterer’s living in Panton-street to get the false Bottoms soder’d fast down upon the Bottles, in which Bottoms she had caused a great Parcel of Treasonable Letters to be laid and covered with Cotton: The honest Pewterer, surprized at the sight of two Bottles of that sly sort of make, and the cunning Conveyance of private Things thus suspiciously stowed in them, being likewise a little stagger’d at the unseasonableness of the Time of Night when they were brought to him to be thus closed up, made bold to satisfie his Curiosity by searching what lay concealed under the Cotton; and finding them to be a large quantity of Letters, apprehended both the said Servants of the said Lady, who were that Night committed to the Gate-house, (where the elder Servant now lies close Prisoner,) and the Letters he conveyed to the Right Honourable the Earl of Shrewsbury Principal Secretary of State. The Lady upon Inquiry after her is taken into Custody.

——From a broadside printed in 1689.

Disinfectants

Worcester’s Dictionary (1848 edition) defines “infection” as “the propagation of disease through the medium of the air.” “The simple theory of disinfectants” is that air that smells bad carries disease, and that eliminating the bad odor will therefore eliminate the infection. It would be wonderfully consoling if the theory were true.

Disinfectants.—Do our lady readers understand the simple theory of disinfectants? Every housekeeper has had occasion to use chloride of lime: half a pound to five gallons of water, is the quantity recommended by a very able chemist. Aromatic vinegar poured upon a heated iron plate is perhaps the pleasantest of all, though not always to be had, or remarkably economical. The cheapest, and, at the same time, one of the most convenient and agreeable of all, is common coffee. Pound the well-dried raw bean in a mortar, and strew the powder on a moderately heated iron plate. Just traversing the house with a roaster containing freshly burned coffee will clear it from all offensive smells.

——From Godey’s Lady’s Book, July, 1852.

The Insalubrious Consequences of Lack of Ventilation

Pestilential diseases of all sorts are engendered by the close, fetid air of English dwellings, says a magazine writer of the 1830s. This is a fairly clear statement of the miasma theory of infection—which, in the absence of knowledge of bacteria and viruses, was a good approximation of the truth. Bad smells indicate bad sanitation, which is certainly a factor in spreading disease.

The pure open air is certainly the most healthy fluid that man can breathe; and this is the reason why a residence in the country has so benignant an effect upon the human frame in general, when attended with all the comforts of refined life. The air in cities is usually impregnated with particles of a more or less deleterious nature; still this air is not so injurious as that of crowded and heated rooms, where the breath of one human being is inhaled as the vital atmosphere of another, with what effect it is easy to judge.

In the dwellings of the poor, where a family of ten or twelve persons sometimes resides in a single room, whilst, perhaps, a small house contains forty or fifty inmates, the windows are generally closed. Not a breath of air is admitted except during the dog-days, and then the external atmosphere is too stagnant and sultry to be of much use. All the offices of the family, including their cookery, their meals, and their repose, are carried on in this single room, the air of which, impregnated with azote from the living occupants, and with fetor from the garments and fragments of food, engenders those pestilential diseases which sometimes break out with irresistible fury in some of the most densely populated districts of the metropolis.

In the dwellings of the inferior tradesmen the same evil prevails. Though the houses are not so thickly inhabited as those of the humbler class, still there are sufficient numbers, added to the inveterate national uncleanliness of body which we indicated in a preceding paper, render these places of residence extremely insalubrious. A breath of air is seldom admitted into the bed-rooms, in which there is always a close, fetid smell. In the sitting-rooms the same evil is perceptible, and the offensiveness of the smell, on entering them from the open air, is oftentimes overpowering. In winter, a very small sitting-room, which serves for a large family to sit and to take their meals in, is kept hermetically closed, with a blazing fire in the grate. The room is soon heated to excess, and its atmosphere, which has been breathed over and over again, impregnated with carbon. A delicate girl, perhaps, leaves this oven for a moment, and, without any gradation, plunges into a pure and cold, or perhaps into a damp, cold atmosphere. What is the probable consequence?—inflammatory action in the lungs, tuberculous deposit, and death. And yet all this might have been avoided by ventilation.

The dwellings of the wealthier classes are not exempt from the same visitations, arising from the same causes. Though there is a freer circulation of air, and a more equal temperature in their vast apartments, still in their parties and entertainments the want of ventilation is severely felt. There seems to be a dread of admitting any external air into a suite of rooms crowded with company; and when a sense of suffocation actually forces some panting guest to open a window, an outcry is raised as loud as if the baneful blast of the simoom, from the African desert, were about to invade this sanctuary of British beauty and fashion. No heed is taken of the consequences of breathing heated air; no account is rendered of the death-chill likely to fall upon the young and lovely, when from the impure they plunge into the pure atmospheric fluid; no consequence is dreaded from the pale and haggard phantom that hovers over each scene of festive enjoyment, and hurls its ice-bolt of destruction at the fairest of our daughters: reckless do mothers expose these tender budding flowers to the pestilential blast, until consumption has fixed its deadly pangs upon the fair bosom of her who yesterday shone as the brightest ornament of an admiring circle, and to-day sinks into a premature grave.

——From The Magazine of Domestic Economy, Vol. II (1837).