Health reform: 1849

The College of Physicians having sent forth some gratuitous advice, which is well worth its cost, on the subject of Cholera, we hasten to put it into plain language for the benefit of the community.

Every one is to live extremely well, and no one is, on any account, to neglect warm clothing, with good coal fire, or any other arrangement that may be conducive to health and comfort.

All persons crowded together in small ill-ventilated houses are recommended to take at once more commodious apartments, and those individuals who are insufficiently clothed must give orders forthwith to their tailors for taking the necessary measures.

Families not hitherto in the habit of keeping up a good fire in the winter, through their inability to purchase the fuel, will without delay take the necessary steps for laying in a stock of coals from their respective coal merchants; and those who have had meat only once a week, will give orders for a daily supply in future, to their various butchers. It being highly expedient not to overtax the strength, those who feel exhausted by their labour will relinquish their work when they feel themselves too much debilitated to continue with comfort to themselves, and they will of course take care to make up in some way for the deficiency of their wages. These simple suggestions have only to be followed out with due care by the labouring classes of the community, in order to mitigate very materially the severity of the Cholera.

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

That's almost as silly as requiring people who can't afford health insurance to either buy it or pay a fine.

Vegetarianism: 1849

When we noticed, a week or two ago, a banquet of vegetables, we were not aware that a great Vegetarian Movement was going on...

The Vegetarian Advocate has replied to our article on the late vegetarian banquet, and we must confess that, notwithstanding the very cholera-inducing diet on which the members of the sect exist, the answer is by no means of a choleric character. The Vegetarian Advocate has a delicious vegetable leader, with two or three columns of provincial intelligence, showing the spread of vegetarian principles. There are vegetarian missionaries going about the country inculcating the doctrine of peas and potatoes; and there is a talk of a vegetarian dining-room, where there is to be nothing to eat but potatoes, plain and mashed, with puddings and pies in all their tempting variety.

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

I never would have guessed this, but vegetarianism in the West was part of a reform movement organized during the Victorian Era.

That kind of takes the edge off of it.

Fair trade sugar: 1849

A Gentleman named Bull being in great trouble and distress of mind, is anxious to be introduced to some Casuist who will undertake to quiet his conscience. Mr. Bull is the proprietor of certain colonial possessions devoted to the cultivation of sugar. In these he, some years ago, abolished Negro slavery, from a conviction that it was barbarous and wicked. In justice to his colonists he entered into an arrangement to place a prohibitive duty on slave-grown sugar. This arrangement Mr, Bull, being fond of sugar, and desirous of obtaining the article cheap, subsequently annulled.

Mr. Bull is persuaded by his economical advisers that he did not, by so doing, break faith with his colonists; but feeling uncomfortably dubious as to this point, he would be glad to have it settled to his satisfaction. He has renounced slave-holding, believing it to be criminal; but while he continues to consume slave- grown sugar, it strikes him forcibly that he is in the same position as a receiver of stolen goods. He will feel deeply grateful to any ingenious person who will convince him that he is mistaken in this view.

Mr. Bull desires to enjoy cheap sugar, unalloyed by the reflection that he is encouraging slavery. He wants to be enabled to congratulate himself on having abolished slavery, without being obliged to reproach himself for admitting the produce of slave labour. He wishes to revel, at the same time, in sugar and self-complacency. He seeks, in fact, to be relieved from the disagreeable suspicion that he is acting the part of a humbug; and any special pleader who will do him this kindness will be handsomely rewarded.

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

Those Victorians with their silly moral crusades, trying to force their values on other people.

If the Victorians were effective, it's probably because they focused their attention on one specific problem at a time, not the grab-bag of moral standards embodied by today's fair trade movement. Fair trade labels are so prone to abuse that it's probably best to avoid them for moral reasons.

Text messaging: 1849

TALKING BY TELEGRAPH

Not content with the wonders the Electric Telegraph performs--not satisfied with its facility in announcing outbreaks--aye, and making them also, now and then--it has been proposed to apply its powers to the operations of every-day life, and to carry on ordinary conversations by means of the Electric Telegraph....

...We should be glad to see speakers in the House of Commons limited to the use of the machine, which would prevent the other Members from being overwhelmed by the drowsiness which the soporific qualities of tone and style will induce...

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

Can you imagine people sending text messages for everyday conversations? Ridiculous!

America, 1860 edition

But, for profound seriousness of statement, is there anything outrageous in even American romance to match the subjoined paragraph in the President's Message to Congress?--

"It is a striking proof of the sense of justice which is inherent in our people that the property in slaves has never been disturbed, to my knowledge, in any of the territories. Even throughout the late troubles in Kansas there has not been any attempt, as I am credibly informed, to interfere, in a single instance, with the right of the master. Had any such attempt been made, the judiciary would doubtless have afforded an adequate remedy. Should they fail to do this hereafter, it will then be time enough to strengthen their hands by further legislation. Had it been decided that either Congress or the territorial Legislature possess the power to annul or impair the right to property in slaves, the evil would be intolerable."

...But to talk of this right of property in Slaves, as though under a solemn conviction of its moral existence, is surely possible only to those who are inspired with that peculiar sentiment which Mr. Buchanan happily describes as "the sense of justice which is inherent in our people."

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

We are informed that the President also took time in the same speech, to say how awful the slave trade was. America, with all her talk of "freedom" must have looked like the worst hypocrite imaginable. Thank goodness that problem ended with slavery.

The Pope, 1860 edition

Alarming Accident to the Pope

His Holiness, in promenading yesterday on the Corso, met with a sad accident. His foot slipping in a puddle of blood, he fell and broke his head. The accident has been pronounced to be a fracture of the temporal bone.

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

That was supposed to be a joke, from a publication similar to Mad Magazine, but much more serious and political. Almost every issue piled scorn upon His Holiness.



I suppose this is the price you may have to pay if you insist on mixing your politics and your religion.