A hundred years ago, literature was at a very low ebb.  The press was in a miserable state.  William Whitehead was Poet Laureate!  Who knows of him now?  Gibbon had not written his “Decline and Fall.” Junius was the popular writer.  Political corruption was scarified in his letters.  The upper classes were coarse, drunken, and ill-mannered.  Bribery and corruption on the grossest scale were the principal means for getting into Parliament.  Mr. Dowdeswell, M.P. for Worcestershire, said to the Commons, “You have turned out a member for impiety and obscenity.  What halfdozen members of this House ever meet over a convivial bottle, that their discourse is entirely free from obscenity, impiety, or abuse of Government?”

Though drunkenness is bad enough now, it was infinitely worse a hundred years ago.  The publican’s signboards announced, “You may here get drunk for a penny, dead-drunk for twopence, and have clean straw for nothing.”  Drunkenness was considered a manly vice.  To drink deep was the fashion of the day.  Six-bottle men were common.  Even drunken clergymen were not unknown.

What were the popular amusements of the people a hundred years ago?  They consisted principally of man-fighting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting, bull baiting, badger-drawing, the pillory, public whipping, and public executions.  Mr. Wyndham vindicated the ruffianism of the Ring in his place in Parliament, and held it up as a school in which Englishmen learnt pluck and “the manly art of self-defence.”  Bull-baiting was perhaps more brutal than prize-fighting, though Wyndham defended it as “calculated to stimulate the noble courage of Englishmen.”  The bull was secured to a stake in the market-place or the bull-ring (the name still survives in many towns), and there the animal was baited by the rabble dogs of the neighbourhood.  One can scarcely imagine the savageness of the sport—­the animal mutilations, the imprecations of ruffians worse than brutes, the ferociousness and drunkenness, the blasphemy and unspeakable horrors of the exhibition.  The public mind of this day absolutely revolts at such brutality.  Yet, less than a hundred years ago—­on the 24th of May, 1802,—­a Bill for the abolition of bull-baiting was lost in the House of Commons by sixty-four to fifty-one,—­Mr. Wyndham contending that horse-racing and hunting were more cruel than bull-baiting or prize-fighting!

The pillory was one of our time-honoured institutions fifty years ago, and men and women used to be placed there for offences, such as a wise legislature would have endeavoured to conceal from public consideration.  The horrid scenes which then took place, when men, women, and children collected in crowds to pelt the offenders with missiles, were so disgusting, that they cannot be described.  Not more seemly were the public whippings then administered to women in common with the coarsest male offenders.  The public abominations and obscenities of the “good old times” would almost have disgraced the days of Nero.