Tea at Trianon: The London Slums

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, June 16, 2019

The London Slums

Runaway capitalism. From History Collection:

Throughout the Victorian era, puritan middle and upper-class men and women would routinely dismiss the people living in London’s slums and lazy and feckless. This could not have been further from the truth. While there certainly were many work-shy people living in poverty, there were also plenty of people working hard, just trying to get by. In the slums of the 19th century, children were expected to start work as early as the age of 7. And when a girl turned 13, she would be abler to try and find work at one of the East End’s biggest employers – the Bryant & May matchworks.

In the late-19th century, thousands of women and young girls worked in match factories, most of them travelling to work everyday from the slums. Most worked 14-hour shifts, with their pay docked for breaks, including toilet trips. The work was hard and, due to the presence of toxic white phosphorous, dangerous. What’s more, the pay was terrible, with the factory owners imposing almost slave-like conditions on their workforce. Finally, in July 1888, the Bryant & May workers had had enough. Girls as young as 13 went on strike, without any proper support. The tactic eventually worked and the matchgirls are credited as pioneers in workers’ rights in Britain. (Read more.)