artefacts page 1

In How the Poor Live George Sims explained why he was a supporter of the Temperance Society (1889) Drink is the curse of these communities; but how is it to be wondered at? The gin-palaces flourish in the slums, and fortunes are made out of men and women who seldom know where tomorrow's meal is coming from. Can you wonder that the gaudy gin-palaces, with their light and their glitter, are crowded? Drink is sustenance to those people; drink gives them the Dutch courage necessary to go on living; drink dulls their senses and reduces them to the level of the brutes they must be to live in such places. The gin-palace is heaven to them compared to the hell of their pestilent homes. A copper or two, often obtained by pawning the last rag that covers the shivering children on the bare floor at home, will buy enough alcohol to send a woman so besotted that the wretchedness, the anguish, the degradation that await her there have lost their grip. The drink dulls every sense of shame, takes the sharp edge from sorrow, and leaves the drinker for awhile in a fools' paradise. It is not only crime and vice and disorder flourish luxuriantly in these colonies, through the dirt and discomfort bred of intemperance of the inhabitants, but the effect upon the children is terrible. The offspring of drunken fathers and mothers inherit not only a tendency to vice, but they come into the world physically and mentally unfit to conquer in life's battle. The wretched, stunted, misshapen child-object one comes upon in these localities is the most painful part of our explorers' experience. The country asylums are crowded with pauper idiots and lunatics, who owe their wretched condition of the sin of the parents, and the rates are heavily burdened with the maintenance of the idiot offspring of drunkenness.

Bare-Knuckle Prize-Fighting was mentioned in the diary of Samuel Pepys
and continued from the 17th century until the 19th century.
‘The prize’, normally a large sum of money was put up by members of the aristocracy who enjoyed this form of sport; they also made bets on the outcome. The prize went to the winner of the fight. These fights were often held on commons and open spaces all around the country. There were no set rules. The bouts lasted as long as it took for one of the contestants to be the clear winner. Sometimes it took 20 to 30 rounds.

This little chap came out of the ground minus his base. I just said to Angie, wow this looks nice shame about the base when i got another signal about a yard away and it turned out to be the base.

I Would like to thank Ed, for his ID.

Hi Gary and Angie,
It could be a Childs "pusher". When I was but a little ankle biter,
some 60 odd years ago, there was a pre knife & fork learning kit called a "spoon
& pusher". The spoon was held in the left hand and the pusher, quaintly enough was held in the right and pushed the food onto the spoon and from thence into one's cakehole and once one became adept one was trusted with a knife & fork with a smaller chance of shredding ones lips. Just a suggestion, but I think I'm close. I think they go back to Victorian times.

Regards, Ed. Bailey.