There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble Arch, London which used to have
gallows adjacent. Prisoners were taken to the gallows (after a fair
trial – of course) to be hung. The horse drawn dray, carting the
prisoner was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray
outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like one LAST DRINK.
If he said YES it was referred to as “ONE FOR THE ROAD”
If he declined, that prisoner was – “ON THE WAGON”
So – there you go.
They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all
pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the
tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss
Poor". But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t
even afford to buy a pot...........they "didn’t have a pot to piss
in" & were the lowest of the low
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the
water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things
used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath
in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June... However, since
they were starting to smell . .. . brides carried a bouquet of
flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a
bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the
house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other
sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all
the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose
someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the
Bath water!"
The floor was dirt.. Only the wealthy had something other than
dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors
that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread
thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter
wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it
would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the
entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that
always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added
things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much
meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the
pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.
Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.
Hence the rhyme:
Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine
days old.
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite
special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to
show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the
bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would
all sit around and “chew the fat.”
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid
content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead
poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the
next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom
of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or
the “upper crust”.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would
sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone
walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for
burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of
days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait
and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of
places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take
the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these
coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the
inside and they realised they had been burying people alive. So they
would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the
coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would
have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to
listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, “saved by the bell” or
was considered a “dead ringer”...
