ory, was whipped, and, after an
interval of two days, whipped again. A virtuoso in these matters gives
us the incredible information that he counted as many as seventeen
hundred stripes administered. So far from the community being shocked at
such an exhibition, they appeared to agree in the sentiment that, "since
his face could not be made to blush, it was well enough to try what
could be done with his back." Such a hardening of heart was in no little
degree promoted by the atrocious punishments of state offenders; thus,
after the decapitation of Montrose and Argyle, their heads decorated the
top of the Tolbooth; and gentlemen, after the rising of Monmouth, were
admonished to be careful of their ways, by hanging in chains to their
park gate the corpse of a rebel to rot in the air.

[Sidenote: Private life in different classes of society.] To a debased
public life private life corresponded. The houses of the rural
population were huts covered with straw-thatch; their inmates, if able
to procure fresh meat once a week, were considered to be in prosperous
circumstances. One-half of the families in England could hardly do that.
Children six years old were not unfrequently set to labour. The lord of
the manor spent his time in rustic pursuits; was not an unwilling
associate of pedlars and drovers; knew how to ring a pig or shoe a
horse; his wife and daughters "stitched and spun, brewed gooseberry
wine, cured marigolds, and made the crust for the venison pasty."
Hospitality was displayed in immoderate eating, and drinking of beer,
the guest not being considered as having done justice to the occasion
unless he had gone under the table. The dining-room was uncarpeted; but
then it was tinted with a decoction of "soot and small beer." The chairs
were rush-bottomed. In London the houses were mostly of wood and
plaster, the streets filthy beyond expression. After nightfall a
passenger went at his peril, for chamber windows were opened and
slop-pails unceremoniously emptied down. There were no lamps in the
streets until Master Heming established his public lanterns. As a
necessary consequence, there were plenty of shoplifters, highwaymen, and
burglars.

[Sidenote: General immorality and brutality.] As to the moral condition,
it is fearfully expressed in the statement that men not unfrequently
were willing to sacrifice their country for their religion. Hardly any
personage died who was not popularly suspected to have been made away