PART 3 OF 3 PARTS ... IN WHICH we finish our exploration of a fascinating little guidebook for all aspiring Swell Coves, from 1840. It’s titled “Hints to Men-About-Town,” and was written by an anonymous knight of the lancet and bleeding-cup who identifies himself only as “The Old Medical Student.”
THIS EPISODE is crammed with 185-year-old tips on how to prevent the many social, emotional, and especially medical issues that can challenge a fast young rake due to — hmm, how do I put this delicately? —excessive enjoyment of the company of friendly ladies.
That sounds like it should be great fun, but well, the stakes were a lot higher for the sexually rambunctious of both sexes in that pre-antibiotic, pre-birth-control era ... so, I am sad to report, this chapter is a lot more serious and buzzkill-ish than you might be expecting it to be.
CONFIDENTIAL TO MY GENTLEMAN READERS: Prithee heed well the hint to skip ahead 60 seconds that appears around the 21:30 mark, lest thou shouldst find thyself clutching thy nether nubbins and moaning softly to thyself in vicarious agony for the remainder of the episode ...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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The tip top Tuesday evening. To all you family Co vases, bow
traps and cronies of the Penny Dreadful Chafing crib, I'm your
host Finn JD, John to all the screws and shoulder knots in the
Dancing Academy as Professor Flash welcoming you to another
special midweek hapney horrid minisode.
In this minisode, I'm continuingA fascinating little guidebook
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for all aspiring. Swell coves.
It's titled Hints to Men About. Town and was written.
By an anonymous knight of The Lancet and Bleeding Cup, who
identifies himself only as the old medical student.
He published it in 1840s, so he must have written it in the late
1830s. This is the last in the series
of three weekly Hepani horrids. Working through this little
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book, we started out two. Tuesdays are gone.
With the prologue in chapter 1, which deals with how to
gracefully recover from the visible effects of getting in
riots and St. brawls and attempts to fight the law in
which the law won or at least got in a few good clicks and
other similar manifestations of high spirits that a young man
about town is so apartment to get into.
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Last Tuesday we got the 2nd chapter, the topic of which was
how to minimize the deleterious effects of a night of guzzling
and gallivanting, particularly the following morning, the
shocking next morning. Finally, today we're going to
finish up with the 3rd chapter, which is going to get a little
bit more spicy and also a littlebit more dark.
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It's a chapter of advice on how young men about town should
handle the temptations to get intimate with a pretty Cyprian
damsel at the bar. Now, OK, you might be thinking
this is going to be the most funone of the bunch because it
involves. Sex, I wish.
The thing is, we must remember this one thing, this one super
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inconvenient thing which just sort of really drains most of
the fun out of stuff like this. And that that is that this was
in an. Age when the consequence of
taking the wrong person to bed could be life changing because
the medical profession in 1840 was essentially powerless
against all the STD's, which meant your doom could also end
up affecting your whole family if you should later marry and
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have kids. So it wasn't really something
that anyone could afford to winkat or take lightly the way we
sort of do today. And now, before I continue, I
heard from several faithful listeners last week about the
detailed advice, the very detailed advice about how a
roystering and rascalizing man about town might reset a
dislocated. Thumb in the middle.
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Of the night after injudiciouslypunching someone using poor
technique. As a side note, I should have
mentioned this last week, but ifyou're wondering, the thing that
causes dislocated thumbs like that is making a fist by
wrapping your fingers around your thumb and then punching
somebody really hard with the resulting wad of fingers.
If you make that kind of fist right now and push gently on
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your fingers in the direction they would be impacted if you
were to punch someone that way, you will immediately see how it
happens. Now I don't know this from
personal experience not being a policeman punching sort of Cove,
but I do vividly remember back when I was an undergraduate I
signed up for a Taekwondo class.I flunked out of the class in
Week 2. I guess I'm a lover and not a
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fighter, but one of the first things the teacher told us was
to never do that thumb tucking thing.
And he really knew how to paint a picture with words when it
came to the pain involved in thelate night thumb dislocation, he
said the 1st and 2nd knuckles ofyour hand should take all the
impact, he called it. The Ram's head.
Mind you, I do not recommend getting drunk and punching
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randoms passers by, but if you do, there's no point in both of
you getting hurt. So if you ever feel called upon
to introduce your fist vigorously into someone else's
personal space, whatever you do,don't tuck your thumb into that
fist. But to return, as our author
said last week to our muttons, my listeners did not enjoy the
detailed description of the process of resetting A
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dislocated thumb and. Today will be worse.
Actually, let me rephrase that. If you were a man or boy.
It will be worse. If you were a woman or a girl,
it probably won't because the old medical student's
description of. What a man who has.
Succumbed to temptation. Must do to avoid coming down
with gonorrhea. Involves parts you not possess,
so you might be all right, but if you are male or female and
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have really active mirror neurons, you might want to just
skip ahead 60 seconds when that time comes.
I've inserted an editor's note to warn you when it's time to do
that. It does make me.
Wonder though, if there were best practices, as it were, for
women to prevent similar transmissions of infection if
they found themselves in the same situation.
And I bet there are, but they probably.
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Weren't. Communicated to mainstream
physicians. And of course the target
audience for this book is young male roysterers scampering about
town, getting into trouble. So I suppose that even if the
old medical student was aware ofsuch, he probably wouldn't have
seen fit to put them in here. Which is kind of unfortunate.
Last time I did all. My talking before.
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I queued up the reading. I'm going to do this one a
little bit differently, though Iwant you to have experienced the
remarkable change in tone beforeI talk about it.
Remember how brisk and chipper the first chapter was, full of
sporty slang and breezy wit while it babbled on about high
spirited men, about town, getting in fights with the
police and bolting tumblers of blue ruin and generally running
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amok? This chapter's going to be
different. Our author is suddenly very
serious and very earnest, and for me one of the most
interesting aspects of it is howfar ahead of its time it is,
philosophically speaking. And that isn't necessarily.
A good thing the old medical student seems to.
Have an intuitive understanding.Of how contagion.
Spreads. That is decades.
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Ahead of the medical community'sunderstanding of his era and his
attitudes toward prostitutes is also far more redolent of 1880s
attitudes than 1830s. The sense that the poor fallen
woman doomed to a life of shame is best thought.
Of as a filthy. Disease vector rather than as an
object of human compassion. That's one of the less admirable
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developments of the Progressive Era.
In the case of the old medical student, well, he seems to have
been a bit ahead of his time in coming to that conclusion,
although he's also clearly givensome thought to the question of
what's the alternative. There were, in 1840 innocent
hostages involved in the transaction, and you'll see what
I mean in a bit. I'll go ahead and queue up the
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reading now. It's shorter than the others,
which is good because I'm going to have more to say after it's
done. Remember, when you hear the word
syringe, get ready to reach for that skip ahead button if you
don't want to spend the rest of the reading clutching your
nether nubbins protectively and moaning in vicarious agony.
Gentlemen, ladies, you probably will be all right, though almost
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exactly 60 seconds will carry you past the painful part.
A hint, the syringe referred to does not use a needle, or
rather, maybe not a sharp one. OK, here we go.
Chapter 3 hints on the prevention of infection from
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impure sexual intercourse. I will visit the sins of the
fathers upon the children unto the 3rd and 4th generation.
Exodus. Chapter 20 verse 5 Cowayat,
which translates into Beware ivomeu somarye kadaboulaye.
Better to marry than burn. I am perfectly aware of the
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equivocal character of the ground I am about to occupy.
But. Is the philanthropist to
relinquish his task because he is exposed to danger or
inconvenience, and its prosecution, framed as society
is in the present era, with pampered appetites, accustomed
as its members are to stimulating drinks and that
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intoxication of the imagination which is this certain
consequences of our present ordinary associations of our
young men about town. I, and old men too, I am sorry
to say. Promiscuous intercourse of the
sexes does, will, and must exist, demoralizing as is the
habit, pregnant as it is with fatal consequences.
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Which cease not. With man's own life, but are
borne forwards as a curse to posterity.
Promiscuous intercourse will in all large towns exist to an
extent that few but old medical students are aware of.
Knowing this fact myself, I mustinsist on the moralist assuming
it. Shall I not then endeavour to
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guard my reader from the horrible contagion?
Shall I not present knowledge tohim as a shield to ward off the
fatal effects of his weakness and his vice?
Will not the blessings of thousands yet unborn attend the
man who will avert from them theconsequences of that specious
disease, which to an extravagantextent is undermining the
physical power of the nation, and which, from the
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frightfulness of the scourge, appears to have been intended to
frighten the vicious of the human race into propriety?
But it has not so done, or thesehints would not have been
necessary, and would not have been ridden.
And here let me hint. That the cause which.
Creates the thousands of puny offspring that we see every day
in the streets of this great metropolis is this habit of
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intercourse with we know not who.
It is this which causes 9/10 of the hereditary diseases to which
we are liable. It is this source of impurity
that vitiates the blood and destroys the Constitution.
It is this baleful habit that gives rise to scruffula and
consumption, that terrible disease which destroys the
young, the lovely and the innocent in the springtime of
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their bloom, destroying them as does the worm in the bud,
leaving the bereaved parents to grieve and lament happily
unconscious that their own evil acts in the heyday of youth has
caused this early blighting of their choicest flower.
It would be useless to point outmore particular instances of the
evils flowing from venereal taint.
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But be assured, dear reader. That they are numerous, as are
the sands on the seashore. It is not the province, had I
the talent to do so of one of myprofession, to read a homily on
this or any other vice that I leave to others better qualified
for the undertaking. But I fear the hot blood of
youth would not, on this subject, listen even to the
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voice of the charmer. Charmed he never so wisely.
And that. Still the youth of this age
would continue to embrace the painted and bedizens prostitute,
whose touch is contagion, whose very breath is contamination,
and in whose embrace lurks deathitself.
If, then, as I fear young men, you will not be persuaded to
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refrain from the temptations that are before you, at every
step I will endeavour to throw ashield around you that will
prevent to yourselves into your innocent offspring the evils
which arise from venereal taint.This can only be done by
pointing out to you such prophylactic or preventative
measures as will, with ordinary care while running your career
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of vice, prevent your being tainted with this scourge and
curse of civilization. But before I proceed to the
consideration of the prevention of this dire disease, permit me
to throw out a few hints that may put you on your guard
against concealed dangers. These hints are founded on the
personal experience of one who has seen much of life and who
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has learned more from those who have sought him in his medical
capacity and in that capacity who would not more than a good
Catholic does, when confessing to his priest, seek to deceive
him? Hint one, always suspect you may
be contaminated, whoever be the woman you may have been familiar
with, except she be your wife. Regard her not as free from
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taint because she may be a wife or mistress, or even because she
is your own mistress. Rely upon it that you are not
safe with a woman whose duty it is to confine her favors to some
other man, or who sells them to you for gold.
Or other bribe. Perhaps under the semblance of
affection. I care not if she be made wife
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or widow, modest or. Gay if she.
Consent to the illegitimate embraces of one man, she will
for the same or higher bribe omit 1000, if she can induce
them to believe in the same fool's Elysium.
Hint, too, therefore, after having had intercourse with any
woman, save your wife, and I presume you have not one, or you
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are 10,000 * a villain, on account of the danger to which
you subject her and your own offspring.
Make use of the measures presently to be pointed out,
just in the same manner as if you had recreated yourself with
a damsel in Shire Lane, and whomyou had picked up in Fleet
Street. Hint 3.
Be not tempted. When intoxicated.
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You cannot take care either of your person or purse.
Hint 4. Never remain all night with your
female friend. God save the mark.
If you do, the chance of infection is much enhanced, as
will presently be explained. Hint 5.
As soon as the ACT is completed,get up.
The poison is speedily absorbed because the parts, when excited
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are like a sponge distended by water.
Very soon after the. Excitement is over.
They are like a sponge from which the water has been
pressed. In this case it must be obvious
that it would be impossible to remove that portion of poison
which would be enclosed by the now closed pores of the skin,
and all the preventives in the world would not avail you if
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your constitution of itself did not resist the same.
Hint 6. If a woman is very anxious and
officious in demanding an examination of her person, avoid
her, in particular the chances she is diseased, and only puts
on this bravado to throw you offyour guard.
Hint 7. If, on the other hand, she
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seemed very particular in excluding the light, be
suspicious, and at least glance at her linen.
It may be stained. And the disgust which I should
hope this would occasion, might keep you from her embrace and
out of danger. Hint 8.
If a woman has her monthly illness upon her, let no
excitement induce you to have intercourse with her.
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Even drunkenness is no apology for such bestiality, to say
nothing of the additional dangerof infection.
Hint 9. Avoid chambermaids and servant
girls. They are often unsafe or in the
family way. Hint On the lookout for a good
father for the policeman's or John's child.
Hint 10 All the mock modest of the tribe of milliners,
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dressmakers, bonnet makers, staymakers, et cetera, et cetera,
are dangerous from the same reasons from not being
absolutely on the town, though no better, in fact, than the
damned de salon will think they have a right to make you pay
very dear for your whistle. Hint 11 The ladies to be met
with at voxel. The tea gardens, concert rooms
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and other such resorts are of the same tribe and always on the
lookout to introduce gentlemen to their modest private
lodgings. Hint 12 Let not those panders to
the profligacy of our. Sects such as Mother.
P or Mother E Editor's Note the.Reference here is to.
Brothel madam's end of note makeyou believe that through their
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means you can purchase the firstembrace of any girl depend.
Upon it. There are but few so depraved as
thus coolly to sell themselves. I might as well tell you of a
friend of mine who was induced to purchase a warranted country
article of this sort, for which he gave a considerable price.
He was very content with his bargain for a day or two.
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But at the end. Of that time he perceived
certain suspicious appearances, which induced him to apply to
me, not for a moment believing that he could have been
overreached. Oh no.
I soon, however, convinced my 2 confiding friend, that if he had
not this time unloosed the Virgin Cestus, and added another
to his trophies in the field of Venus, he had succeeded in
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adding another to the list of his misfortunes.
Hint 13. Remember that a woman may have
no appearance of disease, nay may not know she has it, and
this for a length of time, and yet be able to communicate to
different men different forms ofinfection.
A very. Short seeing moralist will blame
me much for the hints I have already thrown out, and still
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more shall I be censured by sucha one for endeavouring to point
out the best method of avoiding infection.
He will say the crime is deserving of punishment.
This is true, but punishment should be confined to the
criminal. It should not be.
Shared with an innocent. Wife.
It should not. Be entailed with additional
violence upon children which areto be born.
The most rigid moralist would hardly wish a punishment to
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descend to 1/3 and 4th generation.
And though this be the actual curse which God has informed us
will so be entailed in His infinite mercy, He has imparted
a man and knowledge which may avert it.
And shall we have the wickednessto withhold the mercy?
Which he has thought. Proper to offer to his erring
children away with such absurdity.
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Besides, the object of all punishment ought to be to
prevent crime for the future andthe now guilty one, and as far
as possible by its terrors, to deter others from the Commission
of the like act. But does the punishment in this
instance deter others? Far from it.
Nor is it possible, as society is now constituted, that it
should do so. Consider the millions of men who
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cannot from pecuniary wants, marry till late in life, if at
all. This cause leaves a great number
of females unmarried. And it is so difficult, nay,
sometimes so impossible, for a female to procure a subsistence
by honorable means, that we can scarcely wonder if they, to
prolong life, although that lifemust be wretched, have recourse
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to dishonor. This being once done, their aim
is to by dress and by gaiety, todrive away remorse.
New wants are created, they become hardened in profligacy,
and then, by their smiles and other lures, endeavor to seduce
the youth of the sex from whom their woes originated.
This is the career. Of many but what multitudes of
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unhappy females fall victims to the passions of idle and
luxurious man, and crowd our streets with wretches, who can
only exist by the charms which the neglect of their seducer may
not wholly have destroyed. Exposed to such temptation shall
a young man and his posterity beleft victims to so deadly a
disease. I envy not the moralist who
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would have this. His heart is incapable of love
for his fellow creatures. Such being my view of the
subject. Few men, I trust, will think me
guilty of being the pander of vice, because I endeavored to
point out the means most likely to eradicate this scourge from
the human race. I am doing no more in preventing
the evil consequences than do myprofessional brethren when they
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endeavor to cure it when it has entered the system, and, alas,
too often unsuccessfully. Return we again to the hints.
Hint one, if you are in the habit of indulging in
promiscuous intercourse, provideyourself with the specific
mentioned in Hint The second, ifyou should be captivated by a
siren when you have not it aboutyou, as soon as connection is
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ended, wash the parts with soap and water, and dry them on a
clean towel, and pass your wateras soon as possible.
This being done, hasten home anduse well the lotion hint 2 as
soon as you arrive at home, and this you should do without the
least delay. Wash again with soap and water
and then make use of the following lotion which you
should always have at hand. Take liquor of.
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Potash half an ounce compound, Spirit of Rosemary one ounce
Rosewater 6 oz and a half mix, to be applied very freely by
means of a sponge. If there is much pain occasioned
by the application, the parts may be speedily washed with
tepid water. It will have destroyed the
virus. Editor's note Virus in this
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context does not mean the actualmicroorganism.
Microorganisms had not yet been discovered at this time.
It is merely a Latin word referring to contagion.
End of note, Hint three. It will be making assurance
doubly sure if you use the lotion and the ablutions for two
or three days, when the washing,which should embrace the upper
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parts of the thighs as well as all the parts of generation, is
completed. The following injection is to be
used carefully 3 or 4 times. Take of acetate of zinc, 1
scruple, almond mixture, 6 oz mix for an injection.
As a number of persons do not know the best manner of using an
injection, and by using it unskillfully do more harm than
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good, I will throw out a few hints for their guidance.
Hint 1. The syringe is to be held by the
right hand, the first finger being on the ring of the piston
for the purpose of filling and emptying it.
Hint two. Place the first finger and thumb
on the left hand on one side of the part that emits the water.
This is for the purpose of steadying the mouth or nozzle of
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the syringe, and also for purpose of retaining the
injection when thrown in. Hint three.
Make pressure with the second and third fingers of the left
hand on the passage through which the water flows just
before the bag containing the testicles.
This is to prevent the injectiongoing too far up the passage and
thus causing inflammation. Editor's Note the injection of
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which our author. Speaks here is actually.
More akin to an enema administered directly into the
urethra. So the syringe she speaks of
doesn't have a needle on it, butrather a sort of blunt point
with which he suggests that the Sinner intubate himself.
Starting right about now, he's going to give us detailed
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instructions on how to do that. So if you are male and or just
have very active mirror neurons,you might want to skip ahead 60
seconds. End of note Hint 4 Use a syringe
which will contain about half anounce of the injection.
This will be sufficient for two applications.
Hint Five. Introduce the point of the
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syringe very carefully, and for a very short distance, only so
far, in fact, as may be necessary to admit of its
contents being thrown up. Hint 6.
Depress the Pistons slowly, and when half the contents are
thrown in, remove the syringe and retain the injection by
means of the thumb and finger asalready directed.
Hint 7. It is.
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Proper to retain. Each portion of the injection
for a minute or two hint 8. Repeat the whole process about 6
times while you are about it, and to gain two or three times
the next day. Of course, the use of the
syringe is to wash out that description of poison which
gives rise to gonorrhea. The means above recommended are
very. Simple, but the author.
Has every reason to believe themefficacious, having communicated
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these hints to some of his friends gay men about town more
than a dozen years ago, and in every instance they have proved
worthy of trust when his hints have been strictly adhered to.
If by any accident you are without the lotion, the best.
You can do. After frequent ablution is to
use strong spirits in the mannerdirected for using the lotion
until you can procure it. Hint the last if unfortunately
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from want of caution or other 'cause you find yourself smitten
by the plague I speak of. Beware of advertising quacks and
advertised nostrums. They are all alike, worthless
and only calculated to empty thepocket and ruin the health if
such a fate. Does befall you?
Apply to a respectable medical man, Rest assured he will not
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betray your confidence, and let no time be lost in making such
application. Did I know of any work of a
popular nature likely to benefityou?
I would recommend it. All the works, however, that I
have seen on the unhappy malady are either calculated for
professional perusal only, or are the baits thrown out by the
empirics to catch purchasers fortheir specifics.
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Now, my beloved readers, before I bid you farewell, let me
recommend you to treasure up these hints.
They may save you much of suffering in body and mind.
They are the sincere advice of adisinterested friend.
For what motive but an anxious wish to do you service can
actuate your unknown but erst companion in midnight follies,
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the old medical student. Well, well, that escalated
quickly, didn't it? I do think it's remarkable how
thoroughly the old medical student seems to grasp the
situation here. As he pointed out long ago when
he was happily babbling on abouthow to reset your thumb after
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you've punched A policeman or orhow to get away with a night of
heavy drinking on a work day, he's well aware that anything in
the shape of a sermon will be thrown away as twaddle by the
men about town he's writing for.But of course, now that he's
reached this chapter, things areactually looking pretty
sermonish, aren't they? One wonders if his awareness of
the. Stakes in this chapter.
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Informed his decision to treat drunken disorderliness as
lightly as he did in chapters one and two because he's very
clear about some things that theaverage early Victorian probably
didn't think much about. For me, the most intriguing part
was his mention of the fact thatmany, if not most men cannot
marry young because they don't have the income to support a
family. So lots of girls and young women
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must either get into a December May marriage or just be unable
to find a husband. Which wouldn't be such a
problem, except that there were,as our author notes, so very few
ways for a single woman to earn a living.
Honestly, in 1840, I'm thinking of Ellen Folder now the
seamstress character in Spring Heeled Jack, who's behind on her
rent, literally forced to the brink of suicide by poverty.
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If it had. Been a more realistic story
rather than a melodrama, she would have been driven to
prostitution rather than to London Bridge for a little hop
into the Tidewater. Another interesting point he
makes is that the average Victorian citizen.
Has no idea how. Prevalent venereal disease
actually is because everyone whosuffers from it keeps it
carefully secret from everyone but their doctor.
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But doctors know. Because that's who the sufferers
have to turn to when their numbers come up.
Apparently there were more than was widely known.
Lots more, if we can believe theold medical student.
And another thing, Throughout the Victorian age there was this
standing trope of the fallen woman unable longer to bear the
shame, throwing herself into theriver to drown and end a bitter
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life. St. literature is.
Full of this. It's almost universal from that
era. Modern scholars always kind of
chortle at it, knowing that suicide rates at the time were
far higher among men than women.But it definitely was a thing in
the culture of the day then. I, for one, am not going to be
quite so quick to dismiss it as patriarchal twaddle.
I wonder if there might be something in it to explain what
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I mean. Let's take Ellen Folder as an
example. That fictional woman is probably
best here. Let's imagine that instead of
going to the bridge to Goodbye Cruel World herself, off to
Gravesend and beyond, she goes to a fancy district, flashes
some leg and accepts a seat in Sir Frederick Beau Morris's
Bluem. You remember Sir Frederick from
today's reading, The elderly Ruway with the dyed Mustachios
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who tries to hit on Clara Melville the ballet girl.
An hour or two later Ellen has acouple of half crown pieces in
her pocket and the rent is as good as paid.
But she's crossed a Rubicon now,of course, and it's going to be
very hard to go back to the wifeand mother life path that she
presumably intended for herself growing up.
But hey, 5 Bob is good money foran hour's work, isn't it?
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So she does OK, joining the throng of what the Victorians
called unfortunates no respect. But good money.
Until one day she discovers she's got syphilis or gonorrhea
and now she really is stuck. There's literally nothing she
can do to survive other than going back to the seamstress
piece work or into the workhouse.
She is very nearly economically forced to go on swindling men
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into purchasing her services andbeing infected by her.
How many Johns do you think understood that every street
Walker they talked to was a desperate woman caught between a
slow starvation and a deeply immoral trafficking in venereal
disease, acutely aware that the John she gave her syphilis to
would likely later marry and infect his wife and blight their
innocent offspring? Yeah, maybe there's something to
(28:45):
that whole old hookers kill themselves wheeze.
I'm quite sure that if I found myself in that situation, I
would at least consider it. The Everlasting might have fixed
his cannon against self slaughter, but still, could I
leave myself at large knowing the demands of daily life would
eventually force me to return tothat street corner and add to my
personal death toll? Then what happens when we add a
(29:06):
few little? Hostages into the mix.
Remember, this is back. In the day when?
Hookers had to count calendar days in hopes of avoiding
pregnancy. Abortion was impossible, or at
least incredibly risky. So how would having a couple of
hungry munchkins looking to you change the calculation?
We have a lot of fun here in thePenny Dreadful Chafing Crib,
remembering the picturesque and fun aspects of life in the early
(29:29):
Victorian. Contemplating the dystopian
aspects like this is not nearly so much fun.
Glamorous gay Cyprian maidens frolicking about, brazenly
having fun and enjoying pleasures of all kinds in
defiance of the fusty old moralists.
That's a really appealing image,but it's really only possible as
an ongoing thing in modern life with birth control and
(29:51):
antibiotics and minimum wage laws.
I guess that's life. The darkness lurks in every ray
of light. Well, my nabs, that's all I've
got for tonight, and probably that's enough.
Have a fantastic rest of your Tuesday and I will be back in
your ears once again if you choose to give me that privilege
this coming Saturday Eve for ournext regular episode of the
(30:12):
Penny Dreadful Story Hour. Now go fill U the rest of this
week. With good stuff.
Bye now.
The tip top Tuesday evening. To all you family Co vases, bow
traps and cronies of the Penny Dreadful Chafing crib, I'm your
host Finn JD, John to all the screws and shoulder knots in the
Dancing Academy as Professor Flash welcoming you to another
special midweek hapney horrid minisode.
In this minisode, I'm continuingA fascinating little guidebook
(00:37):
for all aspiring. Swell coves.
It's titled Hints to Men About. Town and was written.
By an anonymous knight of The Lancet and Bleeding Cup, who
identifies himself only as the old medical student.
He published it in 1840s, so he must have written it in the late
1830s. This is the last in the series
of three weekly Hepani horrids. Working through this little
(01:00):
book, we started out two. Tuesdays are gone.
With the prologue in chapter 1, which deals with how to
gracefully recover from the visible effects of getting in
riots and St. brawls and attempts to fight the law in
which the law won or at least got in a few good clicks and
other similar manifestations of high spirits that a young man
about town is so apartment to get into.
(01:22):
Last Tuesday we got the 2nd chapter, the topic of which was
how to minimize the deleterious effects of a night of guzzling
and gallivanting, particularly the following morning, the
shocking next morning. Finally, today we're going to
finish up with the 3rd chapter, which is going to get a little
bit more spicy and also a littlebit more dark.
(01:43):
It's a chapter of advice on how young men about town should
handle the temptations to get intimate with a pretty Cyprian
damsel at the bar. Now, OK, you might be thinking
this is going to be the most funone of the bunch because it
involves. Sex, I wish.
The thing is, we must remember this one thing, this one super
(02:05):
inconvenient thing which just sort of really drains most of
the fun out of stuff like this. And that that is that this was
in an. Age when the consequence of
taking the wrong person to bed could be life changing because
the medical profession in 1840 was essentially powerless
against all the STD's, which meant your doom could also end
up affecting your whole family if you should later marry and
(02:27):
have kids. So it wasn't really something
that anyone could afford to winkat or take lightly the way we
sort of do today. And now, before I continue, I
heard from several faithful listeners last week about the
detailed advice, the very detailed advice about how a
roystering and rascalizing man about town might reset a
dislocated. Thumb in the middle.
(02:48):
Of the night after injudiciouslypunching someone using poor
technique. As a side note, I should have
mentioned this last week, but ifyou're wondering, the thing that
causes dislocated thumbs like that is making a fist by
wrapping your fingers around your thumb and then punching
somebody really hard with the resulting wad of fingers.
If you make that kind of fist right now and push gently on
(03:08):
your fingers in the direction they would be impacted if you
were to punch someone that way, you will immediately see how it
happens. Now I don't know this from
personal experience not being a policeman punching sort of Cove,
but I do vividly remember back when I was an undergraduate I
signed up for a Taekwondo class.I flunked out of the class in
Week 2. I guess I'm a lover and not a
(03:30):
fighter, but one of the first things the teacher told us was
to never do that thumb tucking thing.
And he really knew how to paint a picture with words when it
came to the pain involved in thelate night thumb dislocation, he
said the 1st and 2nd knuckles ofyour hand should take all the
impact, he called it. The Ram's head.
Mind you, I do not recommend getting drunk and punching
(03:51):
randoms passers by, but if you do, there's no point in both of
you getting hurt. So if you ever feel called upon
to introduce your fist vigorously into someone else's
personal space, whatever you do,don't tuck your thumb into that
fist. But to return, as our author
said last week to our muttons, my listeners did not enjoy the
detailed description of the process of resetting A
(04:11):
dislocated thumb and. Today will be worse.
Actually, let me rephrase that. If you were a man or boy.
It will be worse. If you were a woman or a girl,
it probably won't because the old medical student's
description of. What a man who has.
Succumbed to temptation. Must do to avoid coming down
with gonorrhea. Involves parts you not possess,
so you might be all right, but if you are male or female and
(04:34):
have really active mirror neurons, you might want to just
skip ahead 60 seconds when that time comes.
I've inserted an editor's note to warn you when it's time to do
that. It does make me.
Wonder though, if there were best practices, as it were, for
women to prevent similar transmissions of infection if
they found themselves in the same situation.
And I bet there are, but they probably.
(04:55):
Weren't. Communicated to mainstream
physicians. And of course the target
audience for this book is young male roysterers scampering about
town, getting into trouble. So I suppose that even if the
old medical student was aware ofsuch, he probably wouldn't have
seen fit to put them in here. Which is kind of unfortunate.
Last time I did all. My talking before.
(05:16):
I queued up the reading. I'm going to do this one a
little bit differently, though Iwant you to have experienced the
remarkable change in tone beforeI talk about it.
Remember how brisk and chipper the first chapter was, full of
sporty slang and breezy wit while it babbled on about high
spirited men, about town, getting in fights with the
police and bolting tumblers of blue ruin and generally running
(05:37):
amok? This chapter's going to be
different. Our author is suddenly very
serious and very earnest, and for me one of the most
interesting aspects of it is howfar ahead of its time it is,
philosophically speaking. And that isn't necessarily.
A good thing the old medical student seems to.
Have an intuitive understanding.Of how contagion.
Spreads. That is decades.
(05:58):
Ahead of the medical community'sunderstanding of his era and his
attitudes toward prostitutes is also far more redolent of 1880s
attitudes than 1830s. The sense that the poor fallen
woman doomed to a life of shame is best thought.
Of as a filthy. Disease vector rather than as an
object of human compassion. That's one of the less admirable
(06:20):
developments of the Progressive Era.
In the case of the old medical student, well, he seems to have
been a bit ahead of his time in coming to that conclusion,
although he's also clearly givensome thought to the question of
what's the alternative. There were, in 1840 innocent
hostages involved in the transaction, and you'll see what
I mean in a bit. I'll go ahead and queue up the
(06:41):
reading now. It's shorter than the others,
which is good because I'm going to have more to say after it's
done. Remember, when you hear the word
syringe, get ready to reach for that skip ahead button if you
don't want to spend the rest of the reading clutching your
nether nubbins protectively and moaning in vicarious agony.
Gentlemen, ladies, you probably will be all right, though almost
(07:03):
exactly 60 seconds will carry you past the painful part.
A hint, the syringe referred to does not use a needle, or
rather, maybe not a sharp one. OK, here we go.
Chapter 3 hints on the prevention of infection from
(07:25):
impure sexual intercourse. I will visit the sins of the
fathers upon the children unto the 3rd and 4th generation.
Exodus. Chapter 20 verse 5 Cowayat,
which translates into Beware ivomeu somarye kadaboulaye.
Better to marry than burn. I am perfectly aware of the
(07:50):
equivocal character of the ground I am about to occupy.
But. Is the philanthropist to
relinquish his task because he is exposed to danger or
inconvenience, and its prosecution, framed as society
is in the present era, with pampered appetites, accustomed
as its members are to stimulating drinks and that
(08:11):
intoxication of the imagination which is this certain
consequences of our present ordinary associations of our
young men about town. I, and old men too, I am sorry
to say. Promiscuous intercourse of the
sexes does, will, and must exist, demoralizing as is the
habit, pregnant as it is with fatal consequences.
(08:32):
Which cease not. With man's own life, but are
borne forwards as a curse to posterity.
Promiscuous intercourse will in all large towns exist to an
extent that few but old medical students are aware of.
Knowing this fact myself, I mustinsist on the moralist assuming
it. Shall I not then endeavour to
(08:53):
guard my reader from the horrible contagion?
Shall I not present knowledge tohim as a shield to ward off the
fatal effects of his weakness and his vice?
Will not the blessings of thousands yet unborn attend the
man who will avert from them theconsequences of that specious
disease, which to an extravagantextent is undermining the
physical power of the nation, and which, from the
(09:16):
frightfulness of the scourge, appears to have been intended to
frighten the vicious of the human race into propriety?
But it has not so done, or thesehints would not have been
necessary, and would not have been ridden.
And here let me hint. That the cause which.
Creates the thousands of puny offspring that we see every day
in the streets of this great metropolis is this habit of
(09:38):
intercourse with we know not who.
It is this which causes 9/10 of the hereditary diseases to which
we are liable. It is this source of impurity
that vitiates the blood and destroys the Constitution.
It is this baleful habit that gives rise to scruffula and
consumption, that terrible disease which destroys the
young, the lovely and the innocent in the springtime of
(10:00):
their bloom, destroying them as does the worm in the bud,
leaving the bereaved parents to grieve and lament happily
unconscious that their own evil acts in the heyday of youth has
caused this early blighting of their choicest flower.
It would be useless to point outmore particular instances of the
evils flowing from venereal taint.
(10:22):
But be assured, dear reader. That they are numerous, as are
the sands on the seashore. It is not the province, had I
the talent to do so of one of myprofession, to read a homily on
this or any other vice that I leave to others better qualified
for the undertaking. But I fear the hot blood of
youth would not, on this subject, listen even to the
(10:44):
voice of the charmer. Charmed he never so wisely.
And that. Still the youth of this age
would continue to embrace the painted and bedizens prostitute,
whose touch is contagion, whose very breath is contamination,
and in whose embrace lurks deathitself.
If, then, as I fear young men, you will not be persuaded to
(11:04):
refrain from the temptations that are before you, at every
step I will endeavour to throw ashield around you that will
prevent to yourselves into your innocent offspring the evils
which arise from venereal taint.This can only be done by
pointing out to you such prophylactic or preventative
measures as will, with ordinary care while running your career
(11:26):
of vice, prevent your being tainted with this scourge and
curse of civilization. But before I proceed to the
consideration of the prevention of this dire disease, permit me
to throw out a few hints that may put you on your guard
against concealed dangers. These hints are founded on the
personal experience of one who has seen much of life and who
(11:46):
has learned more from those who have sought him in his medical
capacity and in that capacity who would not more than a good
Catholic does, when confessing to his priest, seek to deceive
him? Hint one, always suspect you may
be contaminated, whoever be the woman you may have been familiar
with, except she be your wife. Regard her not as free from
(12:08):
taint because she may be a wife or mistress, or even because she
is your own mistress. Rely upon it that you are not
safe with a woman whose duty it is to confine her favors to some
other man, or who sells them to you for gold.
Or other bribe. Perhaps under the semblance of
affection. I care not if she be made wife
(12:29):
or widow, modest or. Gay if she.
Consent to the illegitimate embraces of one man, she will
for the same or higher bribe omit 1000, if she can induce
them to believe in the same fool's Elysium.
Hint, too, therefore, after having had intercourse with any
woman, save your wife, and I presume you have not one, or you
(12:49):
are 10,000 * a villain, on account of the danger to which
you subject her and your own offspring.
Make use of the measures presently to be pointed out,
just in the same manner as if you had recreated yourself with
a damsel in Shire Lane, and whomyou had picked up in Fleet
Street. Hint 3.
Be not tempted. When intoxicated.
(13:09):
You cannot take care either of your person or purse.
Hint 4. Never remain all night with your
female friend. God save the mark.
If you do, the chance of infection is much enhanced, as
will presently be explained. Hint 5.
As soon as the ACT is completed,get up.
The poison is speedily absorbed because the parts, when excited
(13:31):
are like a sponge distended by water.
Very soon after the. Excitement is over.
They are like a sponge from which the water has been
pressed. In this case it must be obvious
that it would be impossible to remove that portion of poison
which would be enclosed by the now closed pores of the skin,
and all the preventives in the world would not avail you if
(13:51):
your constitution of itself did not resist the same.
Hint 6. If a woman is very anxious and
officious in demanding an examination of her person, avoid
her, in particular the chances she is diseased, and only puts
on this bravado to throw you offyour guard.
Hint 7. If, on the other hand, she
(14:11):
seemed very particular in excluding the light, be
suspicious, and at least glance at her linen.
It may be stained. And the disgust which I should
hope this would occasion, might keep you from her embrace and
out of danger. Hint 8.
If a woman has her monthly illness upon her, let no
excitement induce you to have intercourse with her.
(14:34):
Even drunkenness is no apology for such bestiality, to say
nothing of the additional dangerof infection.
Hint 9. Avoid chambermaids and servant
girls. They are often unsafe or in the
family way. Hint On the lookout for a good
father for the policeman's or John's child.
Hint 10 All the mock modest of the tribe of milliners,
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dressmakers, bonnet makers, staymakers, et cetera, et cetera,
are dangerous from the same reasons from not being
absolutely on the town, though no better, in fact, than the
damned de salon will think they have a right to make you pay
very dear for your whistle. Hint 11 The ladies to be met
with at voxel. The tea gardens, concert rooms
(15:17):
and other such resorts are of the same tribe and always on the
lookout to introduce gentlemen to their modest private
lodgings. Hint 12 Let not those panders to
the profligacy of our. Sects such as Mother.
P or Mother E Editor's Note the.Reference here is to.
Brothel madam's end of note makeyou believe that through their
(15:39):
means you can purchase the firstembrace of any girl depend.
Upon it. There are but few so depraved as
thus coolly to sell themselves. I might as well tell you of a
friend of mine who was induced to purchase a warranted country
article of this sort, for which he gave a considerable price.
He was very content with his bargain for a day or two.
(16:00):
But at the end. Of that time he perceived
certain suspicious appearances, which induced him to apply to
me, not for a moment believing that he could have been
overreached. Oh no.
I soon, however, convinced my 2 confiding friend, that if he had
not this time unloosed the Virgin Cestus, and added another
to his trophies in the field of Venus, he had succeeded in
(16:23):
adding another to the list of his misfortunes.
Hint 13. Remember that a woman may have
no appearance of disease, nay may not know she has it, and
this for a length of time, and yet be able to communicate to
different men different forms ofinfection.
A very. Short seeing moralist will blame
me much for the hints I have already thrown out, and still
(16:45):
more shall I be censured by sucha one for endeavouring to point
out the best method of avoiding infection.
He will say the crime is deserving of punishment.
This is true, but punishment should be confined to the
criminal. It should not be.
Shared with an innocent. Wife.
It should not. Be entailed with additional
violence upon children which areto be born.
The most rigid moralist would hardly wish a punishment to
(17:07):
descend to 1/3 and 4th generation.
And though this be the actual curse which God has informed us
will so be entailed in His infinite mercy, He has imparted
a man and knowledge which may avert it.
And shall we have the wickednessto withhold the mercy?
Which he has thought. Proper to offer to his erring
children away with such absurdity.
(17:27):
Besides, the object of all punishment ought to be to
prevent crime for the future andthe now guilty one, and as far
as possible by its terrors, to deter others from the Commission
of the like act. But does the punishment in this
instance deter others? Far from it.
Nor is it possible, as society is now constituted, that it
should do so. Consider the millions of men who
(17:49):
cannot from pecuniary wants, marry till late in life, if at
all. This cause leaves a great number
of females unmarried. And it is so difficult, nay,
sometimes so impossible, for a female to procure a subsistence
by honorable means, that we can scarcely wonder if they, to
prolong life, although that lifemust be wretched, have recourse
(18:09):
to dishonor. This being once done, their aim
is to by dress and by gaiety, todrive away remorse.
New wants are created, they become hardened in profligacy,
and then, by their smiles and other lures, endeavor to seduce
the youth of the sex from whom their woes originated.
This is the career. Of many but what multitudes of
(18:30):
unhappy females fall victims to the passions of idle and
luxurious man, and crowd our streets with wretches, who can
only exist by the charms which the neglect of their seducer may
not wholly have destroyed. Exposed to such temptation shall
a young man and his posterity beleft victims to so deadly a
disease. I envy not the moralist who
(18:52):
would have this. His heart is incapable of love
for his fellow creatures. Such being my view of the
subject. Few men, I trust, will think me
guilty of being the pander of vice, because I endeavored to
point out the means most likely to eradicate this scourge from
the human race. I am doing no more in preventing
the evil consequences than do myprofessional brethren when they
(19:13):
endeavor to cure it when it has entered the system, and, alas,
too often unsuccessfully. Return we again to the hints.
Hint one, if you are in the habit of indulging in
promiscuous intercourse, provideyourself with the specific
mentioned in Hint The second, ifyou should be captivated by a
siren when you have not it aboutyou, as soon as connection is
(19:34):
ended, wash the parts with soap and water, and dry them on a
clean towel, and pass your wateras soon as possible.
This being done, hasten home anduse well the lotion hint 2 as
soon as you arrive at home, and this you should do without the
least delay. Wash again with soap and water
and then make use of the following lotion which you
should always have at hand. Take liquor of.
(19:57):
Potash half an ounce compound, Spirit of Rosemary one ounce
Rosewater 6 oz and a half mix, to be applied very freely by
means of a sponge. If there is much pain occasioned
by the application, the parts may be speedily washed with
tepid water. It will have destroyed the
virus. Editor's note Virus in this
(20:17):
context does not mean the actualmicroorganism.
Microorganisms had not yet been discovered at this time.
It is merely a Latin word referring to contagion.
End of note, Hint three. It will be making assurance
doubly sure if you use the lotion and the ablutions for two
or three days, when the washing,which should embrace the upper
(20:38):
parts of the thighs as well as all the parts of generation, is
completed. The following injection is to be
used carefully 3 or 4 times. Take of acetate of zinc, 1
scruple, almond mixture, 6 oz mix for an injection.
As a number of persons do not know the best manner of using an
injection, and by using it unskillfully do more harm than
(21:00):
good, I will throw out a few hints for their guidance.
Hint 1. The syringe is to be held by the
right hand, the first finger being on the ring of the piston
for the purpose of filling and emptying it.
Hint two. Place the first finger and thumb
on the left hand on one side of the part that emits the water.
This is for the purpose of steadying the mouth or nozzle of
(21:21):
the syringe, and also for purpose of retaining the
injection when thrown in. Hint three.
Make pressure with the second and third fingers of the left
hand on the passage through which the water flows just
before the bag containing the testicles.
This is to prevent the injectiongoing too far up the passage and
thus causing inflammation. Editor's Note the injection of
(21:43):
which our author. Speaks here is actually.
More akin to an enema administered directly into the
urethra. So the syringe she speaks of
doesn't have a needle on it, butrather a sort of blunt point
with which he suggests that the Sinner intubate himself.
Starting right about now, he's going to give us detailed
(22:04):
instructions on how to do that. So if you are male and or just
have very active mirror neurons,you might want to skip ahead 60
seconds. End of note Hint 4 Use a syringe
which will contain about half anounce of the injection.
This will be sufficient for two applications.
Hint Five. Introduce the point of the
(22:25):
syringe very carefully, and for a very short distance, only so
far, in fact, as may be necessary to admit of its
contents being thrown up. Hint 6.
Depress the Pistons slowly, and when half the contents are
thrown in, remove the syringe and retain the injection by
means of the thumb and finger asalready directed.
Hint 7. It is.
(22:46):
Proper to retain. Each portion of the injection
for a minute or two hint 8. Repeat the whole process about 6
times while you are about it, and to gain two or three times
the next day. Of course, the use of the
syringe is to wash out that description of poison which
gives rise to gonorrhea. The means above recommended are
very. Simple, but the author.
Has every reason to believe themefficacious, having communicated
(23:09):
these hints to some of his friends gay men about town more
than a dozen years ago, and in every instance they have proved
worthy of trust when his hints have been strictly adhered to.
If by any accident you are without the lotion, the best.
You can do. After frequent ablution is to
use strong spirits in the mannerdirected for using the lotion
until you can procure it. Hint the last if unfortunately
(23:34):
from want of caution or other 'cause you find yourself smitten
by the plague I speak of. Beware of advertising quacks and
advertised nostrums. They are all alike, worthless
and only calculated to empty thepocket and ruin the health if
such a fate. Does befall you?
Apply to a respectable medical man, Rest assured he will not
(23:54):
betray your confidence, and let no time be lost in making such
application. Did I know of any work of a
popular nature likely to benefityou?
I would recommend it. All the works, however, that I
have seen on the unhappy malady are either calculated for
professional perusal only, or are the baits thrown out by the
empirics to catch purchasers fortheir specifics.
(24:16):
Now, my beloved readers, before I bid you farewell, let me
recommend you to treasure up these hints.
They may save you much of suffering in body and mind.
They are the sincere advice of adisinterested friend.
For what motive but an anxious wish to do you service can
actuate your unknown but erst companion in midnight follies,
(24:37):
the old medical student. Well, well, that escalated
quickly, didn't it? I do think it's remarkable how
thoroughly the old medical student seems to grasp the
situation here. As he pointed out long ago when
he was happily babbling on abouthow to reset your thumb after
(24:59):
you've punched A policeman or orhow to get away with a night of
heavy drinking on a work day, he's well aware that anything in
the shape of a sermon will be thrown away as twaddle by the
men about town he's writing for.But of course, now that he's
reached this chapter, things areactually looking pretty
sermonish, aren't they? One wonders if his awareness of
the. Stakes in this chapter.
(25:19):
Informed his decision to treat drunken disorderliness as
lightly as he did in chapters one and two because he's very
clear about some things that theaverage early Victorian probably
didn't think much about. For me, the most intriguing part
was his mention of the fact thatmany, if not most men cannot
marry young because they don't have the income to support a
family. So lots of girls and young women
(25:42):
must either get into a December May marriage or just be unable
to find a husband. Which wouldn't be such a
problem, except that there were,as our author notes, so very few
ways for a single woman to earn a living.
Honestly, in 1840, I'm thinking of Ellen Folder now the
seamstress character in Spring Heeled Jack, who's behind on her
rent, literally forced to the brink of suicide by poverty.
(26:05):
If it had. Been a more realistic story
rather than a melodrama, she would have been driven to
prostitution rather than to London Bridge for a little hop
into the Tidewater. Another interesting point he
makes is that the average Victorian citizen.
Has no idea how. Prevalent venereal disease
actually is because everyone whosuffers from it keeps it
carefully secret from everyone but their doctor.
(26:27):
But doctors know. Because that's who the sufferers
have to turn to when their numbers come up.
Apparently there were more than was widely known.
Lots more, if we can believe theold medical student.
And another thing, Throughout the Victorian age there was this
standing trope of the fallen woman unable longer to bear the
shame, throwing herself into theriver to drown and end a bitter
(26:49):
life. St. literature is.
Full of this. It's almost universal from that
era. Modern scholars always kind of
chortle at it, knowing that suicide rates at the time were
far higher among men than women.But it definitely was a thing in
the culture of the day then. I, for one, am not going to be
quite so quick to dismiss it as patriarchal twaddle.
I wonder if there might be something in it to explain what
(27:12):
I mean. Let's take Ellen Folder as an
example. That fictional woman is probably
best here. Let's imagine that instead of
going to the bridge to Goodbye Cruel World herself, off to
Gravesend and beyond, she goes to a fancy district, flashes
some leg and accepts a seat in Sir Frederick Beau Morris's
Bluem. You remember Sir Frederick from
today's reading, The elderly Ruway with the dyed Mustachios
(27:36):
who tries to hit on Clara Melville the ballet girl.
An hour or two later Ellen has acouple of half crown pieces in
her pocket and the rent is as good as paid.
But she's crossed a Rubicon now,of course, and it's going to be
very hard to go back to the wifeand mother life path that she
presumably intended for herself growing up.
But hey, 5 Bob is good money foran hour's work, isn't it?
(27:58):
So she does OK, joining the throng of what the Victorians
called unfortunates no respect. But good money.
Until one day she discovers she's got syphilis or gonorrhea
and now she really is stuck. There's literally nothing she
can do to survive other than going back to the seamstress
piece work or into the workhouse.
She is very nearly economically forced to go on swindling men
(28:21):
into purchasing her services andbeing infected by her.
How many Johns do you think understood that every street
Walker they talked to was a desperate woman caught between a
slow starvation and a deeply immoral trafficking in venereal
disease, acutely aware that the John she gave her syphilis to
would likely later marry and infect his wife and blight their
innocent offspring? Yeah, maybe there's something to
(28:45):
that whole old hookers kill themselves wheeze.
I'm quite sure that if I found myself in that situation, I
would at least consider it. The Everlasting might have fixed
his cannon against self slaughter, but still, could I
leave myself at large knowing the demands of daily life would
eventually force me to return tothat street corner and add to my
personal death toll? Then what happens when we add a
(29:06):
few little? Hostages into the mix.
Remember, this is back. In the day when?
Hookers had to count calendar days in hopes of avoiding
pregnancy. Abortion was impossible, or at
least incredibly risky. So how would having a couple of
hungry munchkins looking to you change the calculation?
We have a lot of fun here in thePenny Dreadful Chafing Crib,
remembering the picturesque and fun aspects of life in the early
(29:29):
Victorian. Contemplating the dystopian
aspects like this is not nearly so much fun.
Glamorous gay Cyprian maidens frolicking about, brazenly
having fun and enjoying pleasures of all kinds in
defiance of the fusty old moralists.
That's a really appealing image,but it's really only possible as
an ongoing thing in modern life with birth control and
(29:51):
antibiotics and minimum wage laws.
I guess that's life. The darkness lurks in every ray
of light. Well, my nabs, that's all I've
got for tonight, and probably that's enough.
Have a fantastic rest of your Tuesday and I will be back in
your ears once again if you choose to give me that privilege
this coming Saturday Eve for ournext regular episode of the
(30:12):
Penny Dreadful Story Hour. Now go fill U the rest of this
week. With good stuff.
Bye now.
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