It’s a truth universally acknowledged that after a bride and groom consummate the marriage the pitter patter of little feet will surely follow (and follow and follow and follow). Such was the…

There are occasions when you come upon something from the 18th century that overturns our modern assumptions about people’s outlook on life at that time. Such an event occurred to me this week when…

Many women today can choose when to become pregnant, thanks to the availability of safe and reliable contraceptives.1 It wasn’t always so. During the Regency period women were often pregnant every few years, beginning within the first or second year of marriage and continuing until they were in their 30s or 40s. An Average of Eight Children

It's my pleasure to welcome the marvellous Kate Lister to the salon with an investigation into abortion in 18th century England. ---oOo--- ‘Bringing down the Flowers’: Abortion in Eighteenth-Century Britain Kate Lister ‘But, th’aged Neurse calling her to her bower had gathered Rew and Savine and the flower of Camphora, and Callamint, and Dill’. William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine (1769) was a hugely popular work; it sold over 80,000 copies, was translated into several European languages and was republished to receptive audiences until the nineteenth century. In it, Buchan endeavours to ‘assist the well-meant endeavours in reliving distress; to eradicate dangerous and hurtful prejudices; to guard the credulous and ignorance against frauds and the impositions and quacks and imposters’. In his chapters on pregnancy, Buchan outlines the causes and dangers of abortion. In the eighteenth century ‘abortion’ was used interchangeably with ‘miscarriage’, and did not necessarily mean the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. However, in a footnote to his opening paragraph on miscarriage, Buchan makes a short, pointed acknowledgement that some women did seek a termination to their pregnancy. Every mother who procures an abortion does it at the hazard of her life; yet there are not a few who run this risk merely to prevent the trouble of bearing and bringing up children. It is surely a most unnatural crime, and cannot, even in the most abandoned, be viewed without horror; but in the decent matron, it is still more unpardonable. Those wretches who daily advertise their assistance to women, in this business, deserve in any opinion, the most severe of all human punishments. Abortion was not made illegal in Britain until 1803, when the passing of the Lord Ellenborough's Act made abortion after ‘the quickening’ (first movement of the of the foetus) punishable by death or transportation. Abortion before the quickening was not regarding as a criminal act as most theologians and physicians agreed this was when ensoulment of the child occurred. Until this occurred, the woman was not regarded as carrying child. But abortion post-quickening was regarded as deeply immoral. John Astruc called ‘miserable women’ seeking an abortion an ‘utter shame to human nature and religion’; Martin Madan called the women who died through botched abortions ‘doubly guilty of suicide and child murder, and a spouse procuring pills to induce an abortion is cited as suitable grounds for divorce in a number of eighteenth-century divorce trials. By the eighteen hundreds, rudimentary contraceptives were available, ranging from folklore and quackery to methods that would have offered limited protection. The withdrawal method is a time honoured (if completely unreliable) option. Animal-gut condoms, that were rinsed out and reused, had been available from the sixteenth century. In his memoirs Casanova records using a linen condom and a lemon slice as a cervical cap. Post-coital vaginal douching has been used as a method to wash away semen in the hopes of preventing pregnancy since the middle ages. Owing to widespread disease, malnutrition and poor health, fertility rates would have been reduced, but unwanted pregnancies were still widespread. When a girl found herself with a ‘bellyful’, pressures of shame, circumstance, poverty and myriad other reasons could lead her to seek a termination. It may not have been illegal, but abortion (post quickening) was certainly considered a deeply shameful act; consequently, the practice is shrouded in obscurity. Owing to the paucity of primary evidence, researching the history of abortion is notoriously difficult; the bulk of evidence left comes to us in court records when a woman has died from a botched abortion, and passing references in medical texts that acknowledge and swiftly condemn the practice. There are no texts that categorically state how to perform an abortion, or what herbs and tonics should be taken to induce one. However, euphemistic language is employed in herbal texts to allude to a plant’s abortive properties. A text may list plants that will induce miscarriage, but embed them within a warning of ‘not to be taken by pregnant women’. In much the same way as modern day ‘legal highs’ would advertise themselves as ‘research chemicals’ and ‘not for human consumption’ to get around the law. Advertisements for ‘women’s monthly pills’ and ‘cures’ for ‘menstrual blockage’ can be read as coded contraceptives and abortifacients. In English Sexualities (1990) Tim Hitchcock argued that Throughout the early-modern period recipes for medicines to ‘bring down the flowers’, or to regulate menstruation, were a common component of any herbal or recipe book, and could certainly be obtained from the local apothecary. Women seeking to ‘bring down the flowers’ would naturally progress from the least to the most dangerous methods of abortion. Certain known herbs were ingested; the most commonly known being savin, pennyroyal, rue and ergot. Savin, a species of juniper used to flavour gin (‘mother’s ruin’), is referenced in numerous court records regarding abortion once the practice was made illegal in 1803. In 1829, for example, Martha Barrett was accused of taking a ‘quantity of savin for the purpose of causing abortion’. In 1834, William Childs were charged with illegal abortion, having given Mary Jane Woolf ‘a large quantity of a certain drug, call savin…with intent thereby to cause and procure her miscarriage’. In 1855, William Longman was charged with ‘feloniously administering to Elizabeth Eldred Astins, 10 grains of a noxious thing called savin, with intent to pro cure miscarriage’. The list goes on. Abortifacient such as savin and pennyroyal are indeed toxic, and consumed at a high enough quantity could induce miscarriage; at too high a dose, they could, and did, kill the mother as well. If these methods proved ineffective (as would usually be the case), the mother was left with increasingly desperate and dangerous methods of abortion. Sitting in scalding hot baths, drinking vast quantities of gin, falling down stairs or being forcefully struck in the stomach have all been recorded as efforts to induce an abortion; but, if all these failed, surgical intervention could be sought. Accounts of surgical abortion are extraordinarily rare in the eighteenth century. One of the only detailed accounts of eighteenth-century surgical abortion is the record of the trial of Eleanor Beare of Derby in 1732. Eleanor was indicted on three accounts; one account of encouraging a man to murder his wife and two accounts of ‘destroying the foetus in the womb’, by ‘putting an iron instrument’ into the body; one of these women was ‘unknown to the jury’ and the other was Grace Belfort. Grace Belfort worked briefly for Eleanor, during which time she was raped by a visitor to the house. Grace confessed to Eleanor that she feared she was with child and for 30 shillings (paid by the rapist) Eleanor say she could ‘clear’ her of the child. The account given of what happened next is so rare, it is worth sharing in full; Evidence: Some company gave me Cyder and Brandy, my Mistress and I were both full of liquor, and when the company was gone, we could scarse get upstairs, but we did get up; then I laid me on the bed, and my mistress brought a kind of instrument, I took it to be like an iron skewer, and she put it up into my body a great way, and hurt me. Court: What followed upon that? Evidence: Some blood came from me. Court: Did you miscarry after that? Evidence: The next day… I had a miscarriage. Court: What did the prisoner do after this? Evidence: She told me the job was done. In 1760, poet Thomas Brown wrote ‘Satire Upon a Quack’, where he attacks an abortionist who ‘murdered’ his friend’s child. The poem is a bitter and sustained attack upon the ‘graveyard pimp’ who ‘unborn infants murder’d in the womb’. Brown curses the abortionist to hear ‘the screams of infants’ and their dying mothers for all eternity; to be the ‘jest of midwives’ and ‘strumpets without noses, and to be stalked by ‘the most solemn horrors of the night’. Brown makes reference to the abortionist’s tools throughout the poem; he does not mention an ‘iron skewer’ but he does allude to ‘baleful potions’, ‘stabbing verse’, ‘pointed darts’ and a ‘murdering quill’. Any thin, sharpened tool, even the sharpened point of a quill pen, would serve as a suitable ‘instrument’ to pierce the cervix and ‘bring down the flowers’. Of course, this procedure could be self-induced, or well-meaning friends or family members could attempt to penetrate the womb. How many women suffered irreparable damage, mutilation, infection and death as a result of this practice is not known; but many were willing to risk the dangers. If this method failed, or if the poor girl simply could not afford the abortionist fee; there were three options left; keep and raise the child, abandon the child, or murder the child and hide the body. In Francis Grose’s Lexicon Balatronicum: a Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence (1785), there is a truly disturbing entry; ‘To stifle a squeaker: to murder a bastard, or throw it into the necessary house (privy)’. This phrase also appears over hundred years earlier in A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (1698), and appears in various collections of slang through the nineteenth century. That infanticide had its own slang suggests that the practice was alarmingly common; that the slang is specifically referring to the disposal of illegitimate infants by burying them in the outhouse is the only remaining legacy of countless infants who shared this sad fate. Christian Russel, of the Parish of St. Pauls Covent Garden, was found guilty of murdering her illegitimate child in 1702 by ‘throwing the same into a House of Office’. In 1703, Mary Tudor was put on trial for her murdering her ‘female bastard child, on the 18th of January last, by throwing the same into a House of Office, whereby it was choked and strangled’. In 1708, Ann Gardner was found guilty of murdering her ‘female bastard…by throwing of it into a House of office, where 'twas suffocated with Filth’. Anne Wheeler was indicted for suffocating her ‘male bastard’ by ‘suffocating it in a house of easement’ in 1711. Elizabeth Arthur ‘drowned’ her ‘male bastard’ in a ‘house of office’ in 1717. Elizabeth Harrard was found guilty of drowning her ‘male bastard’ in 1739, and was one of four women to be hanged for murdering their illegitimate children that year. The list goes on and on. In the court records for the Old Bailey alone, between 1700 and 1800, there are no less than 134 trials for infanticide; the overwhelming majority of which are the killings of illegitimate children. We must remember that this is only one court, in one area and these trials are the ones that were caught. The actual figures of illegitimate infanticide will never be known, but most of the desperate women on trial were poor, unwed, unsupported and alone; they were desperate. Not all this trials resulted in a guilty verdict, and the mother’s life depended on being able to ‘prove’ that the child was stillborn. In 1624, parliament passed an act that made it a capital offense for unmarried mothers to conceal the death of an illegitimate child; the presumption being that if the child died, the mother had killed it. In order to prove that the birth was not concealed, the mother has to produce at least one witness statement that the baby was stillborn. The prosecution would also have to prove that the birth was deliberately concealed. Ann Gardner, mentioned above, was proven to have murdered her baby as she had made no provisions for the baby, and told no one she was pregnant. The Prisoner could say little in her Defence, it did not appear that she made any Provision for the Birth of the Child, nor was she heard to cry out, or us’d any endeavour to discover it, as the Statute of King James I [the 1624 Act] in such Cases requires. The Fact being clear, upon the whole the Jury found her Guilty of the Indictment. This was enough to condemn Ann to death; she was executed on 15th Jan 1708. When the London Foundling Hospital opened in 1739 by the philanthropist Thomas Coram, his primary aim was to give shelter to the children of the ‘unhappy female, who fell victim to the seductions and false promises of the designing man’, and had been left to ‘irretrievable disgrace’. When it first opened, the hospital expected to receive 20 infants, but was overwhelmed with demand. Eventually, the hospital had to limit admissions to infants under two months, and admittance was done through a ballot system. So that mothers could reclaim their child from the hospital, mothers were initially encouraged to leave a token with their baby, so they could be recognised later. The thousands of ribbons, thimbles, broken coins, lockets, buttons, pieces of paper and shells left with abandoned children are still housed at the Foundling Hospital today. Photo: The Foundling Museum Of the 16,282 babies brought to the hospital between 1741 and 1760, only 152 were reclaimed. Today, most of us are privileged enough that we will never face a situation woman like Ann Gardner found themselves in over 300 years ago; destitute, ill, alone, stigmatised and pregnant with no maternity rights, medical care, security or means to raise a child. Although we have advanced far in 300 years, in terms of social security, medical care and attitudes to sex in general, the debate surrounding abortion are still rooted in religious moralising that seeks to demonise and punish the women who seek them and doctors who perform them. But, as the history of contraceptives shows, abortion will always be sought, risks will always be taken and no amount of criminalisation, not even the death penalty itself, will change that. In 1967, when the UK abortion act was passed, midwife Jennifer Worth was asked to comment on the morality of abortions; after 14 years of witnessing the reality of illegal abortion, she replied she ‘did not regard it as a moral issue, but as a medical issue. A minority of women will always want an abortion. Therefore, it must be done properly’. Bibliography Buchan, William, Domestic Medicine (London: [n.pub.], 1769) Casanova, Giacomo, The memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt: Complete ([n.p.]: Simon and Schuster, 2013) Cruickshank, Dan, The secret history of Georgian London: How the wages of sin shaped the capital (London: Windmill Books, 2010) Harris, Karen, The medieval vagina: A historical and hysterical look at all things vaginal during the middle ages (London: Snark, 2014) Museum, Foundling, Foundling museum (Foundling Museum, 2016), [accessed 2 September 2016] Online, Old Bailey Proceedings, Browse - central criminal court (2003), [accessed 30 August 2016] ---, Browse - central criminal court (2003), [accessed 30 August 2016] Riddle, John M., Eve’s herbs: A history of contraception and abortion in the west (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999) The Tryal of Eleanore Beare of Derby, Gentleman’s Magazine 1732, pp. 933–934 Trials for Adultery; Or, the History of Divorces, III vols, Trials for Adultery (London: [n.pub.], 1779) Worth, Jennifer, 'A deadly trade', The Guardian, 6 January 2005 About the Author Dr Kate Lister, post doctoral research associate at Leeds Trinity University. Kate curates the Twitter feed @WhoresofYore and researches the history of sexuality. http://leedstrinity.academia.edu/KateLister Written content of this post copyright © Kate Lister, 2016.

One more then I will stop: can we please have a bit of appreciation for the nouse & unabashed confidence of Mrs A.M. Windsor, one of the CONDOM SALESWOMEN of c18th Covent Garden? 👀💷 "Captains of Ship supplied with any Quantity on the shortest Notice"

I learn the most interesting things about Regency society reading the advertisments. Take this week's knowledge on book prices, or when I learned powdered dri

“In terms of its dimensions, it’s clearly the right shape and everything,” Sara Rivers-Cofield told mental_floss.

When you read through 18th century newspapers it’s quite astonishing the number of adverts there were for health and well-being with many so-called doctors offering cures for every conceivable medi…

When condoms began to somewhat resemble their modern form in the sixteenth century, it was a result of centuries of trial and error. Venereal diseases had plagued people since the time immemorial, …

The tragedy of Mary Morgan, a 17-year-old servant, hanged at Presteigne, Radnorshire, for murdering her newborn daughter

Procuring an abortion was a serious crime in the Regency period and when illegal abortionists were caught, the newspapers were relatively free with the details. The papers were full of reports in t…

By Cassie Watson; posted 21 December 2016. The literature that considers law and crime in the city of Oxford is relatively sparse. Giles Brindley’s popular study relates cases drawn from the record…

Women on trial for infanticide in the early 19th century involved unmarried women but hanging women for infanticide was very rare. Part of the reason

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that after a bride and groom consummate the marriage the pitter patter of little feet will surely follow (and follow and follow and follow). Such was the…

After my previous article on Regency Women: Beauty Behind the Scenes, I realized that the things I really want to know more about concerning Jane Austen’s Regency women aren’t (and weren’t) discuss…

Archaeologists were initially mystified

It's a pleasure to welcome Naomi Clifford, whose latest book, Women and the Gallows 1797-1837: Unfortunate Wretches, looks at the stories of women who were executed in England and Wales. Eliza Fenning in the condemned cell at Newgate. On 26 July 1815 she went to her death on the gallows outside Newgate in front of a near-silent crowd, and wore white to symbolise her innocence. (Portrait after George Cruikshank.) What inspired you to choose executed women to write about? It started when I became interested in Eliza Fenning, a kitchen maid who was executed in London in 1815 for attempting to poison her employer and his family – and who was most probably innocent. She was hanged at a time of great civil unrest and disruption, probably as a warning to the servant class not to challenge the social order. The circumstantial evidence against her was poor and the judge was warned there were serious doubts about her guilt, but he subjected her to a highly biased trial full of irregularities. Generally I’ve always been fascinated by the ‘down and dirty’ end of Georgian history and found that not much had been published recently specifically about the capital punishment of women. What made women different to men who were executed in the same period? Because women were less criminal than men fewer of them were executed. Overall, the ratio of capital crimes committed was about 1 woman to every 10 men, and it was the same radio for executions. The majority felons were respited. That is, they were not executed but punished in other ways, most of them were transported and a few were imprisoned. In England and Wales in the 41-year period I cover, 131 women were executed, 91 of them for murder or attempted murder, a third of whom were infanticides; 23 women were hanged for deception (forging documents, counterfeiting currency or passing off fake bank notes), ten for stealing, five for arson and two for sheep killing or rustling. A handful were convicted of rare crimes, for women anyway, such as highway robbery. The crimes themselves were gendered. Men were hanged more often than women for manufacturing counterfeit notes because they had been trained in the skills required to produce them whereas women were more often charged with uttering (passing off forged banknotes in shops and so on) because they were household consumers and therefore more likely to be exchanging paper money in shops and markets. In crimes such as the murder of a spouse there was a definite bias against women. In fact, until 1828 women guilty of petty treason (essentially, the murder of a husband or employer) were subject to special punishment – they were dragged on a hurdle behind a horse to the place of execution. It almost goes without saying that there was no equivalent punishment for men who killed their wives. In infanticide cases, courts were often very reluctant to convict women. In the transcripts and reports there is evidence that judges asked medical witnesses questions that might lead a jury to acquit or convict on a lesser crime. Even so, there were awful cases, such as Mary Morgan, a teenager who had killed her newborn baby after a secret pregnancy, and was hanged as a lesson to other young women. Prisoners under sentence of death were obliged to attend a Condemned Sermon during which they sat in a special box around an empty coffin. Thomas Rowlandson’s print shows the chapel at Newgate. (From The Microcosm of London, 1809.) While we’re on the subject of dates, why did you choose to cover the period 1797 to 1837? I chose 1797 because that was the year of the Bank Restriction Act. That sounds like something quite dull but it was immensely important because it led to so many deaths on the gallows, both men and women. The Act allowed banks to issue low denomination notes for the first time. Before that, they were obliged to ‘pay the bearer’ of a banknote the appropriate value in gold, that is, in gold and silver coins. But in 1795, when gold bullion stocks at the Bank of England were running low, Prime Minister William Pitt persuaded George III to announce the temporary suspension of these payments with immediate effect. The Bank was now allowed to issue one and two pound notes. The notes were ludicrously easy to copy and for many that temptation was too great to resist. When counterfeiting skyrocketed the Bank became ruthlessly determined in its pursuit of forgers and utterers, and this led to a huge increase in execution. I chose 1837 because it was the beginning of Victoria’s reign, a new era, and it allowed me to cover the end of the so-called Bloody Code, when the death penalty was removed from numerous crimes, most of them involving property. Were you emotionally affected by the stories of the women? I tried not to be! However, there are many that were extremely sad and awful. Sometimes I was moved to tears while writing. The infanticide stories were very difficult, both in terms of the terrible loss of the babies and of the awful fate of the mothers, many of whom were very young, destitute or otherwise desperate and some of whom were clearly suffering some form of post-natal mental illness. Despite the efforts of the authorities to instill order and solemnity at executions they were often rowdy events. Over 30 people were crushed to death at the execution of Elizabeth Godfrey, shown on the right hand side of the gallows, and two men. (Print reproduced in The Graphic, 5 March 1910.) What are you working on next? What should we look forward to? My third book, The Murder of Mary Ashford was published by Pen & Sword on 30 May. Mary, who lived in a village near Birmingham, was raped and killed in 1817 on her way home after a party. The research was fascinating to do and I made a breakthrough in what was previously an officially unsolved case. After that, I have something from a completely different era up my sleeve… About the Author Naomi Clifford’s Women and the Gallows 1797-1837: Unfortunate Wretches tells the stories of the 131 women who ended life on the gallows in England and Wales. Her first book, The Disappearance of Maria Glenn: A True Life Regency Mystery, looks at the rollercoaster fortunes of a teenager who was removed from her home to be forcibly married. Her latest, The Murder of Mary Ashford, in which she solves a notorious 200-year-old murder, was published last month. She blogs at naomiclifford.com and tweets as @naomiclifford. Links: Women and the Gallows https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Women-and-the-Gallows-1797-1837-Hardback/p/14207/aid=1183 The Disappearance of Maria Glenn https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Disappearance-of-Maria-Glenn-Hardback/p/11911/aid=1183 The Murder of Mary Ashford https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Murder-of-Mary-Ashford-Paperback/p/14824/ aid=1183 https://naomiclifford.com https://twitter.com/naomiclifford

I have an exceptional guest blogger today. Former book critic, and now historical fiction writer, her books light a fire in one’s belly rather as...Read More

One of the things we really enjoy doing during our research is to look at the advertisements in the newspapers of the day to see what sort of items were for sale. Don’t you just wonder what it woul…

Book digitized by Google and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

GOP challenger Mitt Romney has been walking a tightrope — appearing to moderate his position on the one hand, while maintaining a strict anti-abortion stance on the other.

It's an absolute pleasure to welcome my guest, Sheila Dalton, author of Stolen, to the Guide today with a fascinating post on contraception! ---oOo--- “Take bear's foot and savin boiled, and drink it in milk, and likewise, hay madder chopt, and boiled in beer ...”: Contraception in Early Modern England In the course of writing my novel, Stolen, set in 17th century England and Morocco, I had to find out about birth control methods of the time. My heroine, Lizbet Warren, ends up ‘in keeping’ with a French privateer who works for the English crown. Needless to say, children were not on the agenda. So how would he go about preventing pregnancy? The information I read was conflicting. Some articles and books maintained that not much was known about birth control methods in the 17th and 18th centuries. Historical records were scarce. Even the known facts led to different conclusions. The rate of birth within marriage was much lower than expected if fertility was allowed its natural expression (at least until the 1520’s in England; more about that later). This led many historians to believe that coitus interruptus was widespread. Others argued that different factors were behind a low birth rate: menstruation was not as regular as it is now - stress such as illness, food scarcities and wars would naturally make a woman less fertile. Also, other than amongst the nobility, it was not uncommon for women to marry around age 26 to 30, which meant up to 10 years of fertility were lost. Long periods of abstinence within marriage, such as in Lent, were common. And breastfeeding was a natural contraceptive, whether people were aware of it or not. Others said that that even the churches and confessors tolerated abortion until after quickening, Yet other accounts gave information on herbal abortifacients that were used early in pregnancy. It made sense to have my French privateer knowledgeable about contraception, even as early as 1633, when my book begins, because, historically, the French were thought to use birth control more than their English counterparts. The different rate of population growth in the two countries was used as evidence of this. Birth control was hotly debated in France by the 18th century, when the birthrate dropped so dramatically it became worrisome. Whereas, in England, the population nearly doubled between 1520 and 1630. Poverty and homelessness became so widespread that people were picked up almost randomly to be transported overseas to the colonies in the Americas and the Caribbean where labour was desperately needed. So I decided that my privateer would have Lizbet drink herbal concoctions of tansy, willow leaves, savin, ivy and the leaves of white poplar, all known abortifacients of the time. He also introduces the use of brandy-soaked sponges and has her pass water hard after lovemaking - two methods mentioned in the literature, no matter than they were not proven effective. Lizbet is not at first a willing participant in the use of these methods. She does, however, come round, realizing that she does not, at this point in her life, wish to have a child. Not while her life is controlled by a man who saved her from a public whipping, but at a price. Later, when she is freer to make her own decisions, thoughts of forming a new family must still be put aside, as she sets out on a quest to free her mother from slavery in Morocco. The book opens with a raid by Barbary Corsairs, active in the white slave trade of the time, who destroy her village and leave her to fend for herself in a hostile world. About Sheila Dalton and Stolen Sheila was born in Hillingdon, England, but has spent most of her life in Canada. She has written over a dozen books, including poetry, fiction, children’s picture books, and non-fiction about animals. Her YA mystery, Trial by Fire, was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis, Canada’s major crime writers’ award. The Girl in the Box, a literary mystery from Dundurn Press, was voted a Giller People’s Choice Top Ten. She lives in Newmarket, Ontario. In addition to writing, Sheila likes to drum, meditate, draw, garden and spend time in nature. http://www.sheila-anne-dalton.com Stolen Devon, England, 1633: Lizbet Warren’s parents are captured by Barbary Corsairs and carried off to the slave markets in Morocco. Desperate to help them, Lizbet sets out for London with the only other survivor of the raid, the red-haired orphan, Elinor, from the Workhouse for Abandoned and Unwanted Children. The pair soon separate, and Lizbet is arrested for vagrancy. Rescued from a public whipping by a mysterious French privateer, Jean, she is taken to his Manor House in Dorchester, where he keeps her under lock and key. Later, Lizbet is captured at sea by the pirate Gentleman Jake, and forced to join his crew. She forms complex bonds with both her captors; and uses all her skills to enlist their aid in finding her parents. Her quest leads her to the fabled courts and harems of Morocco and the tropical paradise of Barbados. Buy the Book Stolen eBook: Sheila Dalton: Amazon.co.uk: Books Stolen - Kindle edition by Sheila Dalton. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Sheila-Dalton-ebook/dp/B00SXBLCTQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424106420&sr=1-1&keywords=stolen+dalton https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id962804120 https://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/stolen-70

Birth control has existed at least since the Egyptian era, when people created their own barrier methods or suppository mixtures made of natural elements like honey or seaweed. It is known that around 1000 BC the ancient Egyptians also used a linen sheath for protection against disease. From 100 - 200 AD, the earliest evidence of condom use in Europe comes from scenes in cave paintings at Combarelles in France. The 1st well-documented outbreak of what is now known as syphilis occurred in 1494, among French troops, and the syphilis epidemic spread across Europe. In 16C Italy, Gabriele Falloppio authored an early description of condom use. De Morbo Gallico ("The French Disease," referring to syphilis) was published in 1564. In this tract, he recommended use of a device he claimed to have invented: linen sheaths soaked in a chemical solution and allowed to dry before use. These were the first spermicides on condoms. The cloths he described were sized to cover the glans of the penis, & were held on with a ribbon. Having been found useful for prevention of infection, it was only later that the usefulness of the condom for the prevention of pregnancy was recognised. The word "condom" appeared in a 1706 English poem by J. Hamilton. By 1717, it was being touted as "The Condum being the best, if not only Preservative our Libertines have found at present." against syphilis. In the 18C, condoms made out of animal intestines began to be available. Slaughterhouses discarded an abundance of animal organs, butchers made extra money by repurposing intestines as preventive sheaths, making them the first widely sold contraceptive product. Since the livestock industry was much larger in Europe, most of these “skins,” as they were called, had to be imported to the British America colonies from England or France. In a 1728 English book called Cupid's Metamorphoses, stated that "Happy the Man, who in his Pocket keeps, Whether with Green or Scarlet Ribband bound, A well made Condom." By 1744, the advice in a book called My Secret Life X was "let not the Joy she proffers be Essay'd, Without the well-trye'd Cundum's friendly Aid." However, they were quite expensive and the unfortunate result was that they were often reused. This type of condom was described at the time as "an armour against pleasure, and a cobweb against infection." In the 2nd half of the 1700's, a trade in handmade condoms thrived in London and some shops where producing handbills & advertisements of condoms. Long before the advent of the birth control pill, these condoms became the most effective, affordable, & accessible form of contraception. Condom production increased in America after 1839, when Charles Goodyear’s method of rubber vulcanization kick-started modern latex technologies in the United States. By 1870, condoms were available through almost any outlet you can imagine–drug suppliers, doctors, pharmacies, dry-goods retailers & mail-order houses. Sexual products were openly sold & distributed during much of the 19th century. Then in 1873, Congress passed the Comstock Act, which paralyzed the growing industry; Comstock made it illegal to send any “article of an immoral nature, or any drug or medicine, or any article whatever for the prevention of conception” through the mail. Jim Edmonson, chief curator at the Dittrick Medical History Center, explains that the law was passed primarily because of a vicious campaign by its namesake, Anthony Comstock. “He was a do-gooder, a reformer, & a religious-minded person,” says Edmonson. “Comstock had been to the Civil War, & was outraged by the sexual excess of soldiers–large numbers of men away from home & church–and the women who made their trade with these soldiers. Comstock felt that condoms & any other forms of contraception were just a license to sexual excess.” Ostensibly designed to prevent the sale of obscene literature & pornography, the Comstock Act effectively made any form of contraception illegal in the United States, punishable as a misdemeanor with a six-month minimum prison sentence. “So we had a national law criminalizing contraception,” says Edmonson. Comstock’s crusade was aimed at commercialized vice, visible in the red-light districts, erotic paraphernalia, & birth-control products easily accessed in cities like New York during the 1860s. Fearing the widespread corruption of young uneducated minds, Comstock particularly sought to reform salacious newspaper advertising & the illicit mail-order marketplace it supported. In a time before chain stores & online shopping, mail-order catalogs were all the rage, allowing millions of folks scattered across the countryside to purchase items made in urban areas, like condoms. Though the Comstock Act added to pre-existing regulation of “obscene” mail, it effectively closed certain loopholes & incorporated almost any product you can imagine. Contraceptives were one of the new additions. Opposition to condoms did not only come from moralists. By the late 19C the feminist movement in both Europe & America was decidedly anti-condom. Feminists wanted birth control to be exclusively in the hands of women, & disapproved of male-controlled methods such as the condom. As a result, condoms went underground. In her book Devices and Desires, Andrea Tone observes that instead of ceasing production, “purveyors disguised their products through creative relabeling.” Tone points out that despite the legal issues, “Classified ads published in the medical, rubber, & toilet goods sections of dailies & weeklies indicate a flourishing contraceptive trade in post-1873 America. The hitch was that contraceptives were rarely advertised openly as preventives.” Instead condoms were sold as sheaths, skins, shields, capotes, & “rubber goods” for “gents.” Though Comstock pursued those on both the manufacturing & distribution ends of the contraceptive trade, smart entrepreneurs realized they were safe if the court had no clear evidence of their intention to prevent pregnancy. Although the transmission of venereal disease was not completely understood, germ theory was beginning to take root in the scientific community, so emphasizing this other medical use for birth-control products gave the industry good cover. Tip-toeing around the topic of contraception, ads relied on words like “protection,” “security,” & “safety,” phrases which Andrea Tone calls “legal euphemisms.” Despite social and legal opposition, at the end of the 19C the condom was the Western world's most popular birth control method. Two surveys conducted in New York in 1890 & 1900 found that 45% of the women surveyed were having their partners use condoms to prevent pregnancy. See The Covert History of the American Condom By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — August 16th, 2012 in Collectors Weekly

Attributed to William Salmon. Cf. Brit. Mus. cat

There are occasions when you come upon something from the 18th century that overturns our modern assumptions about people’s outlook on life at that time. Such an event occurred to me this week when…