A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/700 (page 7)
    example from Archenholtz probably touches the very peak of vulgar brutality. In a village near London there lived a half-wit by the name of James Trotter. He was among the poorest of the poor and was the father of three illegitimate children who had to be supported by the parish. What with the general worry, the upkeep of the idiot's bastards and his continous attempts on the chastity of every young woman and girl in the place, the Parish Council decided to take a most extraordinary step. They forced Trotter's mother, partly by promises, partly by threats, to consent to her son's castration, and in April 1790 it was actually performed—by the man who slaughtered pigs1. Taine recounts how in the year 1840, at a party in London, certain honourable gentlemen amused themselves by making beautiful women in their ball-dresses drunk and then dosing them with a concoction of pepper, mustard and vinegar2. Hector France, whose writings will often be cited, has collected other examples of former English coarseness and brutality; especially does he depict in lively colours the horrible brutality at boxing matches3; a favourite and also extremely characteristic pastime of Englishmen. English brutality was manifested also in literature and art. According to Taine, Shakespeare possesses as complete a vocabulary of coarse expressions as Rabelais. His heroes take handfuls of muck and fling it at their foes without considering themselves sullied by it. And these barbarities are not confined to the rabble, but are to be found—and even more grossly—among people of position as well4. A type of such coarseness in Shakespeare is Caliban in The Tempest. Butler's Hudibras, and seventeenth-century I Archenholtz, Annals, Vol. V, p. 365. II H. Taine, History of English Literature, Vol. II, p. 8. 3 Cf. the chapter ' Les Champions epiques de Maze Hill' in Les Va-Nu- Pieds de Londres. Paris, 1887. Pp. 179-186. 4 Taine, loc. cit., Vol. I, p. 484. [7]