Saturday 20 October 1660

Annotations

• N Glyn on Mon 20 Oct 2003, 11:36pm. Flag this

  Arf arf! A pox on your Shakespearean witty word plays, there’s nothing like someone else stepping or falling into a heap of … to lift the spirits.

  But again I’m puzzled … Mary said that the Turners were previously neighbours at Pepys family home in Salisbury Court. Now it seems as if they have the neighbouring house in Seething Lane - are they stalking Sam?

  So Sam is still looking at how to improve the house, in this case by making a new window in the cellar (presumably for deliveries of coal, wood etc). And if the lavatory is outside the house (as it should be) then the stuff is seeping inwards, which is nasty. Perhaps people forgot to empty the stuff regularly because of the various changes in ownership of these houses.

  At this point in time, London was still small enough in both size and population for the stuff to be collected at night (by the ‘night soil workers’) and carried into the countryside where it could be either dumped in the river (as we do), or sold to farmers, and other occupations (tanners, etc). It wasn’t until a century or so later, and the widespread use of the flushing toilet, that things really became dangerous.

  Collecting the night soil might not have been a glamorous trade, but I suppose they were unlikely ever to go out of business.

• N Paul Miller on Mon 20 Oct 2003, 11:54pm. Flag this

  “I saw the limbs of some of our new traitors set upon Aldersgate, which was a sad sight to see; and a bloody week this and the last have been”

  Bless you Sam.

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 01:52am. Flag this

  great heap of turds
  per L&M

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 01:56am. Flag this

  she would have a good Merchant
  L&M’s “would have” seems a little less harsh than Wheatley’s “could get”

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 02:02am. Flag this

  my uncle
  I’ll bet he’s keeping in touch with Uncle Robert. http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/884.php

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 02:06am. Flag this

  Mr. Turners house of office
  L&M: “Water closets had not yet been adopted even by the well-to-do. They are said to have been invented by Sir John Harington (a godson of Queen Elizabeth who published books on the subject) but required a good water-supply and elaborate plumbing.”

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 02:13am. Flagged

  when he was very merry, and did talk very high
  L&M: “On 15 November Lady Sandwich was to hire a French maid, and not long afterwards Sandwich had a suit costing

• N Paul Brewster on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 02:29am. Flag this

  Mr. Turners
  Thomas Turner does not appear to be related to John and Jane Turner of Salisbury Court, parents to SP’s favorite eight/nine year old, The. Thomas Turner as a “Clerk-General of the Navy Office” or “Purveyor of Petty Provisions” was probably entitled to a house in the same complex with SP.

• N Emilio on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 02:50am. Flag this

  “he would have a French cook, and a master of his horse, and his lady and child to wear black patches”

  Yes indeed, a change of administration makes all the difference. Following on Paul B.’s thought, I wonder what people think are the roots of this cavalier gusto, just days after his “indisposition” while his old confederates were being killed? Is he:
  a) simply enjoying a host of pleasures that had been impossible to indulge in not long before;
  b) sincerely throwing himself into the spirit of what will be expected of him in the new court;
  c) creating some social camouflage for himself by so doing;
  d) celebrating that it wasn’t him on the scaffold yesterday;
  e) etc.
  The possibilities seem almost endless.
  

• N vincent on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 03:00am. Flagged

  ‘Me Laud’ still has a touch of the ‘noveau riche’ “…but he is become a perfect courtier; and, among other things, my Lady saying that she could get a good merchant for her daughter Jem., he answered, that he would rather see her with a pedlar

• N vincent on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 03:13am. Flag this

  “Wasn

• N vincent on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 03:27am. Flag this

  Emillio: Sandwich was a very practical man, seen life and death from the ground and water up; He has sent men into the thick of Gushing blood from man and horse. He has smelt it & tasted it. He is adjusting to the easier life that money and fame does bring. He was no armchair general/admiral siting in a bunker or cockpit on wing but on horse or deck in the swirling mist of anger, smoke, neighing, screams ,colateral damage, death, amputation and blood blood.

• N Pauline on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 04:13am. Flagged

  Yes, Emilio, we need to consider our Lord Montagu/Sandwich
  He is such a central character in Sam

• N JWB on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 04:37am. Flag this

  Epiphany?
  Sam may be getting his Lords in order.

• N Mary on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 07:44am. Flag this

  ..which was a sad sight to see..

  Perhaps Sam was feeling simple pity for those whose end had been so violent, but ‘sad’ at this date also carries the connotation of ‘heavy, sober, sobering’ and this sense may inform his reaction, too.

• N Roger Arbor on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 07:46am. Flag this

  Interested in Glyn’s ‘night soil workers’… but didn’t Dickens write of the cesspools surrounding Tellsons Bank in Tale of Two cities? Set 130 years later…

  … and don’t forget the parallel development of ‘soil closets’ where earth is used instead of water. Apparently a touch a go thing that the WC won over the SC.

• N Roger Arbor on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 07:50am. Flag this

  There’s a wonderful description of soil or earth closets (that are still used in Stoke on Trent) on:

  http://www2002.stoke.gov.uk/museums/gladstone/gpminf64.htm

• N Mary on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 08:28am. Flag this

  citizen v gentleman

  There is a clear distinction here; a citizen ( a town or city dweller) might indeed be prosperous and respectable, but in societal terms he ranked well below a gentleman, who would be distinguished by the possession of land or landed property. A citizen, no matter how wealthy, could be dismissed as a mere tradesman.

  Sam is indeed a citizen but not, in these terms a gentleman. It may have caused him just a tiny prick of pique to hear his own class dismissed in this way.

• N Helen Ayers on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 09:27am. Flag this

  Please, Glyn, to what use would tanners put ‘night soil’? The ancient tannery here at Canterbury was ever a smelly place, but surely…

• N Robert on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 10:56am. Flag this

  Tanners and night soil: I think they used urine to cure the hides.

  Gentlemen versus citizens: Sandwich is saying that he would rather see his daughter married to a gentleman with no money than a merchant or citizen with a lot of money.

  Pepys is servant and is definitely not a gentleman, as Mary points out. Sandwich though has always been a gentleman as his family are landed gentry. He has become a noble but is not an arriviste.

  The fact that Pepys has mentioned it does seem to indicate that it upset him somewhat rather than amusing him. It is another reminder that the cousins are on either side of a very great class divide. One that was present when they were born and cannot be bridged.

• N Jenny Doughty on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 01:25pm. Flag this

  I read an autobiography of a woman born in Hull around 1900, and where she lived they still had night soil men coming round during her childhood.

• N J A Gioia on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 01:28pm. Flag this

  I saw the limbs of some of our new traitors…

  i think a genuine royalist would have called them simply ‘traitors’. to me, ‘our new traitors’ shows sam holding a realistic, if not cynical, attitude towards the freshly coined loyalties of the new status quo.

• N Paul Burgess on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 02:50pm. Flag this

  Soil Closet
  My partner grew up on a farm in the Black Country (West Midlands of England) in 1950s and these were still in use then. They backed onto a lane and could be emptied from there onto a cart or truck. They did not have electricity either!

• N Matthew on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 03:43pm. Flag this

  Citizen
  I seem to remember that in Shakespeare’s time “citizen” meant especially “merchant”, that being the main business of the city of London.

• N vincent on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 07:14pm. Flag this

  “Night soil” even today, in the most modern of cities, there still exist night soil removal systems : very modernised, not spoken of or smelt, but the tanker like truck with heavy duty hose and power pump still remove waste from toilets not on the Sewage system,mostly Parks. [ a case of out of site out of mind].
  Back in the Fifties in the U.K. the Houses in Victorian working sections of Industrial cities too many to name, had their toilets at the back near an exit and an alley for the collection of night soil.[Not on the sewage pipe system].

• N vincent on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 07:21pm. Flag this

  You can make a lord out of a country bumkin but never take the bumkin out of the lord. Sumart like thart.[‘tis the first seven years that matter, so says a misquote of the Jesuits]

• N Todd Bernhardt on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 07:57pm. Flag this

  re: Sam the Gentleman

  Hopefully I won’t step into a great heap of turds by reminding everyone of Sam’s pride on 25 March, when he was first addressed as ” S.P. Esq., of which God knows I was not a little proud.” If I read the annotations correctly, the term meant something back then, and was an indication that Sam had joined The Gentlemen’s Club. True? Not true?

  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/03/25/index.php

  The entries of the last couple of weeks have been, to me, particularly compelling — so much is going on, so many shifts in the political landscape and in personalities … the diary entries truly are a revelation. Such a clear, unfettered style for the time. He’s a brilliant writer.

• N vincent on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 09:23pm. Flag this

  ESQ: yes it is true , it puts him in a class above Gentleman But people being human are are always looking for the put down. I mean to say a”P**** louse” how can he amount to much, His family tree is full of failures and and sucesses Dr.s (paduan Yuck)
  of law, medicine and religion, besides wood turners, silk weavers, ever forbid even farmers, estate managers etc.

  They always want to know what Daddy did or does in order classify, are yer a poodle? or wolfhound ? When In Re-ality the Human gene is trully scrambled, one cannot predict the outcome of result of mating, a sows ear or silk purse.
  One has to wait until the last breath before one can make a judgement. Take that learned Gentleman of No 10 fame.
  So is he a Gent.? by style?, position?, Birth?, Manners, Or degree he earnt or is it the OST he wears or that B*****Y a**** he has of Salisbury yard.. Ye of the Jury must decide?
  

• N Glyn on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 09:35pm. Flag this

  Does Pepys mood seem different from other entries, perhaps for obvious reasons? Normally he would be at least irritated by his neighbour

• N Peter on Tue 21 Oct 2003, 11:06pm. Flag this

  Re Glyn’s point above. I had also noticed something different in the last week or so. I was coming to the conclusion that he perhaps has some disquiet about the new regime and his place in it. Barbaric executions; disrespectful sniggering in church services; gambling; his master looking to take on more of the trappings of the courtier and making snide comments obliquely aimed at Sam (intentionally or not). He may not be sure at the moment that the new masters are going to be any better than the old.

• N Dirk Van de putte on Mon 27 Oct 2003, 03:07am. Flag this

  “night soil”

  The urine was indeed used to cure the leather. This is an age old method, already used by the Romans. If I remember correctly at some point the Romans even levied a tax on human urine, because it was a much wanted commodity!!! Correct me if I’m wrong…

• N George on Mon 27 Oct 2003, 07:50am. Flag this

  The urine was indeed used to cure the leather. This is an age old method, already used by the Romans. It was also used in the fulling of woven woolen cloth. Quite a useful commodity

• N Mary on Mon 27 Oct 2003, 01:39pm. Flag this

  A domestic use for urine

  Picard notes that urine also had its place in the domestic laundry. Combined with wood-ash, it formed the ‘ley’ (lye) that was used to soak dirty linen in the buck (wash) tub. The ley could be used either hot or cold. After a sufficiently long soak to loosen dirt, clothes were then vigorously rinsed with water before hanging to dry. Lovely.

• N Terry F on Mon 23 Oct 2006, 07:06pm. Flag this

  Sewage and cellars

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/pepys_gallery_01.shtml

• N Pedro on Tue 22 Jan 2008, 05:32pm. Flag this

  On this day 20th October 1660…

  Allin sails from the Downs in the Plymouth bound for Constantinople. On board were the Lord Ambassador, Earl of Winchilsea, and his wife and family, sailing to take up the post of Consul.