Ordinary Banana

"Sexual intercourse was taboo on the Lord's Day. The Puritans believed that children were born on the same day of the week as when they had been conceived. Unlucky infants who entered the world on the Sabbath were sometimes denied baptism."

"Throughout the Western world in the seventeenth century . . . twice as many conceptions occurred in the peak month of April as in the summer months." Woh (this pattern was absent in New England)

someone is going to write a book like this about us in 350 years and it is going to be utterly savage

Got to the bit I was interested in re: treatment of the indigent "Chronic unemployment was a major problem . . . Most towns looked after their own; elderly residents were treated with decency, respect, and compassion." Towns had a dole of bread, butter, and coal. BUT

"The vagrant poor were treated with great brutality. Pregnant women were expelled so their newborns would not become a charge upon the town. . . . In Essex, some of these vagrants were sent to . . . the dark dungeons of Colchester Castle."

Note the above is about East Anglia but still gets at my wondering from earlierhttps://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1056539690810011648?s=19 …

"There were strict rules of deference in this society . . . Travelers as late as the early 19C expressed astonishment at the sight of New England children who turned and bowed at the edge of the highway when their 'betters' rode by." OK see this is how you get Andrew Jackson