Baboo or babu is a Hindu title of respect equivalent to sir or master, usually given to wealthy and educated native gentlemen, especially when of the mercantile class. Research Baboo
Before the invention of the penny post and gummed envelopes, bath post was a writing paper sold in letter size, with a highly glazed surface. It was very fashionable among wealthy visitors to the springs at Bath, and whence its name. Research Bath Post
The term coach is now generally applied to a chartered or long distance, usually single-decker bus. However, traditionally coach was a general name for all covered carriages drawn by horses and intended for the rapid conveyance of passengers.
The earliest carriages appear to have been all open, if we may judge from the figures of Assyrian and Babylonian chariots found on the monuments discovered amidst the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, At Rome both covered and uncovered carriages were in use. After the fall of the Roman Empire they went out of use again, and during the feudal ages the custom was to ride on horseback, the use of carriages being considered effeminate. They do not appear to have become common until the 10th century, and even then were regarded exclusively as vehicles for women and invalids. Later on they became, especially in Germany, part of the appendages of royalty.
Coaches seem to have been introduced into England about the middle of the 16th century, but were for long confined to the aristocracy and the wealthy classes. Hackney-coaches were first used in London in 1625. They were then only twenty in number, and were kept at the hotels, where they had to be applied for when wanted. In 1634 coaches waiting to be hired at a particular stand were introduced, and had increased to 200 in 1652, to 800 in 1710, and to 1000 in 1771.
Stagecoaches were introduced into England about the same time as hackney-coaches. The first stage-coach in London appears to have ran early in the 17th century, and before the end of the century they were started on three of the principal roads in England. Their speed was at first very moderate, about 3 or 4 miles an hour. They could only run in the summer, and even then their progress was often greatly hindered by floods and by the wretched state of the roads generally. In 1700 it took a week to travel from York to London; in 1754 a body of Manchester merchants started a conveyance, the Flying Coach, of an improved kind, which did the journey to London in the unusually short period of four days and a half, and thirty years later a Mr. Palmer of Bath, after a considerable amount of opposition, succeeded in inducing the government to put in practice certain suggestions which he made, by which he showed that great saving both of time and money in the conveyance of passengers and letters would be effected. The result was the establishment of the system of mail-coaches, which continued to be the means of travelling in England until their place was taken by the railways. The first mail-coach started between London and Bristol on the 8th of August, 1784. The manufacture of elegant carriages was a proof of much wealth and mechanical skill in a place, many different workmen being employed in their construction, and both the materials and the workmanship requiring to be of the best. British-built carriages, especially those made in London, held the first place for a combination of strength and elegance. Research Coach
The compensation con is a form of confidence trick. The swindle takes the form of a criminal carrying a package, perhaps gift wrapped, containing worthless broken glass or crockery. The con artist waits around the vicinity of a shop selling expensive vases or similar, for a suitable victim, and then pretends to be bumped into by the victim. At this point the con artist drops the package with the resulting clearly audible sound of breakages occurring, and proceeds to claim that the package had contained an expensive item, and its breakage was the fault of the victim. The victim is then pressed to pay compensation towards the cost of the supposedly broken item. The con is particularly effective if the con artist is an attractive or elderly woman and targets wealthy looking, middle-aged men. Research Compensation Con
Domestic servants, also known as domestics, are members of a household employed to assist with the running of various aspects of the household. During the 18th century in England servants were commonplace, with almost all employed families able to afford servants, or rather domestic drudges, who were supplied from the workhouses and charity schools and treated little better than slaves for the most part. While in apprenticeship female domestic drudges, or scullery-maids also known as scullions, were not paid and could not leave their mistress. Even less fortunate were charwomen, employed for odd work or single days to assist in the kitchen and paid with just a few scraps of food and a few coals.
Page boys, usually black, were employed by the fashionable women of 18th century London to precede her and hand refreshments to her guests. Footmen were similarly employed more for show than labour to impress the guests and people one met on ones travels, hence they received their slang name of 'fart catchers', from their position of walking behind their master or mistress, dressed up in fancy clothes provided by the household as a form of uniform for the job.
By the 19th century conditions had improved for some servants, though for the lower staff they were still appalling. In the mid-19th century Mrs Beeton, the famous author, lists domestic servants in order of rank as follows:
Households would employ a election of servants varying upon the household income, a very wealthy household employing a full selection of servants, a less fabulously wealthy household maybe just employing a housekeeper, a cook or a maid-of-all-work. A chamberlain being only employed by the king or noblemen of very high position. In the mid-19th century most households which employed servants employed two or three male servants, comprising a servant out of livery, or a butler, a footman and a coachman, or a coachman and a groom where the household had more than two or three horses. A popular mis-conception is that cooks are, and were, always female. Not so. Male cooks were also employed in the 19th century and were paid more than their female counterpart.
Each domestic servant had their own scope of duties or responsibilities, though these overlapped depending upon the number of domestic servants employed. A butler, for example, where only one footman was employed would be required to perform some of the duties of a valet, to pay bills and to superintend the other servants.
19th century English society was warned against abusing its servants, for, as Mrs Beeton puts it; "The sensible master and kind mistress know, that if servants depend on them for their means of living, in their turn they are dependent on their servants for very many of the comforts of life; and that, with a proper amount of care in choosing servants, and treating them like reasonable beings, and making slight excuses for the shortcomings of human nature, they will, save in some exceptional case, be tolerably well served, and in most instances, surround themselves with attached domestics." It was possible for domestic servants to progress up the ranks, usually through leaving one position and seeking a higher appointment at another employer. In order to achieve this a servant required a good reference from their employer, and this encouraged a degree of honesty in a position with a lot of opportunity for misappropriation.
The Great War instigated a great deal more equality in British society and the use of domestic servants greatly reduced, though it was still not extinct in the 21st century. Research Domestic Servants
In 1623, under the lead of the Reverend John White, certain English Puritans, wearied of King Charles' persecutions, formed the Dorchester Company, for trading and fishing, and established a settlement at Cape Ann in America. The company was dissolved in 1626, but was revived in 1628 by a number of wealthy Englishmen, and John Endicott assumed the government at Naumkeag, now Salem, whither the first settlers had removed. In 1629 the company was enlarged and, obtaining a royal charter, formed the Massachusetts Bay colony. Research Dorchester Company
Dynasty was an American soapoperatelevision series following the lives of a wealthyDenver family - the 'Carringtons' in the oil business. Dynasty was created by Esther Shapiro and Richard Shapiro and first ran from 1981 to 1989.
The Frankfort Land Company was a company formed in 1686 of wealthy and distinguished persons of Germany and Holland. The members were chiefly Pietists, and they had intended going to Pennsylvania themselves, but gave up the idea, so the colonists were led by Francis Daniel Pastorius, a lawyer and scholar. They went to America in 1683, and began the foundation of Germantown the same year. Later the company was organized, and 25000 acres were purchased from William Penn. Research Frankfort Land Company
Abbreviations
Research Anagnost
