Channel: The English Channel crossing between France and Britain is often very rough.

In the nineteenth century salt water bathing (not swimming) was considered good for the health and was often prescribed by doctors. However, in spite of the voluminous ‘bathing costumes', it was not considered proper for bathers to be seen by the public. A bathing machine was a portable beach dressing room on wheels which could be drawn a by horse or by men right into the water. Bathers entered on land, changed, and then entered the water after the machine had been put in position. Thus they could wade or bathe (not swim) in the ocean out of sight of other beach-goers. Nevertheless, men and women had to bathe at separate beaches. At some resorts there were 'dippers' people to helped people into the water and make sure they submerged the medically prescribed number of time. When in 1901 it became legal for men and women to bathe on the same beach, bathing machines started to disappeared. (A picture will be added)

Note that the second-class carriage is very small, the ship has changed into it and presumably all the crew and passengers are still there.

A penny ice was bought from a street vendor, the equivalent of an ice cream truck today. It cost a penny which, at the time was worth much more than it is today so the price was about the same.

Sloan Square and South Kensington are two stops on the London Underground (subway). The stops are well inland. The South Kensington stop is near where the Japanese exposition which later inspired The Mikado was held.

Devon is in Southwest England, a long train ride from London. How did he get on a ‘ship' from Paris?

A four-wheeler was a horse-drawn carriage.

A round game is a card game in which players take turns, going around a circle.

Salisbury Plain is an area of Southern England. It is the location of the pre-historic site of Stonehenge.

Particulars: Note how the accent had to be changed from normal to accommodate the rhyme with "tars".

The cables here are from ships, note the sailors are still there. Note also how vegetables has to be pronounced to rhyme with cables.

In the days before supermarkets, each type of food was sold in a separate shop. The greengrocer sold fruits and vegetables, butchers sold meat, bakeries sold bread and pastries. Greengrocer is still a common term in England.

Apple puffs and triangular three-corners are fruit-filled pastries. Banburys are pastry filled with mincemeat or currants. The town of Banbury north of Oxford is best-known outside England for the nursery rhyme Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross.

Brandy was actually sold at pastry shops so ladies could buy it without going to a public house or bar.

Two well-known banking houses were Barings, founded in 1762, and the English branch of Rothchilds, founded in 1798. Barings was involved with financing the Louisiana Purchase. The Rothchilds have become symbols for great wealth and have been philanthropists and art connoisseurs. Nathan Rothchild broke ground when he was created a Life Peer, a Baron in 1885 and became the first Jew to sit in the House of Lords (after the 1882 première of Iolanthe). Rothchilds is still a great bank with branches in Paris, Vienna, Naples and Frankfurt, but Barings went bankrupt 1995 and no longer exists.

Shares: All of a sudden, with the introduction of Rothchilds and Barings we are talking about financial shares.

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Revised January 2007
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