Chapter 3. Welcome to the era of gentlemen and ladies (Part 2)
The village of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, where the Bennet family lives, is about twenty-five miles from the capital London, even closer than the distance from London to Windsor Castle. If we put it in future generations, at most it would be to step on the accelerator on the highway and drive for half an hour, or at most an hour. But in England at the end of the 18th century, this short twenty-five miles meant a long journey from early morning to afternoon, at least half a day.
When the Bennet family of seven drove into London in a private carriage that was suspected of being severely overloaded, they were swaying under the afternoon sun. What they encountered was not only the hustle and bustle of the big city, but also the smelly, dirty, floating... Dirty air filled with various pathogenic bacteria...
——Although London, the foggy capital at this time, had surpassed the turbulent and chaotic Paris and became the largest city in Europe, many famous buildings that were often visited by later generations of tourists were actually built in Victoria half a century later. era. For example, Tower Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, Regent Street, London's Houses of Parliament (Big Ben)...most of the neoclassical-style squares, parks, residential areas, hospitals, libraries, schools, and more that appeared during the heyday of the British Empire. Public fountains and street sculptures, etc., are still missing today. On the contrary, the urban area of London at this time was full of winding ancient streets. These roads can be traced back to the Middle Ages. They were often so narrow that even a carriage could not pass, and there was no complete drainage system at all. Everywhere stunk, the air filled with the smell of garbage, sewage and feces.
Braving the unpleasant stench, the carriage meandered all the way and soon reached London Bridge. But today's London Bridge is of course not the majestic suspension bridge with two granite square main towers in later generations, but a very shabby one. The wooden bridge looks quite old. London Bridge was also very crowded, and carriages moved slowly, almost slower than walking. But it just makes it easier for the Bennet family to enjoy the...disgusting view of the Thames.
There is no way, a river that is as turbid and black as ink and exudes a pungent stench is really no match for the beautiful scenery. Although the water quality of the Thames River is quite disgusting, there are many sailboats and boats on the river. There are countless wooden sailboats crowded in the Thames River, which is not open. Ship high-quality and low-priced British industrial products to all parts of the world, and then transfer massive wealth back to the UK.
However, in fact, the current foggy city of London has not yet entered the worst nightmare era for the environment. Because in this day and age, even in Britain, which was the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, the Industrial Revolution has only just begun. Trains and ships had not yet appeared, and it had only been only a dozen years since Mr. Watt invented the new steam engine. The actual large-scale production of Watt's steam engine did not happen until recently. And it is mainly used in mines, and there are few factories that use steam engines as power.
(Just as the earliest computers could fill a room, the earliest Watt steam engines were also riddled with problems and had to be improved for a long time before being put into production.)
The first steam-powered cotton textile mill in human history was only completed and put into operation in the "cotton capital" Manchester in 1792. As for London, where land is expensive, the number of new factories is even smaller, and it is possible that there is not even one. Therefore, when viewed from the bridge, there is not yet a terrifying scene of chimneys and soot covering the sky. What is even more impressive are the various high and low spiers in the city, which are unique architectural styles of churches. In Britain during the early industrial revolution, the religious-based social organization and life model inherited from the Middle Ages did not change much. In London, this dominant position is reflected in the large number of luxurious churches and private chapels of nobility located in the city center.
Basically, London is now just a financial, religious, commercial center and consumer city, and the problem of industrial pollution is not too serious.
But even for the time being, there are not a large number of factories discharging sewage into the Thames River day and night. Just the garbage and excrement produced by London's millions of residents and hundreds of thousands of horses every day, accumulated over time, is enough to make the water of the Thames so dirty that no animal or plant can grow. The smoke produced by so many people living together burning coal for heating and cooking is also enough to reduce the city's air quality to hell levels. Most of the time every year, the sky in London is gray, with no trace of blue sky and white clouds at all, as if it is shrouded in endless haze.
After crossing the Thames River, there were still a lot of horse-drawn carriages going back and forth on the street, so the speed of the cars could only be maintained at a turtle speed, crawling forward slowly. The sounds of English hawking and bargaining were lingering around, making it very noisy. From time to time, there would be dirty children carrying baskets and rushing to the carriage to sell goods, causing the turbid stench to come in through the carriage window... Jane. Bennett obviously couldn't accept such a harsh environment. He covered his mouth with his white and tender hands, feeling that it was difficult to breathe.
"...Tsk, tsk, you can't stand it anymore? You newcomers are so young! Compared with the rotten death cities in the biochemical apocalypse, or the smoke-filled Stalingrad battlefield with bullets flying everywhere, this is nothing. The battle is really nothing!”
Seeing Miss Jian's disgusting and uncomfortable look, Mrs. Bennet, whose soul had been changed by the senior reincarnation master of infinite space, couldn't help but sigh in disappointment, "...if you can't even withstand this level of test, Come on, how can you survive in this cruel world?”
Jane and Elizabeth: "..." I always feel that life in the future will be very scary! How long can we live?
All in all, after night fell and the lights came on, before all the bones in their bodies were shaken to pieces, the five Bennet sisters finally arrived at the destination of their trip to London - their relatives in London, Jiading of Tian'en Temple Street. Accepted to uncle's house.
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An ancient Greek sage once wisely declared that every Greek city-state in his time could be divided into two, namely the city-state of the poor and the city-state of the rich, and these two city-states were always in a state of hostility or war. In the same way, London, the capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, was actually composed of two completely different worlds, one belonging to a very small number of upper-class people, and the other belonging to the majority of lower-class people.
The former includes about hundreds of thousands of nobles and wealthy people, as well as the servants, housekeepers, coachmen, etc. who serve them. They live in upper-class communities with good security and elegant environment. The so-called London of gentlemen and ladies refers to this. A small area.
The population of the latter has exceeded one million, gathered like rats in several filthy and smelly slums, full of street children, criminals and beggars. Since these poor people were so poor that they could hardly pay taxes, Britain's rulers never cared about policing the slums. If a gentleman occasionally had to go to the slums, he usually had to bring his own firearms for self-defense, and he could kill the dregs of society without causing any trouble.
In fact, such places still exist in the modern world, such as the black areas of Detroit in the United States and the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
So, in this era of Britain, how should we distinguish between the upper class and the lower class? The amount of wealth is obviously an important factor, but in Britain, which has just entered the capitalist era, title, lineage and land are also very important reference standards. The entire social class from top to bottom can be divided into royal family, nobility, gentry and common people. The concept of gentleman is generally the British middle class. It covers a wide range of people and is very different from each other. To sum it up simply, the gentry class are large or small landowners who own their own real estate and make a living from real estate income, but do not have a title (they are promoted to the nobility when they get a title). The longer a family has been in charge of a territory, and can even use the name of a place as its surname, the more respected the surname will be and the higher its status. This is a legacy of the feudal tradition of noble lords in the Middle Ages. Only those who own real estate are the ones with real status. Although people who live on real estate income may be poorer than those who do business, their status is higher.
(Many place names in modern Britain, such as Salisbury, where Stonehenge is located, are the surnames of local hereditary nobles.)
To summarize it more simply, if the mainstream value of socialist countries is "labor is glorious", then the mainstream value of modern Britain is the completely opposite "labor is shameful". To evaluate the status of a family, we must look at the family's source of income. Only families where the landlords earn something for nothing by collecting rents have the highest status. Those who need to work to support themselves, unless they are officials, are all regarded as lower class, whether they are lawyers, doctors, businessmen, or farmers. Wait for someone! No matter how much money the family has, it can only be regarded as a disgraceful nouveau riche!
——Lawyers in the United States who regarded themselves as social elites in later generations were actually expelled from the ranks of "respectable people" in England at the end of the 18th century...
To put it more simply, landlords are supreme. Only those who own land are considered gentlemen. Unless they are nobles, only the landlord family is the most noble.
(Roughly speaking, it can be compared to the ancient Chinese saying "Everything is inferior, only reading is high". In the UK, it is "Only the landlord is high"...)
Of course, although this is the mainstream view, it is also very common for the wealthy upstarts to dislike the poor and love the rich, and look down on the down-and-out squires. In fact, with the emergence of the industrial revolution and the expansion of overseas colonies, the gentry class, which relied solely on real estate income, was rapidly becoming poorer than the wealthy industrial and commercial owners. Although land rent income did not decrease, the upper class The average level of daily social expenses has been rising day by day with the birth of a large number of nouveau riche, making the traditional squires begin to make ends meet in order to maintain the living standards of the upper class. If there is not much land or it is too barren, it is actually just barely enough to maintain dignity. The truly wealthy upper-class people, in addition to being large landowners at home, usually also have to obtain additional income from emerging manufacturing and trade and plantations in overseas colonies, so that they can live a luxurious life. As for their estates in England, they have been reduced to mere status symbols, no different from famous horses, fancy clothes and yachts.
The Bennet family from the village of Longbourn in Hertfordshire, although not a wealthy family, at least has a piece of land that has been passed down for many generations, and can barely be regarded as the upper class. Their relative in London, Uncle Gardiner, is a businessman. Although he is not considered poor in terms of wealth, his status in this era is still quite embarrassing because he has no land. Therefore, their house is in London. The location is also relatively marginalized, belonging to the transitional zone between "upper-class London" and "lower-class London". The public security environment in this place is pretty good, at least people are less likely to be robbed on the street, so we can't be too particular about hygiene. Outside the curtains of the house is a street filled with sewage, and a few streets away is the real slum, a place nicknamed "the crow's nest". There are homeless people wandering around every night, and some orphans looking for food in the garbage.
Even so, as long as the curtains are drawn, this place can at least allow people to sleep peacefully...
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After resting for a night at Uncle Gardiner's house, the changed souls of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, or rather the two veterans of Infinite Space, left their five "daughters" who were newcomers to Infinite Space behind without breakfast. Go out shopping and scout out future battlefield conditions. And the three old ladies in girlish skins, Mary, Kitty and Lydia, finally drank the tea they had been waiting for for a long time at the breakfast table at Uncle Gardiner's house.
——Since the second half of the 18th century, the British have generally had the habit of drinking tea, and every year they imported 2.4 million pounds of tea from the then Qing Dynasty. And the problem of exporting tea to North America led to the outbreak of the American Revolution (Boston Tea Party).
But the question is, what is this small lump of gray-green stuff placed in front of them? Doesn’t it look like a tea brick? Can I drink this?
The three old ladies in girlish skins studied these strange-looking "suspected green teas" in the clay pots for a long time, but in the end they still maintained the mentality of not eating them without getting sick, and put the small lump into a small cup. Put the lumpy gray-green stuff into a glass and drink it with boiling water, then took a small sip and almost spit it out... Oh my God! Are they still on earth? When did China have such excellent tea? It tastes worse than the worst quality tea stems! Didn't these British people just get some leaves to pretend to be? (The truth about tea leaves is even more terrifying than they imagined, so I won’t talk about it for now.)
On the other side, seeing the tangled expressions on the faces of the three "sisters" that were about to wrinkle up, Elizabeth, who was drinking hot coffee leisurely, couldn't help but admire her own foresight... However, she only dared to put sugar in the coffee. , and did not dare to add milk, because there was something wrong with the milk they drank in London - if we say, the new milk they drank in the Longbourn countryside Although fresh raw milk is a bit fishy, if it can still be eaten after boiling and adding sugar, then the milk I drink now at my uncle's house in London is simply like swill, and the taste is indescribably weird, except that it doesn't look like milk. Besides, it has all kinds of flavors. I really don’t know what kind of stuff the shady businessmen these days have added to it. It’s better not to touch it.
But what she didn't know was that the sucrose she sprinkled into the hot coffee was not actually a safe food...
Next, the bread, which is the staple food, is still as hard as ever, while the corned beef, which is a must-have for English breakfast, is even harder, and its appearance can be compared with a piece of wood. The taste of butter was also very strange. Elizabeth always had the illusion that she was eating soap, so she did not dare to touch it again after just one taste.
In addition, the eggs on the table are not scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, or fried eggs. They are broken eggs and boiled until they are medium-cooked, sprinkled with a little pepper to make a half-cooked egg sauce, and then eaten with bread... …Westerners may like this approach, but many Chinese people cannot stand it at all. Especially the pre-travel Elizabeth herself hated the half-cooked omelettes in the cafeteria when she was a student.
As a result, the only edible thing on the entire table is lettuce leaves, which are spread with some unknown strange meat sauce, and then put into slices of bread to make a sandwich... For pampered modern women, It is said that eating in this dark country of cuisine is really a technical job.
At the same time, her "sister" Jane was lying in the bedroom upstairs, enduring another, more horrific torture.
——As an adult woman, she naturally doesn’t know anything about monthly periods. But the problem is, because she traveled to another world and changed her body, she really doesn’t know her current menstrual cycle...
As a result, on the night she arrived at Uncle Gardiner's house, her period came suddenly, so heavy and violent that it stained the sheets red.
What's even more terrible is that she didn't discover Jane until this moment. Bennett's body still suffers from menstrual cramps...
To make matters worse, perhaps due to the fatigue of the journey, Jane's pain this time was particularly severe, as if she was being rolled bit by bit through the abdomen by a meat grinder. No matter how tenacious she was, she was still tortured by such non-stop torture. Gotta have some mental breakdown.
However, the real problem is not menstrual cramps. After all, this is something that modern women cannot avoid. The really most terrible thing is that he noticed Jane. After Bennet suffered "heavy bleeding" and moaned in pain, her enthusiastic Aunt Gardiner not only immediately changed her sheets and clothes, but also carefully took care of her and took a dose of "home medicine"... The effect seemed to be very significant, and Jane quickly fell asleep peacefully after taking the medicine.
Elizabeth was pleased with this at first, until she happened to notice the name label of the dose of "home medicine" after breakfast.
"...This is...opium ointment?!!" Elizabeth's eyes widened in disbelief, "...You gave Jane this?!!"
What made her even more unexpected was that in the face of her own condemnation and questioning, Aunt Gardiner actually admitted it with a smile!
"...Well, that's right, opium ointment. Is this a common medicine that every household in London has to keep? For colds, coughs, headaches, diarrhea, and... when women can't get rid of that stuff every month, You have to take a little bit of it. Don’t you have one at home? This is not good!”
Aunt Gardiner very attentively thrust an unopened box of opium cream into her hand, "... Then take some back to Jane by the way!"
Looking down at the opium ointment that was stuffed into her hand, and then looking up at Aunt Gardiner, whose face was flushed, Elizabeth's mouth twitched for a moment, and she didn't even know what to say - this aunt didn't seem to have any Realize that opium is a drug!
Then, in addition to being shocked, she couldn't help but feel a little confused: According to her aunt, she and her uncle's family should have taken opium regularly, but now it seemed that although her aunt's skin had become slightly looser, her appearance was also He was average, but his complexion was still very good, and his figure was too plump. He couldn't compare with the sallow-faced and skinny opium ghosts in history textbooks in his impression. What the hell is going on? Why did the same opium, which caused so much trouble in modern China, be regarded as an ordinary drug in Britain and not cause any problems? !
However, the historical facts are really like this. At that time, there were no serious social problems caused by opium in the whole of Europe...
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——What many modern Chinese people find unimaginable is that before the Opium War, opium in Britain was likely to be more rampant than in China under the Qing Dynasty. In major pharmacies in London, opium is generally regarded as a "panacea" to treat all kinds of diseases. From cough syrup to analgesic ointments, at least half of the medicines contain opium ingredients. What is particularly shocking is that for those women who were tired of taking care of babies, British pharmacies in this era also commonly launched a baby medicine: For busy women, a noisy baby all the time is a nightmare, right? no problem! As long as you take this medicine, you can immediately calm your children and stop disturbing you... because it contains opium. As a result, many unlucky British children became so quiet that they never cried again because they took too much opium-containing medicine. Then, because they were too quiet, they did not cry for milk in time, and just fell asleep, as if Just like the little match girl in the fairy tale, she died of starvation quietly...
However, even with the above-mentioned frightening risks, opium cream is still the drug with the largest stockpile in ordinary households in the UK. It is regarded as a commonly used medicine to treat headaches and brain fever, just like modern aspirin, and it is quite popular among people: because at that time The medical conditions are backward, and there is no clear understanding of germs and viruses, and the causes of diseases are not clear, so as long as it can make patients feel more comfortable and relieve some of their pain, it is a good medicine. In this case, the anesthetic and analgesic properties of opium are naturally of great use.
In fact, humans can survive many minor illnesses such as colds and gout by relying on their own immunity and eventually recover naturally, but the pain during the period is really unbearable. And opium can just relieve the pain during this period, allowing people to survive this difficult time. Of course, if you encounter an inflammation that your own immunity cannot deal with, then the abuse of opium will mask the symptoms and delay treatment... But the problem is that at the end of the 18th century when all antibacterial drugs had not been invented, even if the cause of the disease was diagnosed , what effective treatment plan can those Western quack doctors come up with? Let patients die from bloodletting like Washington, the founding father of the United States? Die like King Charles II of England? Or is it more disgusting and induces vomiting? Instead of tormenting dying patients like this, it would be better to let them smoke opium and live a slightly more comfortable life in the last period of their lives!
Generally speaking, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not many people in Britain and even Europe thought that opium was a bad thing, and there was even a British litterateur named De. Quincy wrote an "Ode to Opium", praising opium to the sky. Even church ministers who once accused "opium of depravity" only regarded it as a recreational drug similar to spirits and tobacco. During the Victorian era, nearly every British person took opium at some point in their lives, and taking opium was as much a part of life as drinking or smoking. On the one hand, they regard the Chinese people's enjoyment of opium as a "unique oriental custom"; on the other hand, they pour opium into their bodies without any scruples in the name of medical treatment.
However, although opium was abused in such an uncontrolled way and many lives were lost, there were not many social problems caused by opium in Europe. Even though almost all Europeans have used opium to one degree or another, the number of people who are truly addicted to the drug is extremely limited, even much less than the number of drunkards who die of excessive drinking every year... So, so After some comparisons, when it comes to the Opium War, people really have to think deeply. Is it necessary to fight this war? Is opium the problem? Or was there something wrong with Chinese society in the Qing Dynasty?
Because of this huge cognitive gap, when the Opium War broke out, the Chinese thought it was a war on drugs, but the British refused to admit it, because at that time the British really did not regard opium as a drug, but as a drug. Opium dens and coffeehouses were legal in London for much the same pastime as spirits, tobacco, tea, and coffee. Modern British people view the smoking ban of the Qing Dynasty in the same way that modern Chinese view the alcohol prohibition in the Arab world. Their first reaction is that the government of that country is restricting the people, and there must be something wrong with their minds. The Chinese think that opium dealers are heinous drug traffickers who deliberately harm people's health, but the British think that this is probably just like secretly selling alcohol in Arab countries, and it just violates the unreasonable local laws. The Chinese are simply overly nervous. , making a fuss out of a molehill.
What? Smoking too much opium can kill people, so it should be banned? So how many alcoholics die from alcoholism every year? Do we still need to ban alcohol for this?
In short, in the thinking of the British government and upper class society at that time, according to the principle of reciprocity, since the Chinese could export tea to Britain, then the British should naturally be able to export opium to China... I have to admit that the Chinese The anti-drug field seems a little too ahead of its time.
——There is a proverb: Half a step ahead of the times is a genius, but one step ahead of the times is a tragedy...
Closer to home, I was shocked to learn that my uncle’s family had been addicted to opium since childhood. Several of my cousins had been taking opium since they were 0 years old. Aunt Gardiner also bought the kind of baby medicine containing opium. , and at present, the British's main countermeasures to treat a lot of common diseases such as colds, gout, stomach problems, arthritis, etc. are after taking opium, the ignorant Elizabeth. Miss Bennet couldn't help being frightened, but she couldn't think about it. She could only stare at the opium ointment in her hand, wondering how to explain this to Jane when she woke up.
In fact, in this world, in addition to dark cuisine and opium abuse, there are many more disasters they need to face next. For example, they lose their "parents" in this world unexpectedly and bear the full malice of this cruel society alone...