Life was raw

Physical pain, the great leveller, was always waiting its cue. In sickness, there were no anaesthetics, and alcohol was the best pain-killer. People had to cope philosophically, and religiously, with disease (though the English were also notorious for suicide). (…) Life was raw. Practically all youngsters were thrashed at home, at school, at work – and child labour was universal. Blood sports such as cock-fighting were hailed as many trials of skill and courage. Felons were publicly whipped, pilloried and hanged, traitors were drawn and quartered. Jacobites’ heads were spiked on Temple Bar till 1777. (…) People were not squeamish about inflicting or bearing physical pain. (…) Until 1789 women were occasionally burned alive at the stake for murdering their husbands (the crime of petty treason), though a kindly hangman might strangle them before the flames reached them. When a seven-year-old girl was hanged in Norwich for stealing a petticoat, no one protested. (…) Crowds also flocked to see convicted whores stripped to the waist and whipped. Papists and witches equally remained the targets of mass fear and reprisals.

Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century, 1982.