Hey YouTube, Jim here! Welcome to Top 10 Archive! Every era has something strange or
creepy about it, even our own. But the Victorian Era in particular has always fascinated many.
Between the freakshows, mummies, and unsolved murder mysteries, there's no lack of content to
dig into involving this time period. So buckle up as we take a trip back to learn about the Top 10
Creepy Aspects of Victorian Life! 10. Jack the Ripper
Some of you may know the story of Jack the Ripper, but for those of you who don't, he was
an unidentified serial killer that still baffles historians to this day. All of his victims were
women, who happened to be out in the street late at night. Officially, only 5 victims have been
dubbed Jack the Ripper victims, while another 6 could not be directly attributed to him. He even
sent a letter to the police, explaining to them he found it funny that they would never catch him,
and even sent twisted gifts, like one of the victims' kidneys. All of Jack the Ripper's victims
had their throats cut from left to right, with some of their organs missing as well.
9. Freak shows Dubbed Freak Shows, these forms of entertainment
were very popular during this time period. People would flock to these shows just to get a view of
these unusual examples of human lifestyles. They had to pay a premium to enter, yet the "freaks",
as they were called, were often vastly underpaid and treated poorly. Most of the people in the show
were people with deformities, either born that way or by accident. The acts consisted of people with
extra and lost limbs, women with facial hair, and conjoined twins. Some of these deformities
went even further, and they were named after what they looked like, "frogman" or "human cannonball."
8. Post Mortem Photography Perhaps not that weird since a library
of autopsy photos is just a click away, but back then, taking pictures of your dead loved ones
wasn't seen as unusual at all. As photography was still in its infancy, it was quite expensive
to take a photograph. Because of this, many poor people had never taken a photo before. Upon death,
it was customary for the family to pitch in money to have a picture taken, oftentimes with the
whole family posing with the dead relative. Dead children were often donned in their Sunday best,
while being propped up on pillows, to give the impression that they are still alive. The elderly
would be held upright by the waist, using what is now known as a post mortem photography stand.
7. Disease Disease in this era was not uncommon,
and there was very little you could do if you got sick. Have a cough? Have you tried blood-letting?
Finger hurt? Have you tried cutting it off? Headache? Have you tried punching yourself in
the face? And if you were one of the unlucky ones to get a disease that required surgery,
you would have to go to the hospital, where they performed surgery on you while you were still wide
awake. You heard right, you would be fully present during the operation because there was no modern
medicine to put you under, nor were there adequate pain killers. So anything that required them,
like childbirth or dental work, people had to bite through the pain while fully conscious.
6. Chimney Sweeping Children Because of the lack of education and
proper respirators, chimney sweeping had become a very dangerous job, although it needed to be done,
since it was so high in demand. There were too few people and too many chimneys, so
people started to hire younger boys, who they dubbed climbing boys. Shortly after,
the children became the preferred people to do the job. Due to their small size, they could fit
into the chimney better than any adult. These boys were either poor or lived in orphanages,
and sometimes they were even kidnapped or sold and made to work for the master chimney sweepers.
These boys had to climb up the chimney with a long flat brush held above their heads to clean out the
chimneys, some of them were as young as 4 years old. In 1788, a bill was passed to stop boys under
the age of 8 from becoming an apprentice. For more than 20 years the bill went largely ignored,
until the early 1800's when a new brush was invented that would ultimately replace the boys.
5. Angel Meadow
Angel Meadow sounds like a beautiful place - and it was - until it became one of the most
savage slums in the Era, ultimately being nicknamed “Hell on Earth.” The only safe
way to really see this meadow was from the carriage of a train. It had become a place
Irish immigrants could go, or a refugee. However, that meant there were 30,000 people shoved into 1
square mile. Illegal fights were arranged there while hundreds watched, along with random fires,
looting, and killing. It was even reported that some of the refugees would catch
cats to eat due to the low food source, while children were largely left to fend for themselves.
4. Hygiene Victorian times were not about smelling good,
considering people did not bathe as often as they should have, nor did they have the products or
really care about their hygiene. It is one of the reasons disease rampaged throughout this
time. People would wash their clothes normally, but to get stains out they would use charcoal
or kerosene, sometimes milk was even used to get certain odors out of the clothes. What was
used when they needed to bleach their clothing? They'd often use their own urine! Toothbrushes and
toothpaste were a thing in this era, but only the upper class and middle-class people could afford
them, while the lower class people had to find alternatives. Sometimes they would use celery as
a toothbrush, while they made their toothpaste out of items found in their home. There were toilets,
but no plumbing, their waste dropped down into a cesspool, which would eventually
fill up and be taken away by people who would then sell the waste to farmers as fertilizer.
3. Polluted Water Polluted water may not sound strange to you, since
you know, places like Flint, Michigan exist. But Victorian water was polluted because of the lack
of knowledge, specifically, the age-old problem of where to put human waste. What we're talking
about specifically became known as “The Great Stink’ because it was, well, perhaps the greatest
stink humans have created. In Central London in 1858, their river was used as the sewage system,
which in turn caused a huge stink when the weather was particularly hot. They put other things in the
river as well, including industrial waste, animal waste, and even the dead. Dumping all of their
waste into the river came back to haunt them, the smell getting so bad it caused people to vomit,
and the contamination leached back into their drinking supply, killing 10's of thousands of
people with cholera outbreaks. 2. Mummies for Medicine
Yeah, people used to use mummies for medicine, which is part of the reason we have so few
mummies today. It was believed that the remains of a human could cure anything from a headache
to a case of epilepsy, and things such as bones, blood, and fat were used as remedies.
There was a thing that was known as mummy powder, which is exactly what it sounds like.
They would put the powder into anything, like mixing it into their drink or seasoning their
food with it. It was also very common to hold "Mummy Unwrapping Parties", where rich people
would purchase a mummy and hold a party where participants would gather to watch the unraveling.
1. Electropathy This was yet another way people
thought they could cure sickness, by shocking it out of you. It was thought up when Luigi Galvani
was experimenting with a frog and electricity. Luigi found that when he pressed two different
kinds of metal to the frog, its legs would jump, Luigi thought the frog's legs moved because of
"animal electricity". Shortly after, people started wondering how electricity could
affect the human body, which then led to people believing it could cure you of your sickness,
and was used for many things like liver problems, stomach aches, and even schizophrenia.
Thanks for watching! I don’t know, the Victorian Era sounds like a pretty lousy time to be alive.
What do you think? Would you have survived well in that time period? Let us know in
the comments! Before you go on to watch other videos from us, please be sure to subscribe,
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