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Victorians Gettin' Around

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Lady Bracknell suffers the supreme indignity of having to catch a luggage train in order to follow Gwendolyn following Jack. What's that all about?    According to the Oxford University Press, a 'luggage train' is just that: 'A train for transporting goods, not travellers.' Apparently no one saw fit to take pictures of the interior of compartments on luggage trains, or at least not post them online. (Grrr.)  To ride a luggage train, options would probably include sitting on trunks or wooden crates in one of the compartments, or riding with the driver up in the engine car. (Probably illegal, but if anyone is going to bully their way into it it would be Lady B. The downside with the engine car is that it would be smoky, dirty, & loud - riding with the trunks is likelier.) Trains in the 1890's traveled around 30 miles an hour, so the luggage train would still have been relatively safe. And Hertfordshire is only about 20 miles north of London, so even at 30 mi...
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Notes about Notes (or, Funding 'the Funds')

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There are a few references to money in The Importance of Being Earnest , usually regarding whether or not one has some, generally followed by a clever quip. (Are 'food' and 'money' the 'death' and 'taxes' of Earnest /Oscar Wilde? Hmm.) Let's see if we can bring in a little clarity. Cecily Cardew's fortune is valued at '130,000 pounds in the funds.' The Funds were another name for the British national debt. When investors put their money 'in the funds' (or invested it in government stocks which paid against the national debt) they were guaranteed an annual return from the government of 3-5% (which led to the nicknames 'the three-percenters' and 'the five-percenters'). It was an extremely stable investment, and therefore very popular. People could have made more putting their money in other stocks, investment schemes, or even banks, but nothing else was as secure on the return as the funds. This means that Ceci...
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The Lords and Ladies

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The Importance of Being Earnest is riddled (lightly) with references to 'Lord' this and 'Lady' that, ' Honorable' and 'Sir' and so on. A fairly typical element of a 'comedy of manners' is that it deals with at least a few cha racters of the 'upper class', and your standard modern historical romance has invented a Duke (they're the most popular, currently) or at least an Earl. So what is all this snooty upper-crusting about? Allow me to explain. No, there is too much - let me sum up. The British aristocracy consist of peers/nobility and their families. Traditional rights included inherited positions in Parliament’s House of Lords, designation in the formal order of precedence, and the right to certain titles (or collection of titles). Also traditionally, these titles included land ownership and income from the rents on these lands. The given titles, in order of precedence, are: Duke (Duchess), Marquess (Marchioness), Earl (C...
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