Shabby Past

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Early Draft of Shabby past 1770.  8303 WORDS  

                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                       SHABBY  PAST

England in the year of seventeen seventy was a mixture of the comfortably rich and the wretched poor. She was vastly over crowded in her largest city where the almost primitive government services were being left far behind by a population explosion… Crime was rampant and poverty imbedded, her prisons were overcrowded and she was engaged in, among other wars, the American War of independence. A war she was bound to loose and thus loose her outlet for criminals who were until now being sent to the Americas to be used as convict labour or in some cases even sold as slaves. 

            London in seventeen seventy was by far the largest city in England and possibly in the world. At the beginning of the seventeen hundreds just over half a million people lived in London, by the year of seventeen seventy there was close to a million. The population more than doubled in that century and where there had previously been a series of towns and settlements along the Tames River a vast city now spread over the hills and dales covering several square miles. This Great City was a place of lavish households with many servants and was also a place where many poverty stricken homeless creatures lived on the streets with no way of even staying alive but to ignore the law and steal from the more fortunate risking many years in prison, deportation or even the death penalty.

            Seventeen Seventy was also the year that Lieutenant James Cook circumnavigated both Islands of what is now called New Zealand and instead of heading east then north towards home he, following orders, sailed west to search for or to prove the non existence of the great south land.

 

                                                           Chapter 1—1770

                                                                  The Story Begins.

The house was painted white with a trim of a dark green. It was set on the highest land on the five hundred acre property twenty miles east of London, the ground around the house was covered with emerald green grass which contrasted beautifully with the extensive white railing fences and the reddish crushed stone that covered the roads and pathways. The stables were set behind the house in a separate paddock with smaller yards for exercising and training the horses. The mid morning sun illuminated the picture perfect scene.

 A fine dust cloud followed the horse drawn carriage as it skirted the house and came to a stop at the rear entrance. A bonneted lady climbed from the vehicle and walked to the door she was led through the house to the bedroom. “Ahh Miss Kingston, you’ve come.” The master turned from where he stood beside the bed to face the mid wife as she entered the room.

“Sorry I weren’t ere sooner but two-rn babies ‘cided to be born so far this ere day ern by the looks of it you’rn ain’t far off teether,” she said as she hurriedly removed her bonnet.