The People of the Abyss

[smezenen]

Harry,
You refuse to believe that people could have and did sleep hanging over a rope. I have sited at least three written accounts but you discount them becouse there is no photo evidence. Acording to your way of thinking; prehistoric man didnt use fire, vikings didnt raid Europe, Hanabal didnt march an army over the Alps, Columbus didnt sail the atlantic, Anne Boleyn was not beheaded, and the Mexican army didnt attack the Alamo becouse there are no photographs to prove it. I have given evidence alibit not photographic that this method of sleeping was in fact used but you sir have given no evidence that it was not. If we are only to trust photographic evidence then every thing prior to Thomas Wedgwoods sun pictures in 1800 never occured or existed.

[harry]

Sam,
Iv'e seen many photos of building interiors from that period,and I'm sure one of a line of people sleeping on a rope would have been a photographers dream,and well worth the effort of setting up equipment.No doubt,another signal that the scene wasn't there to be photograped.
Philip,
One account of fiction,purporting to be the truth,is as harmful as a dozen.It shows the person guilty of distorting the truth.
But look,just for this idiot's sake,and supposing a rope could be used for supporting a line of sleeping people,give me a lesson on how.Type of rope,height of rope,sleeping positions,effect on others of movement,length of sleep periods,effect of rope on sagging bodies etc.In fact a complete rundown on how the human body would react and cope in such situations,and bearing in mind the type of people involved,and the numbers.
I'm interested,and I could be converted.Who knows.It will have to be mighty persuasive though.as it's not wholly for my benefit,but also for a sleep expert I have got interested.

[George Hutchinson]

Phillip,
I do not post for favours.I thought though you might have commented on the Victoria Cross episode,which clearly shows a lack of truthfulness.Still your decision to shut up rather than put up is noted.

No, Harry, you're wrong - but then why does that not surprise me?

You have shown yourself on this thread to be impervious to rationale and any degree of reason or explanation on this subject again and again.

I am not commenting further not because I can't, but because I have and we're all wasting our breath on something that is ultimately not important in the great scheme of things.

I don't have to respond to one account of fiction compared to reams of first-hand testimony and primary source material (what makes 'official' more reliable, Harry?) because I'm not the one looking like an idiot here. I think it's fairly evident to all the other posters that it what is actually happening.

PHILIP

[Mike Covell]

"The Photographers are the men ......" you get the picture!

[Nothing to see]

I've not seen any, NTS, but then a wall with a bit of rope on it might not have been too interesting to photograph - even assuming the ropes were permanently attached to the walls, which I don't think they were.

Yeah well, I guess you're quite right. To them it would mean nothing. Still, a pity. But there you go.

[Sam Flynn]

Sam, are there really no photos of these doss houses with the ropes, in situ? At all?

I've not seen any, NTS, but then a wall with a bit of rope on it might not have been too interesting to photograph - even assuming the ropes were permanently attached to the walls, which I don't think they were.

[Nothing to see]

Practically everything else was not photographed, and what photos we have of that period tended to be either studio-bound or taken outdoors, for practical reasons (the use of primitive flash-lighting in a confined space being one of them, I'd have thought). The majority of photographic "models" would also have been awake at the time, or at least unlikely to rip your face off if you disturbed their slumbers after a 16 hour slog down at the docks.

Sam, are there really no photos of these doss houses with the ropes, in situ? At all? Not the people lying on them but the inside with the ropes.

[Sam Flynn]

If the method was so ordinary and widespread,why are there no photos,Practically everything else was photographed.

Practically everything else was not photographed, and what photos we have of that period tended to be either studio-bound or taken outdoors, for practical reasons (the use of primitive flash-lighting in a confined space being one of them, I'd have thought). The majority of photographic "models" would also have been awake at the time, or at least unlikely to rip your face off if you disturbed their slumbers after a 16 hour slog down at the docks.

[Robert]

Kingsley's "Alton Locke" has a reference, but it's called a lie down :



Werry well ; then you must keep moving all night continually, whereby you avoids
the hact ; or else you goes to a twopenny -rope shop and gets a lie down. ...

[Nothing to see]

I guess I say again why is it so hard for anyone to accept that's how these people slept?

It's Oct/Nov. Not freezing cold but cold enough. All the warmth from the bodies around you. Wouldn't you prefer that to Jack?

[harry]

Nothing to see has raised a valid point.If the method was so ordinary and widespread,why are there no photos,Practically everything else was photographed.
Mike,
Cantankerous.Why?Because you cannot prove me wrong.I refuse to follow the crowd untill someone,anyone ,offers something other than mere claims.And no I do not like or dislike Jack London.I go by his and others writings.Why is no one but me disputing the truth of his claim regarding the Victoria Cross holder.A man he claims he met many years after that person had died.And if he is untruthful about that,and I have proved he was,why believe anything else he writes?

[Mike Covell]

Some posters on Phrases.org have discussed this issue before...

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/28/messages/179.html

[Sam Flynn]

I've often seen commuters dozing, upright, on a tube-train whilst holding on with one hand to a handle dangling from the ceiling. If one can take a standing nap whilst clinging on to one of those, I'm sure that a rope tucked under the armpit(s) would offer somewhat better support.

[Fisherman]

NTS writes:

" Fisherman, neither you nor I come from that era. But you can't afford a bed, that's how you slept."

"THAT´S" how you slept, NTS?
HOW´S how you slept?
I am saying that I find it hard to believe that people could manage sleeping standing up, leaning on a rope, and I wonder whether there is substantiation for this. What I don´t find hard to believe is that a rope may have functioned as a support for people sleeping together on a bench - plus I know that this has been portrayed in both literature and film.

The best,
Fisherman

[Nothing to see]

Well no pictures but i have found 3 pretty good references to the Victorian era practice of "sleeping over a rope" one is Magic Skin by Honoré de Balzac writen in 1831 and George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London written in 1933, thats almost 100 years apart so this may not be so uncommon a practice. Also Charles Dickens writes about the Twopenny Rope in The Pickwick Papers written in 1837 in chapter 16 he describes it like this,
So now they has two ropes, 'bout six foot apart, and three from the floor, which goes right down the room; and the beds are made of slips of coarse sacking, Stretched across 'em.' At six o'clock every mornin' they let's go the ropes at one end, and down falls the lodgers.

Photos would be terrific if someone could find any but I don't need them to tell me that's how these people lived. Fisherman, neither you nor I come from that era. But you can't afford a bed, that's how you slept.

If you have info that says that's wrong, please share.