The Jakes Or Tinder?

(Deborah Frazier, from The Porcelain God by Julie Horan 1996); 

The Jakes Or Tinder?

One thing leads to another, directly or indirectly, this is usually the way it is in research. Until now, I believed the popular opinion that scrap cloth went to cleaning the house and items in the house and then was used as tinder. But my research into what was used in the 18^th century to cleanse or wipe one’s self after defecating has thrown new light on tow rag used as tinder. Now undoubtedly tow rag was used as tinder, it was charred in the house fire and then extinguished in the tinderbox. But now I see that not all the rag went to tinder use, because some of it had to be used in the Jakes.

Not just strips of cloth were used. Out in the wilderness anything that could be used was used. Sticks, rocks, moss, leaves of trees and plants, and even sea shells. From early times apparently the Romans used either sponge or cloth on the end of a stick. But this of course was in their toilets, not in the woods. Common sense will dictate what to use when away from home, the more comfortable items would of course be first choice, such as the soft large leaves of plants. If these were not available, then the woodsrunner would have looked for the next best thing.

Poorer families reportedly used fresh corn cobs. Some they say were hung on a piece of cordage for repeated use (!). Others more fortunate kept a box of corn cobs in the outhouse.

For my use in historical trekking, I carry some rolls of cloth in a cloth bag, but to be practicle, there is no reason why we can’t also carry modern toilet roll in a cloth bag.

I would like to wish you all happy and safe….ah…trekking.
Take care!

18th Century Travel Commode.

18^th century toilet.

 Sir William Cornwallis kept “pamphlets and lying-stories and two-penny poets” in his privy to be read and then used (Spufford, 1981, p. 48-49).

http://www.nwta.com/Spy/fall99/chapbooks.html

We know from archaeological evidence that in some areas during the Age of Insufficient Light (qv) that mosses were used. (The best known of these is the Coppergate dig in York which was later commercialised into the Yorvik Viking Centre) We can assume that leaves and other plant material were commonly used everywhere.
A poster to one of the threads on this subject had apparently read of scraps of cloth having been found by archaeologists. It is not known whether these were used only once, or whether they were washed and re-used. Nor is it known how common this practice was, or even if the cloths were definitely used for that purpose on a regular basis.
The third possibility is washing. It is known that Romans had used a sponge on a stick for their ablutions in that region, and it does not seem too far fetched to assume that this custom was also practiced in the Middle Ages. It may be that this is what the cloths referred to above were for.
---- CG Luxford (hicgl@bris.ac.uk)
Cacata carta (Catullus 36.1).]

http://www.shm-qa.net/shm-p2.html

The rich used wool or hemp for ablution while the poor used grass, stone or sand or water depending upon the country and weather conditions or social customs.

http://www.sulabhtoiletmuseum.org/old/pg02.htm

. Strips of torn fabric were used as toilet paper. (c.590– c.1500)http://lib.oup.com.au/secondary/history/Big_Ideas_History/8/03_SAL_BAH8_SB_71097_SPREADS_RGB.pdf

MASON86 lists “1 Toilet Cloth;”

http://www.gunstonhall.org/mansion/room_use_study/textiles.html

"I know a gentleman who was such a good manager of his time that he would not even lose the small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, off which he tore gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained and I recommend you to follow his example . . . ."

—Lord Chesterfield to his son in the 18th century

http://wordinfo.info/unit/3949/ip:6/il:T

Bathroom. History of the home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoVg5a1kps&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLE42FE815C9D0EF51

Elm Cottage outhouse in Wychwood Forest.

Thoughts on 18th Century food packaging.

I started off researching packaging for chocolate, and really did not get very far. This led me to wonder about other forms of food packaging, and I did not get far there either! So I decided to apply my past experimental archaeology experience and some common sense, and decided, at least for now, that there really are not many choices.
Paper bags were not a commercial product until the late 18th century to 19th century, though in 1743, John Bartram with a supply of paper from London, did make his own paper bags, both large and small to hold seeds (New Green World, Josephine Herbst, page 71). Of course at this time paper was made from flax, not from wood as it is today, and later they made paper from old linen rags. So I guess there is a precedent for using paper.

Leather and cloth food bags plus a couple of glass bottles. Pottery was also used, but it tends to be too heavy for packing on foot. Glass although fragile, can be wrapped in cloth or covered in leather.

Then there are linen bags and leather pouches, both of which have been used in a variety of sizes for centuries for carrying and storing foods. We also know that items intended originally for one use, were often used for for others once empty. such as bottles. Wine and spirit bottles could be used for carrying water or even cooking oil (Encyclopedia Of The American Revolution).
One chap found that a powder horn he had found did not contain gunpowder...

"Found my powder horn was filled with spirits and got drunk as a wheel barrow.”
Constant Belcher of Elizabethtown 1776.
http://greensleeves.typepad.com/berkshires/ogden_genealogy/

This cloth sack was used for provisions in a 1910 expedition and contains cocoa powder. Now I realise that 1910 is 200 years too late for us, but I figure if it was still in use two hundred years later, then it was probably a favoured method for carrying food provisions in the earlier period. Flour was carried in cloth sacks, so why not cocoa powder.

Spices could be carried in a small or large bottle, or they could have been contained in some folded paper, as in perhaps an envelope. This in turn could be secured in a cloth bag.

This I would have taken for a replica, but the tag sais it is medieval period and it is in the museum of London.

 These three images of drawstring pouches are from Diderot's 18th century encyclopedia.