The
French traveller Louis Simond observed the English behaving abominably in the early nineteenth century – although in contrast to the Icelanders of the sixteenth century they had the good grace to go to
the chamber pot rather than have it brought to where they sat.
There are some customs here not quite consistent with the scrupulous
delicacy of which the English pique themselves… Will it be credited, that, in a
corner of the very dining-room is a certain convenient piece of furniture to be
used by anybody who wants it. The operation is performed very deliberately and
undisguisedly, as a matter of course, and occasions no interruption of the
conversation.
(Louis Simond – A Journal of a Tour in Great
Britain 1810)
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