… streets became more regular, better paved, and better lit. 10 From the 1690s movements including the Societies for the Reformation of Manners sought to police street behaviour – including swearing and prostitution. 11 ‘Highway robbery’ …
… whose ‘brains are in a perpetual source-tub’. 15 The orthodox narrative for the early eighteenth century is one of a ‘reformation of manners’, manifested in rising politeness, moderation and sobriety, particularly associated with the …
… characters indulge in gaming without any consequences, Susanna Centlivre’s Gamester (1705) suggests the possible reformation of gamblers. The necessity of reforming gamblers appears more clearly from the middle of the eighteenth …