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1881 Census: Residents of Sheffield Union Workhouse


RichardB

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Guest tsavo

That's an amazing doccument, Richard. My wife & I have been trying to work out what the difference was between a lunatic, an idiot and an imbecile and what system they used to categorize the inmates? Don't worry about forgetting where you got it from, it was well worth the effort.

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That's an amazing doccument, Richard. My wife & I have been trying to work out what the difference was between a lunatic, an idiot and an imbecile and what system they used to categorize the inmates? Don't worry about forgetting where you got it from, it was well worth the effort.

There were four categories lunatic, idiot, imbecile and cretin; my wife qualifies for one of them ! Don't shoot me, under-active thyroid at that time got you classified as a cretin. So I've read somewhere. She's also reduced in height somewhat over the years, she was only ever 5 foot One inch, 4 feet eleven inches tall made you a dwarf (achdropriasiac, excuse my spelling) also .... at just under 6 foot and nineteeen stone, I never had those labels applied to me; plenty of others though - mainly YFB and pie-based !

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Again, no idea where I found this. Sorry.

Time to bring this one back to the top of the heap for a while.

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