(Luke Tyerman, 1866).
The manner of high life being frivolous and depraved, no wonder that servants were neither wiser nor better than their employers. Complaints were universal of the arrogance, dishonesty, laziness, and luxury of valets and footmen; whilst charges against pert, mercenary, intriguing women servants were equally loud and numerous.
Such a condition of the natural character was a fruitful soil for superstition and credulity. Almost every old mansion was ghost-haunted, and almost every parish was tormented by a witch. Fortune-telling was a common and thriving occupation and quack doctors were, if possible, still more numerous than astrologers.
(Luke Tyerman, 1866).