Those amongst us who feel that thw early 19th century was a wonderfully refiend era might be taken aback a little by this passage from Letter 36 ;-)

Mrs. B. and two young women were of the same party, except when Mrs. B. thought herself obliged to leave them to run round the room after her drunken husband. His avoidance, and her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing scene

All in the empty splendour of the Upper Rooms....

By nine o'clock my uncle, aunt, and I entered the rooms, and linked Miss Winstone on to us. Before tea it was rather a dull affair; but then the before tea did not last long, for there was only one dance, danced by four couple. Think of four couple, surrounded by about an hundred people, dancing in the Upper Rooms at Bath

I msut admit , it woud be strange to be at so sparsly populated a ball in these great rooms, don't you think....one simply couldn't miss drunken men and women chaisng each other around.

How differnet from the crowded rooms poor Catherine Morland experinced !