A Day in the Life of a 17th Century English Vagrant

It is a Thursday morning in London, England on the 27th of March, 1667.  My name is Edward Francis Little, the town vagrant. Not exactly a position of high prestige, I know, but somebody's got to fill the role, may as well be me. I slum around a sizable township just a dozen and six hours outside of London. It was a late morning as I stare around my small shack I call a home. My abode is absolutely filthy, more filthy than an average home at least. I kick various bottles of alcohol out of my way, pick up the ragged lumps of leather I call footwear, and make my way to town, hoping to scrounge up some free food one way or another. Unfortunately, men such as I, who delve into a vagrant holds-no-morals attitude are seen as the absolute scum of society. Even the common folk are uptight about everything, but the puritans are far, far worse. Self-righteous fools if I've ever seen 'em. Always crying about the immorality of drinking, fornicating, dancing, napping, laughing, everything. Even Christmas. You'd think the most religious folk ever would celebrate Christmas, for Christs sake.

But I quickly push my silent complaining out of my head. Some poor bloke was about to be executed in town square for doing something or other. I think it was murder. As I walked into town square a large crowd had already formed around the raised platform from which the noose hung. The crowd was made up of all sorts, wealthier ladies and gentlemen with corsets, waistcoats, wigs, stockings, and lead makeup slathered along their smug faces along with the lower classes, lice in their hair and body odor almost as bad as mine wafting into the air. I  pushed my way through the crowd to get a better look, which was easy enough as not to many people wanted to be anywhere near one as lowly in both appearance and repute as I. The crowd was pretty large. A lot of people usually turned up to these sorts of things, after all who doesn't like free entertainment? Even the richer types came when they didn't feel like seeing a play or patronizing the coffee houses.

They brought the poor bastard that was to be hung up onto the platform, flanked by guards on both sides and arms and legs secured in wrought iron chains. The crowd let out a cheer and shouted insults and jeers at the man. His head hung low, defeated yet still proud. They put him up above the trapdoor and fitted the noose around his neck. They gave him a moment to say a few last words like they normally do with these things, I guess its more dramatic that way. Not content to be a crowd pleaser however, he just bitterly spat out a few insults about our mothers, which is greeted by a series of boos from the crowd. The executioner pulled the lever to the trap door and the man fell a few feet by his neck. I guess the force of the fall wasn't strong enough to snap his neck, because he spent a few moments struggling, futiliy gasping for air before succumbing to choking grip of the rope. Dead with a rather grotesque expression on his face, the crowd cheered and yipped louder than ever before. "Justice" was served and the crowd dispersed soon afterwards.

I lost my appetite during the course of the "festivities", I was content to see if I could swipe some weak beer from the tavern. Walking off in that direction, I wondered if I could be the next one to swing from the hangman's noose. Welp, I doubt I would have anything better to do, so I shouldn't really worry about it.