This podcast discusses the history of perfume and its impact on health, dating back to the 1700s when complaints about women using perfume first arose.
Samuel Johnson wrote to his friend Boswell defending himself against the criticism he received in the newspapers for attending executions, stating that he does not believe that it implies a hardness of heart or cruelty of disposition; he believed that "a hanging well carried out" was not a terrible spectacle to witness.
The views on public execution differ; one 18th-century writer observed that criminals appear composed and respectful during execution, while another 18th-century writer suggested that physical pain and agony of mind of criminals during execution cause the spectators to sympathize.
People who believe that public executions went away because they no longer served the interest of the authorities, argue that the state eventually took the religion out of the religious ritual destabilizing the whole thing and leaving nothing left for people to enjoy it for curiosity reasons or sadistic reasons or fill in the blank reasons.