Beer Lane- William Hogarth.

Note the merry, apple-cheeked faces of the industrious beer-drinkers.

Gin Lane- William Hogarth.

Pity the wretched lives of the sub-human gin-drinkers.

that's funny Eddie.....heheheh.....

The Reward of Cruelty- William Hogarth

An executed criminal on the disecting table.

oh, man, that's sick....hehehehe

Plate 8 of "A Rake's Progress"- William Hogarth

Tom Rakewell ends up chained, destitute and naked in Bedlam. Note the visiting ladies in the background- a trip round the loony-bin was the fashionable entertainment of the day.

Plate 6 of "A Harlot's Progress"- William Hogarth

Meg's coffin provides the table around and on which a group of fellow tarts frolic and ply for trade.

This guy's twisted - I heard of a Rake's Progress as I have done a stint or two in Bedlam.....(Royal Maudsley & Bethlehem Hospital)

You have to view the whole series of "A Rake's Progress" and "A Harlot's Progress" to get the full narrative effect of the characters' decline and fall.

Hard-hitting social satire was Hogarth's stock in trade. Gin (see "Gin Lane", above), for example, was the crack cocaine of its day.

Oddly, I grew up near the Hogarth roundabout of the M4 motorway in Chiswick, West London and also attended A-Level classes at the Hogarth House annexe of Chiswick Polytechnic.