The Victorians certainly enjoyed the high life much more then we sometimes give them credit for, probably based mainly around the limited teaching about the era in the school curriculums, but much of what was acceptable to them is considered repulsive or downright illegal now [freak shows anyone] Certainly photography was a much more difficult process, almost never spontaneous. History of art and photography is not something I have ever studied well enough to know why they always seemed so serious in photographs anyway, even when there isn't a dead relative in the room with them. Some of those photos are certainly freaky and several feature the 'device' for propping up the corpse, you can see it behind them, a tri-based thing. They are though a fascinating glimpse of life then and what was acceptable, even if the article doesn't really explain how wide spread the practice was.
