Our experience with daylight savings time distorts the comparison. Without DST, could your local winter dark be pushed back to 6pm? And throw in a bad 6 that looks like an 8 and then someone miscopied and now you’re reading a typo that persisted.

And that’s assuming the locals were particularly punctual and hadn’t let the town clock run into disrepair and keep time poorly. Or maybe there were still enough people out and about from 5-8 and houses with lamps lit up that carrying your own wasn’t necessary until 8. There’s a lot of variables for each city, town, and village.