Surprising they didn't plaster over the switch box I guess!
Hacks are around since the days of Edison I guess... the house where I live was wired when it was built in 1914 and it seems already the original wiring was a wild mix of conduit and cloth conduit wire direct buried in plaster, some very creative wiring runs,... sconce wiring plastered over is fairly common too. Usually they only taped the live wires and stuffed them into the wall. No big surprise then when the wall is hot...
