The Water Carrier.“Any fresh and fair Spring Water here?”
This was formerly a very popular London cry, but has now become extinct, although it was long kept in vogue by reason of the old prejudices of old fashioned people, whose sympathy was with the complaints of the water-bearer, who daily vociferated in and about the environs of London, “Any fresh and fair spring water here! none of your pipe sludge?”—though their own old tubs were often not particularly nice and clean to look at, and the water was likely to receive various impurities in being carried along the streets in all weathers.—“Ah dear?” cried his customers, “Ah dear! Well, what’ll the world come to!—they won’t let poor people live at all by-and-bye—Ah dear! here they are breaking up all the roads andfootpaths again, and we shall be all under water some day or another with all their fine new fandangle goings on, but I’ll stick to the poor old lame and nearly blind water-carrier, as my old father did before me, as long as he has a pailful and I’ve a penny, and when we haven’t we must go to the workhouse together.”
This was the talk and reasoning of many honest people of that day, who preferred taxing themselves, to the daily payment of a penny and very often twopence to the water-carrier, in preference to having “Company’s water” at a fixed orpro-ratasum per annum.
The First View of the New River—From London.
This is seen immediately on coming within view of Sadler’s Wells, a place of dramatic entertainment; after manifold windings and tunnellings from its source the New River passes beneath the arch in the engraving, and forms a basin within the largewalled enclosure, from whence diverging main pipes convey the water to all parts of London. At the back of the boy angling on the wall is a public-house, with tea-gardens and skittle-ground, and known asSir Hugh Myddleton’s Head, also asDeacon’s Music Hall, which has been immortalized by Hogarth in his print ofEvening. But how changed the scene from what he represented it! To this stream, as the water nearest London favourable to sport, anglers of inferior noteusedto resort:—
We have said above, anglersusedto resort, and we have said so advisedly, as that portion of the river is now arched over to the end of Colebrooke Row.
The New River, Islington, its vicinity, and our own favourite author—Charles Lamb, are, as it were, so inseparably bound together, that we hope to be excused for occupying a little of our reader’s time withElia—His Friends—His Haunts—His Walks, and Talk(s), particularly about the neighbourhood of:—
Into the old parlour of the ancient “Sir Hugh Myddleton’s Head”—Elia, would often introduce his own, for there he would be sure to find, from its proximity to Sadler’s Wells Theatre, some play-going old crony with whom he could exchange a convival “crack,” and hear the celebrated Joe Grimaldi call for his tumbler of rum-punch; challenging Boniface to bring it to arummer! Many a gleeful hour has been spent in this once rural hostelrie. But:—“All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”
Colebrooke Cottage.
——“to Colebrooke-row, within half a stone’s throw of a cottage; endeared to me, in later years by its being the abode of ‘as much virtue as can live.’” Hone, in hisEvery-day Book, Oct. 10, 1827.
Colebrooke Row was built in 1708. Here Charles Lamb, resided with his sister Mary, from 1823 to 1826; during which period—viz, on Tuesday, the 29th March, 1825, he closed his thirty-three years’ clerkship at the East India House. Lamb very graphically describes the event in a letter to Bernard Barton, dated September 2, 1823, thus:—
“When you come Londonward, you will find me no longer in Covent Garden; I have a cottage in Colebrooke Row, Islington—a cottage, for it is detached—a white house, with six good rooms in it. The New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a moderate walking-pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; and behind is a spacious garden, with vines (I assure you), pears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, all studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great lord, never having had a house before.”
“When you come Londonward, you will find me no longer in Covent Garden; I have a cottage in Colebrooke Row, Islington—a cottage, for it is detached—a white house, with six good rooms in it. The New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a moderate walking-pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; and behind is a spacious garden, with vines (I assure you), pears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, all studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great lord, never having had a house before.”
And again, in the November following, in a letter to Robert Southey, he informs the bard, who had promised him a call, that he is “at Colebrooke Cottage, left hand coming from Sadler’s Wells.” It was here that that amiable bookworm, George Dyer, editor of the Delphin Classics, walked quietly into the New River from Charles Lamb’s door, but was soon recovered, thanks to the kind care of Miss Lamb.
The Old Queen’s Head.
The late Mr. George Daniel, of Canonbury Square, Islington, who formerly possessed the “Elizabethan Garland,” which consists of Seventy Ballads, printed between the years 1559 and 1597; a pleasing chatty writer and great snapper-up of unconsidered literary trifles, was an old friend and jolly companion of Charles Lamb’s and frequently accompanied him in his favourite walks on the banks of the New River, and to the ancient hostelries in and round-about “Merrie Islington.” At theOld Queen’s Head, they, in company with many retired citizens, and thirsty wayfarers, met, on at least one occasion, with Theodore Hook, indulged in reminiscences of bygone days, merrily puffed their long pipes of the true “Churchwarden” oryard of claytype, and quaffed nut-brown ale, out of the festivious tankard presented by a choice spirit!—one Master Cranch,—to a former host; and in the old oak parlour, too, where, according to tradition, the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh received, “full souse” in his face, the humming contents of a jolly Black Jack[10]from an affrighted clown, who, seeing clouds of tobacco-smoke curling from the knight’s nose and mouth, thought he was all on fire! fire!! fire!!!
.
Canonbury Tower.
Lamb took special delight in watching the setting sun from the top of old Canonbury Tower, until the cold night air warned him to retire. He was intimate with Goodman Symes, the then tenant-keeper of the Tower, and bailiff of the Manor, and a brother antiquary in a small way; who took pleasure in entertaining him in the antique panelled chamber where Goldsmith wrote hisTraveller, and supped frugally on buttermilk; and in pointing to a small portrait of Shakespeare, in a curiously carved gilt frame, which Lamb would look at longingly. He was never weary of toiling up and down the winding and narrow stairs of this suburban pile, and peeping into its quaint corners and cupboards, as if he expected to discover there some hitherto hidden clue to its mysterious origin.
From Islington, Charles Lamb moved to Enfield Chase Side, there he lived from 1827 to 1833, shut out almost entirely from the world, and his favourite London in particular.
Charles Lamb’s House, Enfield.
Lamb, in a merry mood, writing to Novello, in 1827, says:—
“We expect you four (as many as the table will hold without squeezing) at Mrs. Westwood’sTable d’Hôteon Thursday. You will find theWhite Houseshut up, and us moved under the wing of thePhœnix, which gives us friendly refuge. Beds for guests, marry we have none, but cleanly accommodings [sic.] at theCrown and Horse-shoes.“Yours harmonically,“C. L.“Vincentio (what, ho!) Novello, a Squire.66, Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.”
“We expect you four (as many as the table will hold without squeezing) at Mrs. Westwood’sTable d’Hôteon Thursday. You will find theWhite Houseshut up, and us moved under the wing of thePhœnix, which gives us friendly refuge. Beds for guests, marry we have none, but cleanly accommodings [sic.] at theCrown and Horse-shoes.
“Yours harmonically,“C. L.
“Vincentio (what, ho!) Novello, a Squire.66, Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.”
The Crown and Horse Shoes Inn, Enfield Chase Side.
The above represents one of the humble and wayside “Pubs” of the neighbourhood in which Charles Lamb is said to have tested the friendship of “fine” friends, by proposing to them a drink of unsophisticated porter from bright pewter pots. So did he treat Wordsworth, and that “Child of Nature” actress, Miss Frances Maria Kelly, who without hesitation entered the tavern, with:—
About the Midsummer of 1833, Charles Lamb and his sister removed to Bay-cottage, Church-street, Edmonton, kept byMr. Walden, whose wife acted as a professional nurse. There, in that poor melancholy looking tenement, the delightful humourist found the home in which he breathed his last on Saturday, the 27th December, 1834. He was buried in:—
House at Edmonton Where Charles Lamb Died.
Edmonton Church.
Time and circumstances have effectually disposed of the water-carrier, his occupation is gone, it is impossible London can ever again see a man bent beneath the weight of a yoke and two enormous pails, vociferating “Any fresh and fair Spring Water here?” But the cry of “Milk,” or the rattle of the milk-pail will never cease to be heard in our streets. There can be no reservoirs of milk, no pipes through which it flows into the houses. The more extensive the great capital becomes, the more active must be the individual exertion to carry about this article of food. The old cry was “Any Milk here?” and it was sometimes mingled with the sound of “Fresh Cheese and Cream;” and it then passed into “Milk, maids below;” and it was then shortened into “Milk below;” and was finally corrupted into “Mio,” which some wag interpreted intomi-eau—demi-eau—half water. But it must still be cried, whatever be the cry. The supply of milk to the metropolis is perhaps one of the most beautiful combinations of industry we have. The days have long since passed when Finsbury had its pleasant groves, and Clerkenwell was a village, and there were green pastures in Holborn, when St. Pancras boasted only a little church standing in meadows, and St. Martin’s was literally in the fields. Slowly but surely does the baked clay of Mr. Jerry, “the speculative builder” stride over the clover and the buttercup; and yet every family in London may be supplied with milk by eight o’clock every morning at their own doors. Where do the cows abide? They are congregated in wondrous herds in the suburbs; and though in spring-time they go out to pasture in the fields whichlie under the Hampstead and Highgate hills, or in the vales of Dulwich and Sydenham, and there crop the tender blade,—
yet for the rest of the year the coarse grass is carted to their stalls, or they devour what the breweries and distilleries cannot extract from the grain harvest. Long before “the unfolding star wakes up the shepherd” are the London cows milked; and the great wholesale vendors of the commodity, who have it consigned to them daily from more distant parts to the various railway stations in the metropolis, bear it in carts to every part of the town, and distribute it to the hundreds of shopkeepers and itinerants, who are anxiously waiting to receive it for re-distribution amongst their own customers. It is evident that a perishable commodity which everyone requires at a given hour, must be so distributed. The distribution has lost its romance. Misson, in his “Travels” published at the beginning of the last century, tells of May-games of the London milkmaids thus:—“On the first of May, and the five or six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of Silver-Plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribbons and flowers, and carry upon their heads, instead of their common milk pails. In this equipage, accompanied with some of their fellow milkmaids, and a bagpipe or fiddle, they go from door to door, dancing before the houses of their customers, in the midst of boys and girls that follow them in troops, and everybody gives them something.” Alas! the May-games and pretty young country girls have both departed, and a milk-woman has become a very unpoetical personage. There are few indeed ofmilkwomen who remain. So it is with most of the occupations that associate London with the country.
Kate Smith,The Merry Milkmaid.
Thirty years ago there appeared in the “Quarterly Review” a remarkable article on the Commissariat of London, from the pen of Dr. Andrew Wynter. In it we were told for how many miles the beasts brought annually to the metropolis would stretch, if ranged ten abreast in a seemingly interminable column. In order to convey some notion of the stupendous quantities of ale, beer, and porter consumed, Dr. Wynter fixed upon Hyde Park as his exhibition ground, and piled together all the barrels containing the malt liquor drunk by what, in 1854, was a population of two million and a half souls. He came to the conclusion that these barrels would form a thousand columns not far short of a mile in perpendicular height. And among other statistics, Dr. Wynter calculated that there were at that time about twenty thousand cows in the metropolitan and suburban dairies, someof which establishments contained five hundred cows apiece. He also noticed that, the London and suburban dairies could not alone supply the population of the metropolis, seeing that twenty thousand cows, giving on an average twelve quarts each per diem, would not yield more than two hundred and forty thousand quarts. If we suppose this quantity increased by the iron-tailed cow to three hundred thousand quarts, the allowance to each of the two millions and a half of human beings then living within the Bills of Mortality would be about a quarter of a pint per head. The “Quarterly” Reviewer, therefore, assumed that, to meet the existing demands of the tea-table, the nursery, and the kitchen, half as much again as three hundred thousand quarts was consumed annually in London. For this excess he looked to the country to supplement the efforts of the metropolis and of its suburbs as suppliers of milk, and noticed that the precious white liquid was brought daily to London from farms lying as far away as eighty miles from the metropolitan railway stations to which it was consigned.
Nothing can be more instructive and entertaining than to turn back in 1884 to facts, figures, calculations, estimates, andinferences which fitted the London of 1854. Instead of two millions and a half, the population resident at this moment within the metropolitan and city police districts amounts at least to four millions and three-quarters. The area already covered by the mighty town, which adds another big town to its entirety each successive year, is about four hundred and fifty thousand square acres, and there are more than seven hundred thousand houses to be provided for, of which it may be presumed that few can do without at least a pint of milk per diem. Assuming, however, that each member of this enormous population consumed no more than a quarter of a pint of milk—that is to say, a small tumblerful—per diem, we come to the astounding conclusion that nearly six hundred thousand quarts are wanted every day, nearly four million two hundred thousand quarts every week, and nearly two hundred and seventeen million quarts every year, to meet the demands of London. Few of us are able to fathom the meaning of two hundred million quarts of liquid until we are told what an immense reservoir, ten feet deep, it would take to hold such an amount. More intelligible are the calculations which tell us that, assuming a cow to yield ten—not twelve—quarts of milk daily, it would require nearly sixty thousand milch cows to maintain this supply from year’s end to year’s end. If these patient and valuable milkers are estimated as being worth no more than twenty-pounds apiece, they would represent in their aggregate a capital of little less than one million four hundred thousand pounds. Pure milk of a reliable character, costs five-pence per quart, and therefore, on the above basis, there is spent on milk, in the metropolis and its circumjacent districts, twelve thousand four hundred pounds per day, nearly eighty-seven thousand pounds per week, and considerably more than fourand a half million pounds per annum. There are States which have made a considerable noise in the world, whose total revenue does not reach what London spends annually in milk alone. As for the distribution of this inconceivable amount of liquid, which is delivered every morning and afternoon in small quantities all over the enormous area of bricks-and-mortar to which we have referred, it would utterly baffle the most marvellous organiser and administrator that ever existed upon earth, to extemporise human machinery for carrying on so minute and yet so gigantic a trade. Nevertheless, how smoothly and imperceptibly, not only in this one small detail, but throughout the whole of its vast and endless complications and ramifications, does the commissariat of London work! We are told, for instance, that to distribute every sixteen gallons of milk one person is necessary, and that, without counting managers, clerks, shopmen and shopwomen, nearly five thousand human beings, assisted by more than fifteen hundred horses and mules, are needed to furnish London with milk every twenty-four hours. More than a quarter of a million pounds go yearly in wages to milkmen and milkwomen with whom we are all so familiar, and who will doubtless, acquire additional importance in the eyes of those who reflect that these humble servitors are but, in Pope’s words, “parts of that stupendous whole” without whose useful, patient, and unintermitted labours the faultless machinery of the grandest camp of men that ever yet existed would instantly stand still.
Then it must not be forgotten that the milk trade exacts constant and unintermitted work from its employés—work from which neither Sundays nor holidays bring any relief—and demanding very early rising in the morning, to say nothing of the greatest personal cleanliness, and of an immense array of cans,varying from those capable of holding many gallons down to those which contain no more than half-a-pint—the milk-pail and its daily history might well attract notice from writers not inferior in grasp and imagination to Defoe or Dickens. In 1854 Dr. Wynter calculated that, as regards distribution, the commissariat of London was carried on by an army of one hundred thousand persons. In thirty years the population has all but doubled, and the machinery of distribution has been so improved that its working at present approaches very nearly to perfection. This perfection is due solely to freedom of trade and to universal competition, which so nicely adjust all the varying conditions of life, that, in serving themselves, they accomplish more than all the Governments on earth could effect by the most ingenious system of centralisation that human wit could devise.
In our neighbourhood, which, as the lodging-house-keepers advertise inThe Kingsland and Shacklewell Slopbasin, andThe Dalston Dusthole, is situate close to “Bus, Tram, and Rail,” we have a milkman who is given to Poetry! and he circulates his “verses” pretty freely in the areas and letter-boxes about once a month.—
Glorious News! Glorious News!
How F. Wilson Meets His Customers’ Views.
———
Terms Cash.
Customers can have their Milk left in cans any time after 5 a.m.Note the address☞* * *All complaints to be addressed to Mr. F. Wilson.
Tiddy Diddy Doll-loll, Loll, Loll.
This celebrated vendor of gingerbread, from his eccentricity of character, and extensive dealing in his particular way, was always hailed as the King of itinerant tradesmen. He was a constant attendant in the crowd at all metropolitan fairs, mob meetings, Lord Mayor’s shows, public executions, and all other holiday and festive gatherings! In his person he was tall, well made, and his features handsome. He affected to dress like a person of rank; white and gold lace suit of clothes, lace ruffled shirt, laced hat and feather, white stockings, with the addition of a white apron. Among his harangues to gain customers, take the following piece as a fair sample of the whole:—
“Mary, Mary, where are younow, Mary? I live, when at home, at the second house in Little diddy-ball-street, two steps under ground, with a wiscum, riscum, and a why-not. Walk in, ladies and gentlemen; my shop is on the second-floor backwards, with a brass knocker on the door, and steel steps before it. Here is your nice gingerbread, it will melt in your mouth like a red-hot brickbat, and rumble in your inside like Punch and his wheelbarrow.” He always finished his address by singing this fag end of some popular ballad:—
Hence arose his nickname “Tiddy-Doll.” In Hogarth’s print of the “Idle ’Prentice Executed at Tyburn,” Tiddy-Doll is seen holding up a gingerbread cake with his left hand, his right hand within his coat, to imply that he is speaking the truth from his heart, while describing the superiority of his wares over those of any other vendor in the fair! while he still anxiously inquires:—
His proper name was Ford, and so well known was he that, on his once being missed for a week from his usual stand in the Haymarket, on the occasion of a visit which he paid to a country fair, a “Catch penny” account of his alleged murder was printed, and sold in the streets by thousands.
Allusions to Tiddy-Doll, and sayings derived from him, have reached to our own time, thus, we still say to an over-dressed person—“You are as tawdry as Diddy-doll,” “You are quite Tiddy-doll, you look as fine as Tiddy-doll,” he or she is said to be “All Tiddy-doll,” &c.
The class of men formerly well known to the citizens of London as News-criers, or Hornmen, must now be spoken of in the past sense, as the further use of the horn was prohibited long ago by the magistracy, subject to a penalty of ten shillings for the first offence, and twenty shillings on the conviction of repeating so heinous a crime.
“Great News, Bloody Battle, Great Victory!Extraordinary Gazette!Second Edition!”
were the usual loud bellowing of fellows with stentorian lungs, accompanied by a loud blast of a long tin-horn, which announced to the delighted populace of London the martial achievements of a Marlborough, Howe, Hood, Nelson, or Wellington. A copy of the “Gazette” or newspaper they “cried” was usually affixed under the hatband, in front, and their demand was generally one shilling.
At least one of these news criers has been immortalized. In a volume of “Miscellaneous Poems,” edited by Elijah Fenton, and printed by Bernard Lintot, without date, but anterior to 1720, there are the lines that follow, to one old Bennet, whoseems to have made a great noise in the world of London during the early part of last century:—
“On the Death of Old Bennet,theNews Cryer
In our own days there has been legislation for the benefit of tender ears; and there are now penalties, with police constables to enforce them, against “All persons blowing any horn or usingany other noisy instrument, for the purpose of calling persons together, or of announcing any show or entertainment, or for the purpose of hawking, selling, distributing, or collecting any article, or of obtaining money or alms.” These are the words of the Police Act of 1839; and they are stringent enough to have nearly banished from our streets all those uncommon noises which did something to relieve the monotony of the one endless roar of the tread of feet and the rush of wheels.
Mr. Henry Mayhew, in his admirable work of “London Labour and London Poor,” writing in 1851, under the head “Of the Sellers of Second Editions,” says:—
“I believe that there is not now in existence—unless it be in a workhouse and unknown to his fellows, or engaged in some other avocation, and lost sight of by them—any one who sold ‘Second Editions’ of theCourierevening paper at the time of the Duke of York’s Walcheren expedition, at the period of the battle of the Nile, during the continuance of the Peninsular war, or even at the battle of Waterloo. There were a few old men—some of whom had been soldiers or sailors, and others who have simulated it—surviving within these five or six years and some later, who ‘worked Waterloo,’ but they were swept off, I was told, by the cholera.”
“I believe that there is not now in existence—unless it be in a workhouse and unknown to his fellows, or engaged in some other avocation, and lost sight of by them—any one who sold ‘Second Editions’ of theCourierevening paper at the time of the Duke of York’s Walcheren expedition, at the period of the battle of the Nile, during the continuance of the Peninsular war, or even at the battle of Waterloo. There were a few old men—some of whom had been soldiers or sailors, and others who have simulated it—surviving within these five or six years and some later, who ‘worked Waterloo,’ but they were swept off, I was told, by the cholera.”
Clean Your Honour’s Shoes.
“About thirty years before the cry of ‘Clean your boots, sir!’ became familiar to the ears of the present generation of Londoners,” Mr. Charles Knight informs us that:—“In one of the many courts on the north side of Fleet-street, might be seen, somewhere about the year 1820, ‘The last of the London shoe-blacks.’ One would think that he deemed himself dedicated to his profession by Nature, for he was a Negro. At the earliest dawn he crept forth from his neighbouring lodging, and planted his tripod on the quiet pavement, where he patientlystood till noon was past. He was a short, large-headed son of Africa, subject, as it would appear, to considerable variations of spirits, alternating between depression and excitement, as the gains of the day presented to him the chance of having a few pence to recreate himself beyond what he should carry home to his wife and children. For he had a wife and children, this last representative of a falling trade; and two or three little woolly-headeddécrotteursnestled around him when he was idle, or assisted in taking off the roughest of the dirt when he had more than one client. He watched, with a melancholy eye, the gradual improvement of the streets; for during some twenty or thirty years he had beheld all the world combining to ruin him. He saw the foot pavements widening; the large flag-stones carefully laid down; the loose and broken piece, which discharged a slushy shower on the unwary foot, and known to him and London chairmen as a ‘Beau-trap’[11]instantly removed: he saw the kennels diligently cleansed, and the drains widened: he saw experiment upon experiment made in the repair of the carriage-way, and the holes, which were to him as the ‘old familiar faces’ which he loved, filled up with a haste that appeared quite unnecessary, if not insulting. One solitary country shopkeeper, who had come to London once a year during a long life, clung to our sable friend; for he was the only one of the fraternity that he could find remaining, in his walk from Charing-cross to Cheapside.”
Hone, in “The Table Book,” 1827, under an article on the Old London cries has:—“A Shoeblack; A boy, with a small basket beside him, brushes a shoe on a stone, and addresses himself to a wigged beau, who carries his cocked hat under his left arm, with a crooked-headed walking stick in his left hand, as was the fashion among the dandies of old times. I recollect shoeblacks formerly at the corner of almost every street, especially in great thoroughfares. There were several every morning on the steps of St. Andrew’s church, Holborn, till late in the forenoon. But the greatest exhibition of these artists was on the site of Finsbury-square, when it was an open field, and a depository for the stones used in paving and street-masonry. There, a whole army of shoeblacks intercepted the citizens and their clerks on their way from Islington and Hoxton to the counting-houses and shops in the city, with ‘Shoeblack, your honour! Black your shoes, sir!’”
Each of them had a large, old tin-kettle, containing his apparatus, viz:—a capacious pipkin, or other large earthen-pot, containing the blacking, which was made of ivory-black, the coarsest moist sugar, and pure water with a little vinegar—a knife, two or three brushes, and an old wig. The old wig was an indispensable requisite to a shoeblack; it whisked away the dust, or thoroughly wiped off the wet dirt, which his knife and brushes could not entirely detach; a rag tied to the end of a stick smeared his viscid blacking on the shoe, and if the blacking was “real japan,” it shone. The old experienced shoe-wearers preferred an oleaginous, lustreless blacking. A more liquid blacking, which took a polish from the brush, was of later use and invention. Nobody at that time wore boots except on horseback; and everybody wore breeches and stockings:pantaloons, or trousers, were unheard of. The old shoeblacks operated on the shoes while they were on the feet, and so dexterously as not to soil the fine white cotton stocking, which was at that time the extreme of fashion, or to smear the buckles, which were universally worn. Latterly, you were accommodated with an old pair of shoes to stand in, and the yesterday’s paper to read, while your shoes were cleaning and polishing, and your buckles were whitened and brushed. When shoestrings first came into vogue, the Prince of Wales (Geo. IV.) appeared with them in his shoes, when immediately a deputation from the buckle-makers of Birmingham presented a petition to his Royal Highness to resume the wearing of buckles, which was good-naturedly complied with. Yet, in a short time, shoestrings entirely superseded buckles. The first incursion on the shoeblacks was by the makers of “Patent Cake Blacking” on sticks formed with a handle, like a small battledoor; they suffered a more fearful invasion from the makers of liquid blacking in bottles. Soon afterwards, when “Day and Martin” manufactured thene plus ultraof blacking, private shoeblacking became general, public shoeblacks rapidly disappeared, and in [1827] they became extinct. The last shoeblack that I remember in London sat under the covered entrance of Red Lion-court, Fleet-street within the last six years. This unfortunate, “The Last of the London Shoeblacks”—was probably the “short, large headed son of Africa” alluded to by Charles Knight, under the heading of “Clean your honour’s shoes,” in his “History of London.”
In 1851, some gentlemen connected with the Ragged Schools determined to revive the brotherhood of boot cleaners for the convenience of the foreign visitors to the Exhibition, andcommenced the experiment by sending out five boys in the now well-known red uniform. The scheme succeeded beyond expection; the boys were patronized by natives as well as aliens, and the Shoeblack Society and its brigade were regularly organized. During the exhibition season, about twenty-five boys were constantly employed, and cleaned no less than 100,000 pairs of boots. The receipts of the brigade during its first year amounted to £656. Since that time, thanks to the combination of discipline and liberality, the Shoeblack Society has gone on and prospered, and proved the Parent of other Societies. Every district in London now has its corps of shoeblacks, in every variety of uniform, and while the number of boys has increased from tens to hundreds, their earnings have increased from hundreds to thousands. Numbers of London waifs and strays have been rescued from idleness and crime. The Ragged School Union, and Shoeblack Brigades, therefore hold a prominent place among the indirectly preventive agencies for the suppression of crime: for since ignorance is generally the parent of vice, any means of securing the benefits of education to those who are hopelessly deprived of it, must operate in favour of the well-being of society.
The Hearth-Stone Merchant.
“Hearth-stones! Do you want any hearth-stones? Now, my maids, here’s your right sort—reg’lar good’uns, and no mistake—vorth two o’your shop harticles, and at half the price. Now my pretty von, lay out atanner, and charge your missus abob—and no cheating neither! the cook has always a right to make her market penny and to assist a poor cove like me in the bargain.
The Flying Stationer, otherwise Patterer.
“Now my kind-hearted, haffectionated and wery ready-money Christian-hearted, pious and hinfidel customers, here you have the last speech and dying vords, life, character, and behaviour of the hunfortunate malefactor that vas hexecuted this morning hopposit the Debtor’s door in the Hold Bailey! together with a full confession of the hoffence vherevith he vos found guilty before a hupright Judge and a wery himpartial Jury! Here you have likewise a copy of a most affecting letter, written by the criminal in the condemned cell the night afore hexecution to his hinnocent vife and hunoffending babbies, vith a copy of werses consarning the same—all for the small charge of von halfpenny. Yes, my friends, von halfpenny buys the werses as follows—von arter the ’tother:—
JAMES—or as he was popularly called, “Jemmy,” or, “Old Jemmy” Catnach, (Kat-nak,) late of the Seven Dials, London, printer and publisher of ballads, battledores, lotteries, primers, &c., and whose name is ever associated with the literature of the streets, was the son of John Catnach, a printer, of Alnwick, an ancient borough, market town, and parish of Northumberland, where he was born on August 18th, 1792.
At the time Jemmy Catnach commenced business in Seven Dials it took all the prudence and tact which he could command to maintain his position, as at that time “Johnny” Pitts,[12]of the Toy and Marble Warehouse, No. 6, Great St. Andrew-street, was the acknowledged and established printer of street literature for the “Dials” district; therefore, as may be easily imagined, a powerful rivalry and vindictive jealousy soon arose between these “two of a trade”—most especially on the part of “Old Mother” Pitts, who is described as being a coarse and vulgar-minded personage, and as having originally followed the trade of a bumboat woman at Portsmouth: she “wowed wengeance” against the young fellow in the court for daring to set up in their business, and also spoke of him as a young “Catsnatch,” “Catblock,” “Cut-throat;” many other opprobrious terms being also freely given to the new comer. Pitts’ staff of “bards” were duly cautioned of the consequences which would inevitably follow should they dare to write a line for Catnach—the newcovein the court. The injunction was for a time obeyed, but the “Seven Bards of the Seven Dials” soon found it notonly convenient, but also more profitable to sell copies of their effusions to both sides at the same time, and by keeping their council they avoided detection, as each printer accused the other of buying an early sold copy, and then reprinting it off with the utmost speed, and which was in reality often the case, as “Both Houses” had emissaries on the constant look-out for any new production suitable for street-sale. Now, although this style of “double dealing” and competition tended much to lessen the cost price to the “middle-man,” or vendor, the public in this case did not get any of the reduction, as a penny broadside was still a penny, and a quarter-sheet still a halfpenny to them, the “street-patterer” obtaining the whole of the reduction as extra profit.
The feud existing between these rival publishers, who have been somewhat aptly designated as the Colburn and Bentley of the “paper” trade, never abated, but, on the contrary, increased in acrimony of temper until at last not being content to vilify each other by words alone, they resorted to printing off virulent lampoons, in which Catnach never failed to let the world know that “Old Mother Pitts” had been formerly a bumboat woman, while the Pitts’ party announced that—