One class of literature which the late Jemmy Catnach made almost his own, was children’s farthing and halfpenny books. Among the great many that he published we select, from our own private collection, the following as a fair sample:—“The Tragical Death of an Apple Pie,” “The House that Jack Built,” “Jumping Joan,” “The Butterflies Ball and Grasshoppers’ Feast,” “Jerry Diddle and his Fiddle,” “Nurse Love-Child’s Gift,” “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin,” “The Cries of London,” “Simple Simon,” “Jacky Jingle and Suky Shingle,” and—“Here you have just prin—ted and pub—lish—ed, and a—dor—ned with eight beau—ti—ful and ele—gantly engraved embellish—ments, and for the low charge of onefarden—Yes! onefardenbuys.”
NURSERY RHYMES.
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J. Catnach, Printer, 2, Monmouth Court, 7 Dials.
THE CRIES OF LONDON.
Cherries.
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Oranges.
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Milk below.
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Crumpling Codlings.
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Filberts.
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Clothes Pegs, Props, or Lines.
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Sweep.
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Peas and Beans.
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Young Lambs to Sell.
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Strawberries.
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London:Printed by J. Catnach, 2, MonmouthCourt, 7 Dials.
“Songs! Songs! Songs! Beautiful songs! Love songs; Newest songs! Old songs! Popular songs! Songs,Three Yards a Penny!” was a “standing dish” at the “Catnach Press,” and Catnach was the Leo X. of street publishers. And it is said that he at one time kept a fiddler on the premises, and that he used to sit receiving ballad writers and singers, and judging of the merits of any production which was brought to him, by having it sung then and there to some popular air played by his own fiddler, and so that the ballad-singer should be enabled to start at once, not only with the new song, but also the tune to which it was adapted. His broad-sheets contain all sorts of songs and ballads, for he had a most catholic taste, and introduced the custom of taking from any writer, living or dead, whatever he fancied, and printing it side by side with the productions of his own clients.
Catnach, towards the latter part of his time and in his threefold capacity of publisher, compositor, and poet, was in the habit of taking things very easy, and always appeared to the best advantage when in his printing office, or stationed behind the ricketty counter which for a number of years had done good service in the shop in Monmouth-court. In this uncongenial atmosphere, where the rays of the sun are seldom or never seen, Jemmy was as happy as a prince. “A poor man’s home is his castle,” so says an old proverb, and no one could have been prouder than he was when despatching to almost every town in the kingdom some specialty in the printing department. He naturally had a bit of a taste for old ballads, music, and song writing; and in this respect he was far in advance of many of his contemporaries. To bring within the reach of all, the standard and popular works of the day, had been the ambitionof the elder Catnach; whilst the son was,nolens volens, incessant in his endeavours in trying to promulgate and advance, not the beauty, elegance, and harmony which pervades many of our national airs and ballad poety, but very often the worst and vilest of each and every description—in other words, those most suitable for street sale. His stock of songs was very like his customers, diversified. There were all kinds, to suit all classes. Love, sentimental, and comic songs were so interwoven as to form a trio of no ordinary amount of novelty. At ordinary times, when the Awfuls and Sensationals were flat, Jemmy did a large stroke of business in this line.
It is said that when the “Songs—Three-yards-a-penny”—first came out and had all the attractions of novelty, some men sold twelve or fourteen dozen on fine days during three or four of the summer months, so clearing between 6s. and 7s. a day, but on the average about 25s. per week profit. The “long songs,” however, have been quite superseded by the “Monster” and “Giant Penny Song Books.” Still there are a vast number of halfpenny ballad-sheets worked off, and in proportion to their size, far more than the “Monsters” or “Giants.” One song book, entitled the “Little Warbler,” was published in parts, and had an enormous sale.
There are invariably but two songs printed on the half-penny ballad-sheets—generally a new and popular song with another older ditty, or a comic and sentimental, and “adorned” with two woodcuts. These are selected without any regard to their fitness to the subject, and in most cases have not the slightest reference to the ballad of which they form the headpiece. For instance:—“The Heart that can feel for another” is illustrated by a gaunt and savage-looking lion; “When I was first Breeched,” by an engraving of a Highlandersans culotte;“The Poacher” comes under the cut of a youth with a large watering-pot, tending flowers; “Ben Block” is heralded by the rising sun; “The London Oyster Girl,” by Sir Walter Raleigh; “The Sailors Grave,” by the figure of Justice; “Alice Grey” comes under the very dilapidated figure of a sailor, or “Jolly Young Waterman;” “Bright Hours are in store for us yet” isheadedwith atail-pieceof an urn, on which is inscribedFinis. (?) “Watercresses,” with the portrait of a Silly Billy; “The Wild Boar Hunt,” by two wolves chasing a deer; “The Dying Child to its Mother,” by an Angel appearing to an old man; “Crazy Jane,” by the Royal Arms of England; “Autumn Leaves lie strew’d around,” by a ship in full sail; “Cherry Ripe,” by Death’s Head and Cross Bones; “Jack at the Windlass,” falls under a Roadside Inn; while “William Tell” is presented to the British public in form and style of an old woman nursing an infant of a squally nature. Here are a few examples:—
Long-song Seller.
Besides the chanters, who sing the songs through the streets of every city, town, village, and hamlet in the kingdom—the long-song seller, who shouts their titles on the kerb-stone, and the countless small shop-keepers, who, in swag-shops, toy-shops, sweetstuff-shops, tobacco-shops, and general shops, keep them as part of their stock for the supply of the street boys and the servant girls—there is another important functionary engaged in their distribution, and who is well known to the inhabitants of large towns, this is the pinner-up, who takes his stand against a dead wall or a long range of iron railings, and first festooning it liberally with twine, pins up one or two hundred ballads for public perusal and selection. Time was when this was a thriving trade: and we are old enough to remember the day when a goodhalf-mile of wall fluttered with the minstrelsy of war and love, under the guardianship of a scattered file of pinners-up, along the south side of Oxford-street alone. Thirty years ago the dead walls gave place to shop fronts, and the pinners-up departed to their long homes. As they died out very few succeeded to their honours and emoluments. There is one pinner-up, seemingly the last of his race, who makes his display on the dead wall of the underground railway in Farringdon road.
Catnach, to the day of his retirement from business in 1838, when he purchased the freehold of a disused public-house, which had been known as the Lion Inn, together with the grounds attached at Dancer’s-hill, South Mimms, near Barnet, in the county of Middlesex, worked and toiled in the office of the “Seven Dials Press,” in which he had moved as the pivot, or directing mind, for upwards of a quarter of a century. He lived and died a bachelor. His only idea of all earthly happiness and mental enjoyment was now to get away in retirement to a convenient distance from his old place of business, so to give him an opportunity occasionally to go up to town and have a chat and a friendly glass with one or two old paper-workers and ballad-writers, and a few others connected with his peculiar trade who had shown any disposition to work when work was to be done. To them he was always willing to give or advance a few pence or shillings, in money or stock, and a glass.
Catnach left the whole of the business to Mrs. Anne Ryle, his sister, charged, nevertheless, to the amount of £1,000, payable at his death to the estate of his niece, Marion Martha Ryle. In the meanwhile Mr. James Paul acted as managing man for Mrs. Ryle. This Mr. Paul—of whom Jemmy was very fond, and rumour saith, had no great dislike to the mother—had grownfrom a boy to a man in the office of the “Catnach Press.” He was, therefore, well acquainted with the customers, by whom he was much respected; and it was by his tact and judgment that the business was kept so well together. At Catnach’s death he entered into partnership with Mrs. Ryle, and the business was carried on under the title and style of Paul & Co. In 1845 the partnership was dissolved, Mr. Paul receiving £800 in settlement. He then entered into the public line, taking the Spencer’s Arms, at the corner of Monmouth-court. A son that was born to him in 1847, he had christened James Catnach Paul. About this date “The Catnach Press” had a formidable rival in “The Nassau Steam Press,” which was originally started in Nassau Street, Soho, and afterwards removed to No. 60, St. Martin’s Lane. Mr. Paul was especially engaged to manage the song department at this office. He died in the year 1870, just six weeks after Mrs. Ryle, and lies buried in the next grave but one to Catnach and his sister, in Highgate Cemetery.
After Mr. Paul had left the business it was carried on as A. Ryle & Co., and ultimately became the property of Mr. W. S. Fortey, who still carries on the old business in the same premises. A copy of whose trade announcement runs thus:—
“The Catnach Press.” (Established 1813.)“William S. Fortey, (late A. Ryle, successor to the late J. Catnach,) Printer, Publisher, and Wholesale Stationer, 2 and 3, Monmouth-court, Seven Dials, London, W.C.”
“The Catnach Press.” (Established 1813.)
“William S. Fortey, (late A. Ryle, successor to the late J. Catnach,) Printer, Publisher, and Wholesale Stationer, 2 and 3, Monmouth-court, Seven Dials, London, W.C.”
Sir Jeffery Dunstan,Late Mayor of Garratt, and Itinerant Dealer in Wigs.
Sir Jeffery Dunstan—thrice Mayor of Garratt! was the most popular candidate that ever appeared on the Hustings at that very Free and Independent Borough! His occupation was that of buying old wigs, once an article of trade like that of old clothes. Sir Jeffery usually carried his wig bag over his shoulder, and to avoid the charge of vagrancy, vociferated, as he passed along the street, “Old Wigs,” but having a person like Æsop, and a countenance and manner marked by irresistible humour, he never appeared without a train of boys and curious persons, whom he entertained by his sallies of wit, shrewd sayings, and smart repartees; and from whom, without begging, he collected sufficient to help to maintain his dignity of Mayor and Knight.
From the earliest period of Sir Jeffery’s life, he was a friend to “good measures,” especially those for “spirituous liquors,” and he never saw the inside of a pot without going to the bottom of it. This determination of character created difficulties to him; for his freedom was not always regulated by the doctrines ofmeum et tuum, or, of the great Blackstone, “on the rights of persons,” and consequences ensued that were occasionally injurious to Sir Jeffery’s eyes, face, and nose. The same enlightened Judge’s views of “the rights of property,” were not comprehended by Sir Jeffery, he had long made free with the porter of manifold pots, and at length he made free with a few of the pots—which the publicans in London seemed to show in the streets as much as to say “Come and steal me.” For this he was “questioned” in the high Commission Court of oyer and terminer, and suffered an imprisonment, which, according to his manner of life, and his notions of the liberty of the subject, was “frivolous and vexatious.” On his liberation, he returned to an occupation he had long followed, the dealing in “Old Wigs.” Some other circumstances, developed in course of the preceding inquiry, seem to favour a supposition that the bag he carried had enabled him to conceal his previous “free trade” in pewter pots. But, be that as it might, it iscertain that in his armorial bearings of four wigs, he added a quart pot for a crest.
Sir Jeffery was remarkably dirty in his person, and always had his shirt thrown open, which exposed his breast to public view. This was in him a sort of pride; for he would frequently in an exulting manner say toinferiors“I’ve got acollarto my shirt, sir.” He had a filthy habit, when he saw a number of girls around him, of spitting in their faces, saying, “There, go about your business.”
Sir Jeffery, in the days of his prosperity, took his “Hodges’ best,” at the “Blind Beggar of Bethnal-green,” or the “Horse and Leaping Bar,” High-street, Whitechapel, at one or other of these favourite retreats, he got in a regular manner “regularly drunk.” Then it was that he sung in his best style various popular “London Cries,” mimicking others in their crying, especially one who vended “Lily, lily, lily, lily white—sand oh! oh!! oh!!!” this afforded sport to a merry company. Afterwards, should Sir Jeffery receive sufficient metalic support from his friends, he was placed in an arm chair on the table, when he recited to the students of the London Hospital and the Bucks of the East, his mock-election speeches. He was no respecter of persons, and was so severe in his jokes on the corruptions and compromises of power, that he was prosecuted for using what were then called seditious expressions. In consequence of this affair, and some few charges of dishonesty, he lost his popularity, and, at the next general election was ousted by Sir Harry Dimsdale, muffin-seller, a man as much deformed as himself. Sir Jeffery could not long survive his fall, but, in death as in life, he proved a satire on the vices of the proud, for he died, like Alexander the Great, the sailor in Lord Byron’s “Don Juan,” and many other heroes renowned in history—of suffocation from excessive drinking!.
Sir Harry Dimsdale, M.P., for Garratt,Cosmopolite and Muffin-Seller.
“Muffins, oh! Crumpets, oh,” rank among the old cries of London, and at least one of the calling has been made famous, namely, Harry Dimsdale, sometime Mayor of Garratt, who, from the moment he stood as candidate, received mock knighthood, and was ever after known under the appellation of “Sir Harry.” This half-witted character was a dealer in tin-ware—together with threads, tapes and bootlaces, during the morning, and a muffin-seller in the afternoon, when he had a little bell, which he held to his ear, and smiling ironically at its tinkling he would cry:—“Muffins! muffins! ladies come buy me! pretty, handsome, blooming, smiling maids!”
Mr. J. T. Smith, in his ever-charming work of “A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years1766-1833,” writing under date 1787, gives the following graphic sketch of the sayings and doings—taken from life, of “Sir Harry.”
“One of the curious scenes I witnessed on a nocturnal visit to the watch house of St. Anne, Soho, afforded me no small amusement. Sir Harry Dinsdale, usually called Dimsdale, a short, feeble little man, was brought in, charged by two colossal guardians of the night with conduct most unruly. ‘What have you, Sir Harry, to say to all this?’ asked the Dogberry of St. Anne. The knight, who had been roughly handled, commenced like a true orator, in a low tone of voice. ‘May it please ye, my magistrate, I am not drunk; it islanguor. A parcel of the Bloods of the Garden have treated me cruelly, because I would not treat them. This day, sir, I was sent for by Mr. Sheridan, to make a speech upon the table at the Shakespeare Tavern, inCommonGarden; he wrote the speech for me, and always gives half a guinea; he sends for me to the tavern. You see I didn’t go in my Royal robes, I only put ’um on when I stand to be a member.’ The constable—‘Well, but Sir Harry, why are you brought here?’ One of the watchmen then observed, ‘That though Sir Harry was but a littleshamblingfellow, he was soupstroppolus, and kicked him about at such a rate, that it was as much as he and his comrade could do to bring him along.’ As there was no one to support the charge, Sir Harry was advised to go home, which, however, he swore he would not do at midnight without an escort. ‘Do you know,’ said he, ‘there’s a parcel ofrapsnow on the outside waiting for me.’
“The constable of the night gave orders for him to be protected to the public-house opposite the west end of St. Giles’s Church, where he then lodged. Sir Harry, hearing a noise in the street, muttered, ‘I shall catch it; I know I shall.’ (Cries without,) ‘See the conquering hero comes.’ ‘Ay, they always use that tune when I gain my election at Garratt.’
“There are several portraits of this singular little object, by some called ‘Honey-juice.’ Flaxman, the sculptor, and Mrs. Mathews, of blue-stocking memory, equipped him as a hardware man, and as such I made two etchings of him.”
The Muffin Man.(T. Dibden.)
Spoken.—What have I to do with politicians? And for yourParliament cakes. Why! everybody knows they areboughtandsold, and oftendone brown, and madecrustyall over the nation. No, no, its enough for me to cry—
Lily-white muffins, &c.
Spoken.—What do I care for lawyers? A’nt I a baker, and consequently, Master of the Rolls:—Droll enough, too, for a Master of the Rolls to be crying—
Lily-white muffins, &c.
The Muffin Man.
The ringing of the muffin-man’s bell—attached to which the pleasant associations are not a few—is prohibited by a ponderous Act of Parliament, but the prohibition has been all but inoperative, for the muffin bell still tinkles along the streets, and is rung vigorously in the suburbs, and just at the time when City gents, at winter’s eve, are comfortably enveloped in fancy-patterned dressing gowns, prettily-worked smoking-caps, and easy-going and highly-coloured slippers, and saying within themselves or aloud:—
“Hot Cross Buns!” Perhaps no “cry”—though it is only for one day in the year, is more familiar to the ears of a Londoner, than that of “One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross-buns.” We lie awake early upon Good Friday morning and listen to the London bells:—
And all the other London bells having rung—or, rathertoll’dout their own tale of joy or trouble: then comes—rattling over the stones—W. H.Smith’swell-known redExpress-cartsladen with the early printed newspapers of the coming day, while all night long the carts and waggons come rumbling in from the country to Covent-garden, and not the least pleasant sound—pleasant for its old recollections—is the time-honoured old cry of “Hot Cross-Buns.” Century after century passes by, and those who busily drove their carts day after day from Isleworth, Romford, Enfield, Battersea, Blackheath, or Richmond, one hundred years ago, are as still and silent as if they had never been; yet still, Passion week after Passion week, comes that old cry, nobody knows how old, “Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross Buns.” And as we lie in a half dreamy state we hear and think of the chimes of St. Clement Danes, which may still be heard, as Fallstaff describes, having heard them with Justice Shallow; also, how Pope, as he lay in Holywell-street—now Bookseller’s-row; and Addison and Johnson; and, before their time, Waller, at the house of his old friend the merchantof St. Giles’s; and the goodly company of poets that lived at the cost of the king, near Whitehall; then of the quaint old gossiping diarist, Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty; John Taylor, theWater-Poet; even Shakespeare himself, having each in their turn been awakened on the Good Friday morning by the same sound ringing in their ears. For this is a custom which can hardly be traced to a beginning: and all we know about it is, that as far as we can go back, the Good Friday was ushered in by the old Good Friday bun; and that the baker in the towns, and the old good wife in the country, would have thought the day but badly kept, and augured badly for the coming summer’s luck, without it.
But between the cakes of Cecrops and the modern Hot Cross Bun there is a wide gulf of 3,400 years; and yet the one may be traced up to the other. There are some, indeed, who would wish to give to the Good Friday Hot Cross Bun a still longer pedigree, and to take it back to the time of the Patriarchs and their consecrated bread; and there are others who would go yet further, and trace it to the earliest age of the world, in a portion of Cain’s sacrifice. We may, however, content ourselves with stopping short at the era of the Egyptian Cecrops, founder of Athens, who made his sweet cakes of flour and honey. Such cakes as these, as we learn from the prophet Jeremiah, were offered by the idolatrous Hebrew women to “the Queen of Heaven,”
Some can even discern Astarte in our “Easter.” The Jews of old had the shew-bread and the wafer of unleavened bread; and the Egyptians, under the Pharaohs, had also their cakes,round, oval, and triangular. The Persians had their sacred cakes of flour and honey; and Herodotus speaks of similar cakes being offered by the Athenians to a sacred serpent in the temple of their citadel. And, not to mention other nations, the circumstance that accompanied the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, 1857, will make memorable the “chupatties” or sacred cakes of Khrishna.
The cakes that were offered to Luna by the Greeks and Romans were either crescent-shaped, or were marked with the crescent moon; and this stamp must have been very similar to that impressed on the cakes offered by the Hebrew women to the Queen of Heaven. This mark also resembles that representing the horns of the sacred ox which was stamped on the Grecian cakes; and the ox wasbous, and, in one of its oblique cases,boun, so we derive from that wordbounour familiar “bun.” There were not only horn-marked cakes, but horn-marked pieces of money; so that it is very difficult to ascertain the true meaning of that passage in the opening of the “Agamemnon” of Æschylus, where the watchman says that a greatboushas come, or set foot, upon his tongue. Although it might mean that something as weighty as an ox’s hoof had weighed down his tongue, yet it more probably signifies either that he was bribed to silence with a piece of money marked with the ox’s horns, or that the partaking of a sacred horn-marked cake had initiated him into a certain secret. Curiously enough, in theargotof thieves, at the present day, a crown piece is termed “a bull;” and it may also be noted thatpecunia, “money,” is derived frompecus, “cattle;” and “bull” is derived frombous, and also “cow” from the same word, through the Sanscritgou, thebandgbeing convertible.
Thus, originally, thebounor bun was the cake marked with the horns of the sacred ox. The cross mark was first adopted by the Greeks and Romans to facilitate the division of the cake into four equal parts; and two such cross-marked cakes were found in the ruins of Herculaneum. These cakes were adopted by the early Christians in a spirit of symbolism; but, although the cross was marked on the cake in token of the badge of their faith, yet it was also used by the priest for the breaking of the cake, or Eucharistic wafer, into four pieces; and this was so ordered in the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom. The cross-marked buns are now, for popular use, reserved for Good Friday, and, as Lenten cakes, are peculiar to this country. Among the Syrian Christians of Travancore and Cochin, who trace their descent from those who were converted by St. Thomas on his (supposed) visit to India, a peculiar cake is made for “Sorrowful Friday”—as they term Good Friday. The cake is stuffed with sweetmeats in the form of an eye, to represent the evil eye of Judas, coveting the thirty pieces of silver; and the cake is flung at with sticks by the members of the family until the eye is quite put out; they then share the remains of the cake among them.
In the days before the Reformation,eulogiæ, or cross-marked consecrated cakes, were made from the dough of the mass-bread, and distributed by the priests to be eaten at home by those who had been prevented by sickness or infirmity from attending the mass. After the Reformation, Protestants would readily retain the custom of eating in their houses a cross marked cake, although no longer connecting it with a sacred rite, but restricting its use to that one day of the year known as “Holy Friday,” or “Long Friday”—from the lengthof the service on that day—but which gradually came to be called, by the Anglican Church, “Good Friday,” in remembrance of the good things secured to mankind on that day. The presence upon the breakfast-table of the cross marked bun, flavoured with allspice, in token of the spices that were prepared by the pious women of Galilee, was, therefore, regarded in the light of a remembrancer of the solemnities of the day. The buns were made on the previous evening, Maundy Thursday so called, either from the “maunds,” or baskets, in which Easter gifts were distributed, or, more probably, because it was theDies mandati, the day of the command, “That thou doest, do quickly!” as also, “Do this in remembrance of Me!” and that the disciples should love one another and should show humility in the washing of feet.
As Chelsea was long famous for its buns—which are mentioned by Swift to Stella, in 1712—it was not to be wondered at that it should be celebrated for its production of hot cross buns on Good Friday. Early in the present century there were two bun-houses at Chelsea, both claiming to be “Royal” as well as “Original,” until, at last, one of the two proclaimed itself to be “The Real Old Original Bun House.” These two houses did a roaring trade during the whole of Good Friday, their piazzas being crowded, from six in the morning to six in the evening, by crowds of purchasers, loungers, and gossipers. Good King George the Third would come there with his children; and, of course, the nobility and gentry followed his example. These two bun-houses were swallowed up, in the march of improvement, some forty years ago; but on Good Friday, 1830, 240,000 hot cross buns were sold there.
The cross bun is not without its folk-lore. Country folks attach much virtue to the Good Friday buns; and many are kept for “luck’s sake” in cottages from one Good Friday to another. They are not only considered to be preservatives from sickness and disease, but also as safeguards from fire and lightning. They are supposed never to get mouldy, as was noted by “Poor Robin,” in his Almanack for 1733, under the head of March:—
Furthermore, be it known, then, in the interests of suffering humanity, that if a piece of a Good Friday bun is grated and eaten, it will cure as many diseases as were ever cured by a patent pill; moreover, the animal world is not shut out from sharing in its benefits, for it will cure a calf from “scouring,” and mixed in a warm mash, it is the very best remedy for your cow. Thus the bun is good for theboun; in fact, it is good both for man and beast.
The sellers of the Good Friday buns are composed of old men and young men, old women and young women, big children and little children, but principally boys, and they are of mixed classes, as, costers’ boys, boys habitually and boys occasionally street-sellers, and boys—“some cry now who never cried before,” and for that occasion only. One great inducement to embark in the trade is the hope of raising a little money for the Easter holidays following.
The “cry” of the Hot Cross Bun vendor varies at times and in places—as thus:—
While some of a humorous turn of mind like to introduce a little bit of their own, or the borrowed wit of those who have gone before them, and effect theonestep which is said to exist from the sublime to the ridiculous, and cry—
But the street hot-cross-bun trade is languishing—and languishing, will ultimately die a natural death, as the master bakers and pastrycooks have entered into it more freely, and now send round to their regular customers for orders some few days before each succeeding Good Friday.
A capital writer ofNotes,CommentandGossip, who contributes every week to theCity Press, under thenom de plumeof “Dogberry,” gave—inter alia—a few “Good Words,” the result of his “Leisure Hours” in that journal, on the subject of “Good Friday Customs.” March 24, 1883, thus:—