Part 4
--is obviously copied from the original cry of "Young Lambs to Sell." In addition to a few tools, the stock-in-trade of the travelling chair-mender principally consisted of rushes, which in later days gave place to cane split into strips of uniform width--a return to more
ancient practice. The use of rush-bottomed chairs, which are again coming into æsthetic fashion, cannot be traced back quite a century and half. The chairs in Queen Anne's time were seated and backed with cane; and in the days of Elizabeth the seats were cushioned and the backs stuffed. Many years ago an old chair-mender occupied a position by a stone fixed in the wall of one of the houses in Panyer Alley, on which is cut the following inscription:--
WHEN Y HAVE SOVGHᵀ.. THE CITY ROVND YET STILL THIS IS THE HIGHSᵀ.. GROVND AVGVST THE 27 1688
Being entirely unprotected and close to the ground, this curious relic of bygone times, which is surmounted by a boldly carved figure of a nude boy seated on a panyer pressing a bunch of grapes between his hand and foot, is naturally much defaced; and that it has not been carried away piecemeal by iconoclastic curiosity-hunters, is probably due to its out-of-the-way position. Panyer Alley, the most eastern turning leading from Paternoster Row to Newgate Street, slightly rises towards the middle; but is not, according to Mr. Loftie, an undoubted authority on all matters pertaining to old London, the highest point in the city, there being higher ground both in Cornhill and Cannon Street. In describing Panyer Alley, Stow indirectly alludes to a "signe" therein, and it is Hone's opinion that this stone may have been the ancient sign let into the wall of a tavern. While the upper is in fair preservation, the lower part of the inscription can hardly be read. When last examined, a street urchin was renovating the figure by a heartily-laid-on surface decoration of white chalk; and unless one of the numerous antiquarian or other learned societies interested in old London relics will spare a few pounds for the purchase of a protective grating, there will shortly be nothing left worth preserving.
"New-laid eggs, eight a groat," takes us back to a time when the best joints and fresh country butter were both sixpence a pound.
Years ago the tin oven of the peripatetic penny pieman was found to be too small to meet the constant and ever-increasing strain made upon its resources; and the owner thereof has now risen to the dignity of a shop, where, in addition to stewed eels, he dispenses what Albert Smith happily termed "covered uncertainties," containing messes of mutton, beef, or seasonable fruit. Contained in a strong wicker basket with legs, or in a sort of tin oven, the pieman's wares were formerly kept hot by means of a small charcoal fire. A sip of a warm stomachic liquid of unknown but apparently acceptable constituents was sometimes offered gratuitously by way of inducement to purchase. The cry of "Hot Pies" still accompanies one of the first and most elementary games of the modern baby learning to speak, who is taught by his nurse to raise his hand to imitate a call now never heard.
The specimens of versification that follow are culled from various books of London Cries, written for the amusement of children, towards the end of the last century, and now in the collection of the writer:--
Large silver eels--a groat a pound, live eels! Not the Severn's famed stream Could produce better fish, Sweet and fresh as new cream, And what more could you wish?
Pots and Kettles to mend? Your coppers, kettles, pots, and stew pans, Tho' old, shall serve instead of new pans. I'm very moderate in my charge, For mending small as well as large.
Buy a Mop or a Broom!
My mop is so big, it might serve as a wig For a judge if he had no objection, And as to my brooms, they'll sweep dirty rooms, And make the dust fly to perfection.
Nice Yorkshire Cakes!
Nice Yorkshire cakes, come buy of me, I have them crisp and brown; They are very good to eat with tea, And fit for lord or clown.
Buy my fine Myrtles and Roses! Come buy my fine roses, my myrtles and stocks, My sweet-smelling balsams and close-growing box.
Buy my nice Drops--twenty a penny, Peppermint drops!
If money is plenty you may sure spare a penny, It will purchase you twenty--and that's a great many.
Six bunches a penny, sweet blooming Lavender!
Just put one bundle to your nose, What rose can this excel? Throw it among your finest clothes, And grateful they will smell.
Buy a live Chicken or a young Fowl?
Buy a young Chicken fat and plump, Or take two for a shilling?-- Is this poor honest tradesman's cry; Come buy if you are willing.
Rabbit! Rabbit!
Rabbit! a Rabbit! who will buy? Is all you hear from him; The rabbit you may roast or fry, The fur your cloak will trim.
My good Sir, will you buy a Bowl?
My honest friend, will you buy a Bowl, A Skimmer or a Platter? Come buy of me a Rolling Pin, Or Spoon to beat your batter.
Come buy my fine Writing Ink!
Through many a street and many a town The Ink-man shapes his way; The trusty Ass keeps plodding on, His master to obey.
Dainty Sweet-Briar!
Sweet-Briar this Girl on one side holds, And Flowers in the other basket; And for the price, she that unfolds To any one who'll ask it.
Any Earthen Ware, Plates, Dishes, or Jugs to-day,--any Clothes to exchange, Madam?
Come buy my Earthen Ware Your dresser to bedeck; Examine it with care, There's not a single speck.
See white with edges brown, Others with edges blue; Have you a left-off gown, Old bonnet, hat, or shoe?
Do look me up some clothes For this fine China jar; If but a pair of shoes, For I have travelled far.
This flowered bowl of green Is worth a gown at least; I am sure it might be seen At any christening feast.
Do, Madam, look about And see what you can find; Whatever you bring out I will not be behind.
* * * * *
The Illustrations.
Ten of the illustrations by that great master of the art of caricature, Thomas Rowlandson, are copied in _facsimile_ from a scarce set, fifty-four in all, published in 1820, entitled "Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders," to which there is a powerful preface, as follows:--
"The British public must be already acquainted with numerous productions from the inimitable pencil of Mr. ROWLANDSON, who has particularly distinguished himself in this department.
"There is so much truth and genuine feeling in his delineations of human character, that no one can inspect the present collection without admiring his masterly style of drawing and admitting his just claim to originality. The great variety of countenance, expression, and situation, evince an active and lively feeling, which he has so happily infused into the drawings as to divest them of that broad caricature which is too conspicuous in the works of those artists who have followed his manner. Indeed, we may venture to assert that, since the time of Hogarth, no artist has appeared in this country who could be considered his superior or even his equal."
The two illustrations--"Lavender," with a background representing Temple Bar, and "Fine Strawberries," with a view of Covent Garden--are from "Plates Representing the Itinerant Traders of London in their ordinary Costume. Printed in 1805 as a supplement to 'Modern London' (London: printed for Charles Phillips, 71, St. Paul's Churchyard)." The set is chiefly interesting as representing London scenes of the period; many parts of which are now no longer recognisable.
The crudely drawn, but picturesquely treated "Catnach" cuts, from the celebrated Catnach press in Seven Dials, now owned by Mr. W. S. Fortey, hardly require separately indicating.
The four oval cuts, squared by the addition of perpendicular lines, "Hot spice gingerbread!" "O' Clo!" "Knives to Grind!" and "Cabbages O! Turnips!" are facsimiled from a little twopenny book, entitled, "The Moving Market; or, Cries of London, for the amusement of good children," published in 1815 by J. Lumsden and Son, of Glasgow. It has a frontispiece representing a curious little four-in-hand carriage with dogs in place of horses, underneath which is printed this triplet:--
See, girls and boys who learning prize, Round London drive to hear the cries, Then learn your Book and ride likewise."
The quaint cuts, "'Ere's yer toys for girls an' boys!" "New-laid eggs, eight a groat,--crack 'em and try 'em!" "Flowers, penny a bunch!" (frontispiece), and the three ballad singers, apparently taken from one of the earliest chap-books, are really but of yesterday. For these the writer is indebted to his friend, Mr. Joseph Crawhall, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who uses his cutting tools direct on the wood without any copy. Mr. Crawhall's "Chap-book Chaplets," and "Old ffrendes wyth newe Faces," quaint quartos each with many hundreds of hand-coloured cuts in his own peculiar and inimitable style, and "Izaak Walton, his Wallet Book," are fair examples of his skill in this direction.
Two plates unenclosed with borders--"Old Chairs to mend!" and "Buy a Live Goose?" are from that once common and now excessively scarce child's book, _The Cries of London as they are Daily Practised_, published in 1804 by J. Harris, the successor of "honest John Newbery," the well-known St. Paul's Churchyard bookseller and publisher.
George Cruikshank's London Barrow-woman ("Ripe Cherries"), "Tiddy Diddy Doll," and other cuts, are from the original illustrations to Hone's delightful "Every-Day Book," recently republished by Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co.
The cuts illustrating modern cries--"Sw-e-e-p!"; "Dust, O!"; "Ow-oo!"; "Fresh Cabbidge!"; and "Stinking Fish!" are from the facile pencil of Mr. D. McEgan.
Finally, in regard to the business card of pussy's butcher, the veracious chronicler is inclined to think that an antiquarian might hesitate in pronouncing it to be quite so genuine as it looks. This opinion coincides with his own. In fact he made it himself. As a set-off, however, to the confession, let it be said that this is the sole _fantaisie d'occasion_ set down herein.
APPENDIX.
_From "Notes and Queries."_
LONDON STREET CRY.--What is the meaning of the old London cry, "Buy a fine mousetrap, or a _tormentor for your fleas_"? Mention of it is found in one of the Roxburghe ballads dated 1662, and, amongst others, in a work dated about fifty years earlier. The cry torments me, and only its elucidation will bring ease.
ANDREW W. TUER.
The Leadenhall Press, E.C.
* * * * *
LONDON STREET CRY (6th S. viii. 348).--Was not this really a "tormentor for your _flies_"? The mouse-trap man would probably also sell little bunches of butcher's broom (_Ruscus_, the mouse-thorn of the Germans), a very effective and destructive weapon in the hands of an active butcher's boy, when employed to guard his master's meat from the attacks of flies.
EDWARD SOLLY.
* * * * *
LONDON STREET CRY (6th S. viii. 348, 393).--The following quotations from Taylor, the Water Poet, may be of interest to Mr. TUER:--
"I could name more, if so my Muse did please, Of Mowse Traps, and tormentors to kill Fleas." _The Travels of Twelve-pence._
Yet shall my begg'ry no strange Suites devise, As monopolies to catch Fleas and Flyes." _The Beggar._ Faringdon. WALTER HAINES.
* * * * *
I notice a query from you in _N. and Q._ about a London Street Cry which troubles you. Many of the curious adjuncts to Street Cries proper have, I apprehend, originally no meaning beyond drawing attention to the Crier by their whimsicality. I will give you an instance. Soon after the union between England and Ireland, a man with a sack on his back went regularly about the larger streets of Dublin. His cry was:
"Bits of Brass, Broken Glass, Old Iron, Bad luck to you, Castlereagh."
Party feeling against Lord Castlereagh ran very high at the time, I believe, and the political adjunct to his cry probably brought the man more shillings than he got by his regular calling.
H. G. W.
P.S.--I find I have unconsciously made a low pun. The cry alluded to above would probably be understood and appreciated in the streets of Dublin at the present with reference to the Repeal of the Union.
* * * * *
LONDON STREET CRY. 88, FRIARGATE, DERBY.
DEAR SIR,--
The "Tormentor," concerning which you inquire in _Notes and Queries_ of this date, was also known as a "Scratch-back," and specimens are occasionally to be seen in the country. I recollect seeing one, of superior make, many years ago. An ivory hand, the fingers like those of "Jasper Packlemerton of atrocious memory," were "curled as in the act of" scratching, a finely carved wrist-band of lace was the appropriate ornament, and the whole was attached to a slender ivory rod of say eighteen inches in length. The finger nails were sharpened, and the instrument was thus available for discomfiting "back-biters," even when engaged upon the most inaccessible portions of the human superficies. I have also seen a less costly article of the same sort carved out of pear-wood (or some similar material). It is probable that museums might furnish examples of the "back scratcher," "scratch back," or "tormentor for your fleas."
Very truly yours, ALFRED WALLIS.
* * * * *
JUNIOR ATHENÆUM CLUB,
PICCADILLY, W.
DEAR SIR,--
On turning over the leaves of _Notes and Queries_ I happened on your enquiry _re_ "Tormentor for your fleas." May I ask, have you succeeded in getting at the meaning or origin of this curious street cry? I have tried to trace it, but in vain. It occurs to me as just possible that the following circumstance may bear on it:--
The Japanese are annoyed a good deal with fleas. They make little cages of bamboo--such I suppose as a small bird cage or mouse-trap--containing plenty of bars and perches inside. These bars they smear over with bird-lime, and then take the cage to bed with them. Is it not, as I say, _just possible_, that one of our ancient mariners brought the idea home with him and started it in London? If so, a maker of bird cages or mouse-traps is likely to have put the idea into execution, and cried his mouse-traps and "flea tormentors" in one breath.
Faithfully yours, DOUGLAS OWEN.
* * * * *
_From "Notes and Queries," April 18th, 1885._
LONDON CRIES.--A cheap and extended edition of my _London Street Cries_ being on the eve of publication, I shall be glad of early information as to the meaning of "A dip and a wallop for a bawbee"[A] and "Water for the buggs."[12] I recollect many years ago reading an explanation of the former, but am doubtful as to its correctness.
ANDREW W. TUER.
The Leadenhall Press, E.C.
* * * * *
One who was an Edinburgh student towards the end of last century told me that a man carrying a leg of mutton by the shank would traverse the streets crying "Twa dips and a wallop for a bawbee." This brought the gude-wives to their doors with pails of boiling water, which was in this manner converted into "broth."
NORMAN CHEVERS, M.D.
HANG 32, Tavistock Road, W. _April 18th, 1885._
* * * * *
COCKNEY PRONUNCIATION.
25, ARGYLL ROAD, KENSINGTON, W.,
_24th April, 1885_.
DEAR MR. TUER,--
The Cockney sound of long ā which is confused with received _ī_, is very different from it, and where it approaches that sound, the long _ī_ is very broad, so that there is no possibility of confusing them in a Cockney's ear. But is the sound Cockney? Granted it is very prevalent in E. and N. London, yet it is rarely found in W. and S.W. My belief is that it is especially an Essex variety. There is no doubt about its prevalence in Essex, so that [very roughly indeed] "I say" there becomes "oy sy." Then as regards the _ō_ and _ou_. These are never pronounced alike. The _ō_ certainly often imitates received _ow_, though it has more distinctly an _ō_ commencement; but when that is the case, _ou_ has a totally different sound, which dialect-writers usually mark as _aow_, having a broad _ā_ commencement, almost _a_ in _bad_. Finer speakers--shopmen and clerks--will use a finer _a_. The sound of short _u_ in _nut_, does not sound to me at all like _e_ in _net_. There are great varieties of this "natural vowel," as some people call it, and our received _nut_ is much finer than the general southern provincial and northern Scotch sounds, between which lie the mid and north England sounds rhyming to _foot_ nearly, and various transitional forms. Certainly the sounds of _nut_, _gnat_ are quite different, and are never confused by speakers; yet you would write both as _net_.
The pronunciation of the Metropolitan area is extremely mixed; no one form prevails. We may put aside educated or received English as entirely artificial. The N., N.E., and E. districts all partake of an East Anglian character; but whether that is recent, or belongs to the Middle Anglian character of Middlesex, is difficult to say. I was born in the N. district, within the sound of Bow Bells (the Cockney limits), over seventy years ago, and I do not recall the _i_ pronunciation of _ā_ in my boyish days, nor do I recollect having seen it used by the older humourists. Nor do I find it in "Errors of Pronunciation and Improper Expressions, Used Frequently and Chiefly by the Inhabitants of London," 1817, which likewise does not note any pronunciation of _ō_ like _ow_. Hence I am inclined to believe that both are modernisms, due to the growing of London into the adjacent provinces. They do not seem to me yet prevalent in the W. districts, though the N.W. is transitional. South of the Thames, in the S.W. districts, I think they are practically unknown. In the S.E. districts, which dip into N. Kent, the finer form of _aow_ for _ou_ is prevalent. The uneducated of course form a mode of speech among themselves. But I am sorry to find even school teachers much infected with the _ī_, _ow_, _aow_, pronunciations of _ā_, _ō_, _ou_, in N. districts.
Of course your Cockney orthography goes upon very broad lines, and you are quite justified in raising a laugh by apparent confusions, where no confusions are made by the speakers themselves, as Hans Breitmann did with the German. The confusion is only in our ears. They speak a language we do not use. To write the varieties of sounds, especially of diphthongs, with anything like correctness, requires a phonetic alphabet which cannot even be read, much less written, without great study, such as you cannot look for in readers who want only to be amused. But another question arises, Should we lay down a pronunciation? There never has been any authority capable of doing so. Orthoepists may protest, but the fashion of pronunciation will again change, as it has changed so often and so markedly during the last six hundred years; see the proofs in my _Early English Pronunciation_. Why should we not pronounce _ā_ as we do _ī_, pronouncing _ī_ as we do _oy_? Why should we not call _ō_ as we now call _ow_, pronouncing that as _aow_? Is not our _ā_ a change from _ī_ (the German _ei_, _ai_) in _say_, _away_, _pain_, etc.? Is not our _ou_ a change from our sound of _oo_ in _cow_, etc.? Again, our _oo_ replaces an old _oh_ sound. There is nothing but fashion which rules this. But when sounds are changed in one set of vowels, a compensating change takes place in another set, and so no confusion results. In one part of Cheshire I met with four sounds of _y_ in _my_, never confused by natives, although a received speaker hears only one, and all arose from different sources. Why is one pronunciation _horrid_ (or aw-ud), and another not? Simply because they mark social grades. Of course I prefer my own pronunciation, it's been my companion for so many years. But others, just as much of course, prefer theirs. When I brought out the _Phonetic News_, in phonetic spelling, many years ago, a newsvendor asked me, "Why write _neewz_? We always say _nooze_."
Very truly yours,
ALEXANDER J. ELLIS.
Index.
Page
A dip and a wallop for a bawbee!, 29, 125, 126
Act, Chimney Sweeps', 64
Addison, Cries of London, 25, 30
Albert Smith's "Covered Uncertainties", 111
Ale Scurvy-grass, 32
All my teeth ache!, 30
All the fun of the fair!, 50
Ancient tavern sign, 110
Anecdote of a simpler, 32
_Aphorisms, Book of_, 36
Area sneak thieves, 48
'Arry and Emma Ann, 50
Bartholomew Fair, 38, 39, 42
_Bartholomew Fair_, Ben Jonson's (1614), 25
Beating of one's wife, 51
Beaumont and Fletcher's _Bonduca_, 25
Beau pot? Will you buy a, 86
Bellows-mender, 94
Bells, Merry Christ Church, 33
Belman, 20
Blacking, cake, 44
Black sheep, 48
Blowing a horn in the night, 51
_Bonduca_, Beaumont and Fletcher's, 25
_Book of Aphorisms_, 36
Boot-black, The modern, 44
Boot laces--AND the boot laces!, 54
Brickdust, 92
Bridgwater Library, 14
British Museum, Collection of cries in, 16
Buggs! Water for the, 29, 125, 126
Buns! Hot cross, 97
Busby's _Costumes of the Lower Orders_, 35
Business card of pussy's butcher, 65, 120
Buy a beau pot?, 86
Buy a bill of the play?, 97
"Buy a broom" criers, Flemish, 96
Buy a flower, sir?, 68
Buy my rumps and burrs?, 38
Buy my singing glasses?, 12
Cake blacking, 44
Calling price before quantity, 64
Candlewick, 5
Cantlie's (Dr. J.) "Degeneration among Londoners", 72
Canwyke Street, 5
Caricature, political, Cries the vehicle for, 29
Catnach illustrations, 118
Cats, London, 64
Caveat against cut-purses, 42
Chairs in Queen Anne's time, 108
Chairs in Queen Elizabeth's time, 108
Chairs, rush-bottomed, 108
Characteristic sketches of the lower orders (1820), 117
Characters, Humorous, 52
Charles II., Cries in the time of, 18
Cherryes in the ryse, 3
Chimney Sweeps' Act, 64
Clean yer boots?, 44
Coachman, Hackney, 70
Cockney pronunciation, 31, 53, 72, 73, 74, 126-129
Cockney pronunciation, London _Globe_, 78
Colly Molly Puffe! _Spectator_, 12
Costermonger, or Costardmonger, 46
_Costumes of the Lower Orders_, Busby's, 35
"Covered Uncertainties," Albert Smith's, 111
Crawhall's (Joseph) illustrations, 119
Cream made of turnips, 60
Cries--Collection in British Museum, 16
Cries, Old London Street--Examples of, 76-92
Cries, Tempest's, 6
Cries in the time of Charles the Second, 18
Cries, Under-street, 70
Cries, vehicle for political caricature, 29
Cries of London, Addison's mention of, 25, 30
_Cries of London as they are daily Practised_, J. Harris (1804), 120
Cries of London, earliest mention of, 3
Cries of London, engraved by Schiavonetti and Wheatley, 42
Cries of London for the amusement of good children, 119
Cries of London, Humorous, 52, 53, 54
_Cries of London_, Lumsden's, 119
Cries of London, Roxburgh collection of, 25-33
Cries of London, Sandby's, 31
_Cries of London_ (J. T.) Smith's, 16
Cries of London. Specimens of versification, 111-117
Cries of London, _Spectator_, 25
Cries of York, 14
Cruikshank's London barrow-woman, 100
"Cryer," Public, 22
Cryes, Tempest's, 6
Cuckoo flowers, 35
Cut-purses, Caveat against, 42
Dead letter act, A, 51
"Degeneration amongst Londoners," Dr. Jas. Cantlie's, 72