Part 3

When the plague was at its height, perhaps nothing could have been more silently or solemnly conducted than the removal of the dead to the various pits round London, that were opened for their reception; and it was the business of Corpse Bearers, such as the one exhibited in the Fifth Plate, to give directions to the Car-men, who went through the City with bells, which they rang, at the same time crying "Bring out your Dead." This melancholy description may be closed, by observing that many parts of London, particularly those leading to the Courts of Westminster, were so little trodden down, that the grass grew in the middle of the streets. Few persons would believe the truth of the following extract:

"A profligate wretch had taken up a new way of thieving (yet 'tis said too much practised in those times), of robbing the dead, notwithstanding the horror that is naturally concomitant. This trade he followed so long, till he furnished a warehouse with the spoils of the dead; and had gotten into his possession (some say) to the number of a thousand winding-sheets." See Memoirs of the Life and Death of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, published 1682.

It is remarkable, and shows the great advantage of our River Thames, that during the Plague of 1665, according to a remark made by Lord Clarendon, not one house standing upon London Bridge was visited by the plague.

Although the subject of Funerals has been so often treated of by various authors, yet the following extracts will not, it is hoped, be deemed irrelevant by the reader. They may serve too as a contrast to the confusion and mingling of dust which must have taken place during the plague, in the burial of so many thousands in so short a space of time, and they may show likewise the vanity of human nature.

In "Chamberlain's Imitation of Holbein's Drawings," in his Majesty's collection, is the following passage alluding to the great care Lady Hobye took as to the arrangement of her funeral.

"Her fondness for those pompous soothings, which it was usual at that time for grief to accept at the hands of pride, scarcely died with her; for, a letter is extant from her to Sir William Dethick, Garter King of Arms, desiring to know 'what number of mourners were due to her calling; what number of waiting women, pages, and gentlemen ushers; of chief mourners, lords, and gentlemen; the manner of her hearse, of the heralds, and church?' &c. This remarkable epistle concludes thus: 'Good Mr. Garter, do it exactly, for I find forewarnings that bid me provide a pick-axe,' &c. The time of her death is not exactly known, but it is supposed to have been about 1596. She is buried at Bisham, with her first husband.[12] It was this Lady's daughter, Elizabeth Russell, that was said to have died with a pricked finger."

It was usual at funerals to use rosemary, even to the time of Hogarth, who has introduced it in a pewter plate on the coffin-lid of the funeral scene in his Harlot's Progress. Shakspeare notices it in Romeo and Juliet, "And stick your _rosemary_ on this fair corse." "This plant," says Mr. Douce, in his "Illustrations of Shakspeare and Ancient Manners," page 216, vol. i. "was used in various ways at funerals. Being an evergreen, it was regarded as an emblem of the soul's immortality." Thus in Cartwright's "Ordinary," Act 5, scene 1:

"----------------If there be Any so kind as to accompany My body to the earth, let them not want For entertainment; pr'ythee see they have _A sprig of rosemary_ dip'd in common water, To smell to as they walk along the streets."

In an obituary kept by Mr. Smith, secondary of one of the Compters, and preserved among the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 886, is the following entry: "Jan. 2, 1671, Mr. Cornelius Bee, Bookseller in Little Britain, died; buried Jan. 4, at Great St. Bartholomew's, without a sermon, without wine or wafers, only gloves and _rosemary_." And Mr. Gay, when describing Blowselinda's funeral, records that "Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore."

Suicides were buried on the north side of the church, in ground purposely _unconsecrated_.

The custom of burial observed by that truly respectable class of the community denominated Friends, commonly called Quakers, may be deemed the most rational, as it is conducted with the utmost simplicity.

The corpse is kept the usual time; it is then put into a plain coffin uncovered. Afterwards it is placed in a plain hearse, also uncovered, and without feathers; the attendants accompanying the funeral in their family carriages, or hackney coaches. The corpse is then placed by the side of the grave where sometimes they offer a prayer, or deliver an exhortation, after which the coffin is lowered, the earth put over it, and thus the ceremony closes. Should the deceased have been a minister, then the corpse on the day of its interment is carried into the meeting house, and remains there in the midst of the congregation during their meditations.

The orthodox members of this society never wear any kind of mourning. Relatives are never designedly placed by each other, but are buried indiscriminately, as death may visit each member.

They begin at the left hand upper corner, placing them in rows till they have filled the ground to the lower right hand corner, after which they commence again as before. They make no distinction whatever between male and female, nor young and old, nor have they even so much as a coffin-plate.

The Jews bury their dead within four and twenty hours, adhering to the custom of the East, where the body would putrify beyond that time. The great burial-ground at Mile End was made at the sole expense of the famous Moses Hart, who, after losing an immense sum in the South Sea bubble, died worth 5000_l._ _per annum_. This munificent Jew also built the Dutch Synagogue in Duke's-place. The squib prints of the day designate Moses Hart by the introduction of the Knave of Hearts. The Knave of Clubs in the same plate was meant for the ancestor of the Gideon family. The Jews bury their poor by a collection made at the funerals of the better part of the community. Several boys go about to the mourners and other Jews assembled upon the occasion, with tin boxes padlocked up, at the top of which there is a small slit to admit of the contributions, and every Jew present, however humble his station, is eager to drop in his mite.

HACKNEY COACHMAN.

PLATE VI.

From the writer's extensive knowledge of prints, and his intimate acquaintance with the various collections in England, he has every reason to conclude that the original print of a Hackney Coachman, from which this Plate has been copied, is perhaps the only representation of the earliest character of that calling. The print from which it was taken is one of a Set published by Overton, at the sign of the White Horse without Newgate; and its similarity to the figures given by Francis Barlow in his Æsop's Fables, and particularly in a most curious sheet-print etched by that artist, exhibiting Charles the Second, the Duke of York, &c. viewing the Races on Dorset Ferry near Windsor, in 1687, sufficiently proves this Hackney Coachman to have been of the reign of that monarch.

The early Hackney Coachman did not sit upon the box as the present drivers do, but upon the horse, like a postilion; his whip is short for that purpose; his boots, which have large open broad tops, must have been much in his way, and exposed to the weight of the rain. His coat was not according to the fashion of the present drivers as to the numerous capes, which certainly are most rational appendages, as the shoulders never get wet; the front of the coat has not the advantage of the present folding one, as it is single breasted.

His hat was pretty broad, and so far he was screened from the weather. Another convincing proof that he rode as a postilion is, that his boots are spurred. In that truly curious print representing the very interesting Palace of Nonsuch, engraved by Hoefnagle, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the coachman who drives the royal carriage in which the Queen is seated, is placed on a low seat behind the horses, and has a long whip to command those he guides. How soon after Charles the Second's time the Hackney Coachmen rode on a box the writer has not been able to learn, but in all the prints of King William's time the Coachmen are represented upon the box, though by no means so high as at present; nor was it the fashion at the time of Queen Anne to be so elevated as to deprive the persons in the carriage of the pleasure of looking over their shoulders.

Brewer, in his "Beauties of Middlesex," observes in a note, that "It is familiarly said, that Hackney, on account of its numerous respectable inhabitants, was the first place near London provided with Coaches for hire, for the accommodation of families, and that thence arises the term Hackney Coaches."

This appears quite futile; the word Hackney, as applied to a hireling, is traced to a remote British origin, and was certainly used in its present sense long before that village became conspicuous for wealth or population.

In 1637 the number of Hackney Coaches in London was confined to 50, in 1652 to 200, in 1654 to 300, in 1662 to 400, in 1694 to 700, in 1710 to 800, in 1771 to 1000, and in 1802 to 1100. In imitation of our Hackney Coaches, Nicholas Sauvage introduced the Fiacres at Paris, in the year 1650. The hammer-cloth is an ornamental covering of the coach-box. Mr. S. Pegge says, "The Coachman formerly used to carry a hammer, pincers, a few nails, &c. in a leathern pouch hanging to his box, and this cloth was devised for the hiding of them from public view." See Pegge's "Anonymiana," p. 181.

It is said that the sum of £1500, arising from the duty on Hackney Coaches, was applied in part of the expense in rebuilding Temple Bar.

JAILOR.

PLATE VII.

Those persons who remember old Newgate, the Gate House at Westminster, and other places of confinement, will recollect how small and inconvenient those buildings were, and must acknowledge the very great improvements as to the extensive accommodation of all our Prisons, not only in London, but in almost every county in England; and for these very great improvements no one could have stood more forward than the benevolent Howard. It is to him the public owe extensiveness of building, separations in the prisons for the various criminals, and most liberal supply of fresh water. Since his time there have been few jail distempers, as the prisoners have spacious yards to walk in, and by thus being exposed to fresh air are kept free from fevers and other disorders incidental to places of confinement. Let any one who recollects old Newgate survey the present structure, and he will be highly gratified with the respectable order kept up in that edifice. In some of the counties the jails may be looked upon as asylums, for neatness and good management, particularly that of Cambridge, where, instead of the whole of the prisoners for every sort of crime being huddled together in the tower of the Castle, they have now a building which affords separate apartments for men, women, and children, and this on the most elevated spot, commanding views of the adjacent country from every window. Whoever has visited Chelmsford Jail must have been delighted with its humane and sensible construction. Those who do not recollect the old prisons will, upon an inspection of Fox's Book of Martyrs, perceive in the Prisons of Lambeth Palace, the Bishop of London's House, Aldersgate Street, &c. how very small and confined those prisons were, having been not above eight feet square, with low ceilings and hardly an opening to let in the light. In addition to these miseries each room had its stocks, in which the prisoners were placed. The residences of our sovereigns in former days had likewise their prisons. Three of these were in the old palace of Westminster, viz. Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. Heaven was a place where, if the prisoners could afford to pay, they had accommodations. Purgatory was a place with a ceiling so low that they could not walk without bending the head into the chest; and Hell was a dungeon with little or no light, where they had only bread and water. The pump lately standing in the street close by the Exchequer Coffee House, and now carried to the opposite side of the way, was the pump of this last prison, and to this day goes under the appellation of "Hell Pump."

To the credit of present manners, our modern jailors are in general men of feeling, and wherever it is discovered that they act with cruelty they are immediately dismissed from their office. This was not the case in former days, for they were in general the most hard-hearted of men, and callous even to the distresses of the aged, and crying infant at the breast.

The following Plate, pourtraying a Jailor of those times, will sufficiently convey an idea of the morose gluttony of such a character. It was copied from a rare tract, entitled, "Essayes and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, by Geffray Mynshul, of Grayes Inne, Gent. with new additions, 1638." On the right side of the figure is written, "Those that keepe me, I keepe; if can, will still." On the left hand, "Hee's a true Jaylor strips the Divell in ill." The following extracts from this curious work will shew the estimation in which the author held a Jailor:

"As soone as thou commest before the gate of the prison, doe but think thou art entring into Hell, and it will extenuate somewhat of thy misery, for thou shalt be sure not only to find Hell, but fiends and ugly monsters, which with continuall torments will afflict thee; for at the gate there stands Cerberus, a man in shew, but a dogge in nature, who at thy entrance will fawne upon thee, bidding thee welcome, in respect of the golden croft which he must have cast him; then he opens the doore with all gentlenes, shewing thee the way to misery is very facile, and being once in, he shuts it with such fury, that it makes the foundation shake, and the doore and windows so barricadoed, that a man so loseth himself with admiration that he can hardly finde the way out and be a sound man.

"Now for the most part your porter is either some broken cittizen who hath plaid jack of all trades, some pander, broker, or hangman, that hath plaid the knave with all men; and for the more certainty his emblem is a red beard, to which sacke hath made his nose cousin-german.

"If marble-hearted Jaylors were so haplesse happy as to be mistaken, and be made Kings, they would, instead of iron to their grates, have barres made of men's ribs, Death should stand at doore for porter, and the Divell every night come gingling of keyes, and rapping at doores to lock men up.

"The broker useth to receive pawnes, but when he hath the feathers he lets the bird flye at liberty: but the Jaylor when he hath beene plum'd with the prisoner's pawnes, detaines him for his last morsell.

"He feedes very strangely, for some say he eates cloakes, hats, shirts, beds, and bedsteds, brasse, or pewter, or gold rings, plate, and the like; but I say he is in his dyet more greedy than Cannibals, for they eate but some parts of a man, but this devoures the whole body. The tenne-peny and nine-peny ordinaries should never bee in the Fleet, Gatehouse, or the two infernal Compters, for Hunger would lay the cloth, and Famine would play the leane-fac'd serving-man to take away the trenchers."

A PRISON BASKET-MAN.

PLATE VIII.

This Plate exhibits one of those men who were sent out to beg broken meat for the poor prisoners. It was copied from one of the sets published by Overton in the reign of King Charles the Second. This custom, which perhaps was as ancient as our Religious Houses, has been long done away by an allowance of meat and bread having been made to those prisoners who are destitute of support.

It was the business of such men to claim the attention of the public by their cry of "Some broken breade and meate for ye poore prisonors! for the Lord's sake pitty the poore!" This mendicant for the prisoners is also noticed with the following London Cries, in a play entitled, "Tarquin and Lucrece," viz. "A Marking Stone." "Breade and Meate for the poor Prisoners." "Rock Samphire." "A Hassoc for your pew, or a Pesocke to thrust your feet in." In former days the passenger was solicited in the most melancholy and piteous manner by the poor prisoners. A tin box was lowered by a wire from the windows of their prisons into the street, so as to be even with the eye of the passenger. The confined persons, in hoarse, but sometimes solemn tones, solicited the public to "Remember the poor prisoners!" Not many persons can now recollect the tin boxes of this description, suspended from the Gatehouse at Westminster, and under the gloomy postern of old Newgate; but the custom was till lately continued at the Fleet Prison: where a box of the above description was put out from a grated window, even with the street, where one of the prisoners, who took it by turns, implored the public to "Remember the poor Insolvent Debtors;" but as the person was seen, and so near the street, the impression made on the passenger had not that gloomy and melancholy air of supplication as when uttered from a hollow voice at a distance, and in darkness; so that hundreds passed by without attending to the supplicant.

Few of those gentlemen who come into office of Sheriff with a dashing spirit quit their station without doing some, and, indeed, to do them justice, essential service to the community. Sir Richard Phillips, when sheriff, established the poor boxes put up on the outside of Newgate, with a restriction that they should be opened in the presence of the Sheriffs, and distributed by them to the poor prisoners, so that there could be no embezzlement, and the donations thus rendered certain of being equally and fairly divided among the proper objects, according to their distressing claims.

The following extract is from a work published by Mr. Murray in 1815, entitled, "Collections relative to Systematic Relief of the Poor," and which perhaps may be the earliest notice of mendicants by proxy. Plutarch notices a Rhodian custom, which is particularly mentioned by Phoenix of Colophon, a writer of Iambics, who describes certain men going about to collect donations for the crow, and singing or saying,

"My good worthy masters, a pittance bestow, Some oatmeal, or barley, or wheat, for the crow; A loaf, or a penny, or e'en what you will, As fortune your pockets may happen to fill. From the poor man a grain of his salt may suffice, For your crow swallows all and is not over nice. And the man who can now give his grain and no more, May another day give from a plentiful store. Come, my lad, to the door, Plutus nods to our wish, And our sweet little mistress comes out with a dish. She gives us her figs, and she gives us a smile, Heav'n bless her! and guard her from sorrow and guile, And send her a husband of noble degree, And a boy to be danced on his grand-daddy's knee; And a girl like herself, all the joy of her mother, Who may one day present her with just such another. God bless your dear hearts all a thousand times o'er, Thus we carry our crow-song to door after door; Alternately chaunting we ramble along, And we treat all who give, or give not, with a song."

And the song ever concludes:

"My good worthy masters, your pittance bestow, Your bounty, my good worthy mistresses, throw. Remember the crow! he is not over nice; Do but give as you can, and the gift will suffice."

RAT-CATCHER.

PLATE IX.

There are two kinds of rats known in this country, the black, which was formerly very common, but is now rarely seen, being superseded by the large brown kind, commonly called the Norway rat. The depredations committed by this little animal, which is about nine inches long, can be well attested by the millers and feeders of poultry, as in addition to its mischief it frequently carries off large quantities to its hiding place.

In 1813 the following computation was made: "The annual value of the European Empire cannot be less than 25 millions sterling, and of this at least one fiftieth part, upon the lowest calculation, is eaten and destroyed by rats and mice; the public loss therefore is at least 500,000_l._ _per annum_, exclusive of the damage done in ships, in store houses, and buildings of every kind."

The bite of the rat is keen, and the wound it inflicts painful and difficult to heal, owing to the form of its teeth, which are long, sharp, and irregular. It produces from twelve to eighteen at a litter, and were it not that these animals destroy each other, the country would soon be overrun with them.

Mr. Bewick observes, "It is a singular fact in the history of these animals, that the skins of such of them as have been devoured in their holes, have frequently been found curiously turned inside out, every part being completely inverted, even to the ends of the toes."

In addition to this remark of Mr. Bewick, it may be mentioned, that though the destruction of rats is so great among themselves, yet they are in some degree attached to each other, and have even their sports and pastimes. It is well known that a herd of rats will be defenders of their own holes, and that when a strange brood trespass upon their premises, they are sure to be set upon and devoured. They are active as the squirrel, and will, like that animal, sit up and eat their food. They play at hide and seek with each other, and have been known to hide themselves in the folds of linen, where they have remained quite still until their playmates have discovered them, in the same manner as kittens. Most readers will recollect the fable where a young mouse suggests that the cat should have a bell fastened to his neck, so that his companions might be aware of his approach. This idea was scouted by one of their wiseheads, who asked who was to tye the bell round the cat's neck? This experiment has actually been tried upon a rat. A bell was fastened round his neck, and he was replaced in his hole, with full expectation of his frightening the rest away, but it turned out that instead of their continuing to be alarmed at his approach, he was heard for the space of a year to frolick and scamper with them. In China the Jugglers cause their rats and mice to dance together to music, and oblige them to take leaps as we teach our cats. The following is a copy of a handbill distributed in Cornhill a few years ago:

"A most wonderful Rat, the greatest natural curiosity ever seen in London.

"A gigantic Female Rat, taken near Somerset House: it is truly worthy the inspection of the curious, its length being three feet three inches, and its weight ten pounds three quarters; and twenty-four inches in circumference. Any lady or gentleman purchasing goods to the amount of one shilling or upwards, will have an opportunity of seeing it gratis, at No. 5, Sweeting's Alley, Cornhill."

Rats were made use of as a plague, see 1st Book of Kings, chap. v. Nich. Poussin painted this subject, which has been engraved by Stephen Picart of Rome, 1677.

In a curious tract, entitled "Green's Ghost," published in 1626, Watermen are nicknamed water-rats; an appellation also bestowed on pirates by the immortal bard of Avon.

The down of the musk-rat of Canada is used in the manufacture of hats. From the tail of the Muscovy musk-rat is extracted a kind of musk, very much resembling the genuine sort, and their skins are frequently laid among clothes to preserve them from moths.