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.
A P P E N D I X.
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.
32, Tavistock Road, W.
April 18th, 1885.