OLD CHAIRS TO MEND.
Plate XVI.
The Plate exhibits the figure of Israel Potter, one of the oldest menders of chairs now living, who resides in Compton’s Buildings, Burton Crescent, and sallies forth by eight o’clock in the morning, not with a view of getting chairs to mend; for, from the matted mass of dirty rushes which have sometimes been thrown across his shoulders for months together, without ever being once opened, it must be concluded that his cry of “Old chairs to mend” avails him but little; the fact is, that like many other itinerants, he goes his rounds and procures broken meat and subsistence thus early in the morning for his daily wants.
The seating of chairs with rushes cannot be traced further back than a century, as the chairs in common as well as public use in the reign of Queen Anne had cane seats and backs. Previously to that time, and even in the days of Elizabeth, cushion seats and stuffed backs were made use of.
In the reign of Henry the Eighth, and in remoter times, the chairs were made entirely of wood, and in many instances the backs were curiously carved, either with figures, grotesque heads, or foliage. Most of the early chairs had arms for supporting elbows, and which were also carved. In the Archæologia, published by the Society of Antiquaries, several representations of ancient chairs are given.[14] Of the Royal thrones, the reader will find a curious succession, from the time of Edward the Confessor to that of James the First, exhibited in the great seals of England, representations of most of which have been published by Speed in his History of Great Britain, and in Sandford’s Genealogical History of England.
The cry of “Old Chairs to mend!” is frequently uttered with great clearness, and occasionally with some degree of melody. Suett, the late facetious Comedian, took the cry of “Old Chairs to mend,” in an interlude, entitled, the “Cries of London,” performed some years since in the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and repeated the old lines of
“Old Chairs to mend! Old Chairs to mend!
If I had the money that I could spend,
I never would cry Old Chairs to mend.”[15]
The late John Bannister, who performed in the same piece, took the cry of “Come here’s your scarlet ware, long and strong scarlet garters, twopence a pair, twopence a pair, twopence a pair!” which was a close imitation of a little fellow who made a picturesque appearance about the streets with his long scarlet garters streaming from the end of a pole.
The late eccentric actor Baddeley, who left a sum of money to purchase a cake to be eaten by his successors every Twelfth Night, in the Green-room of Drury Lane Theatre, took the cry of “Come buy my shrimps, come buy my shrimps, prawns, very large prawns, a wine-quart a penny periwinkles.”
The late Dr. Owen informed the present writer that he had heard that the author of “God save the King” caught the tones either from a man who cried “Old Chairs to mend,” or from another who cried “Come buy my door-mats;” and it is well known that one of Storace’s most favourite airs in “No Song no Supper,” was almost wholly constructed from a common beggar’s chaunt.
