Old London Cries.
Fine Writing Ink!
Buy an Iron Fork, or a Shovel?
Old London Cries.
These [engravings] pretty well describe the occupations of the figures they represent. The cry of “Fine writing-ink” has ceased long ago; and the demand for such a fork as the woman carries is discontinued. They are copied from a set of etchings [formerly mentioned]—the “Cries of London,” by Lauron. The following of that series are worth describing, because they convey some notion of cries which we hear no longer in the streets of the metropolis.
Buy a new Almanack?
A woman bears book-almanacks before her, displayed in a round basket.
London’s Gazette here.
A woman holds one in her hand, and seems to have others in her lapped-up apron.
Buy any Wax or Wafers?
A woman carries these requisites for correspondence in a small hand-basket, or frail, with papers open in the other hand.
My Name, and your Name, your Father’s Name, and Mother’s Name.
A man bears before him a square box, slung from his shoulders, containing type-founders’ letters, in small cases, each on a stick; he holds one in his hand. I well remember to have heard this very cry when a boy. The type-seller composed my own name for me, which I was thereby enabled to imprint on paper with common writing ink. I think it has become wholly extinct within the last ten years.
Old Shoes for some Brooms.
A man with birch-brooms suspended behind him on a stick. His cry intimates, that he is willing to exchange them for old shoes; for which a wallet at his back, depending from his waist, seems a receptacle.
Remember the poor Prisoners!
A man, with a capacious covered basket suspended at his back by leather handles, through which his arms pass; he holds in his right hand a small, round, deep box with a slit in the top, through which money may be put: in his left hand is a short walking-staff for his support. In former times the prisoners in different gaols, without allowance, deputed persons to walk the streets and solicit alms for their support, of passengers and at dwelling-houses. The basket was for broken-victuals.
Fritters, piping hot Fritters.
A woman seated, frying the fritters on an iron with four legs, over an open fire lighted on bricks; a pan of batter by her side: two urchins, with a small piece of money between them, evidently desire to fritter it.
Buy my Dutch Biskets?
A woman carries them open in a large, round, shallow arm-basket on her right arm; a smaller and deeper one, covered with a cloth, is on her left.
Who’s for a Mutton Pie, or a Christmas Pie?
A woman carries them in a basket hanging on her left arm, under her cloak; she rings a bell with her right hand.
Lilly white Vinegar, Threepence a Quart.
The vinegar is in two barrels, slung across the back of a donkey; pewter measures are on the saddle in the space between them. The proprietor walks behind—he is a jaunty youth, and wears flowers on the left side of his hat, and a lilly white apron; he cracks a whip with his left hand; and his right fingers play with his apron strings.
Old Satin, old Taffety, or Velvet.
A smart, pretty-looking lass, in a high-peaked crowned-hat, a black hood carelessly tied under her chin, handsomely stomachered and ruffled, trips along in high-heeled shoes, with bows of ribbons on the insteps; a light basket is on her right arm, and her hands are crossed with a quality air.
Scotch or Russia Cloth.
A comfortably clothed, stout, substantial-looking, middle-aged man, in a cocked hat, (the fashion of those days,) supporting with his left hand a pack as large as his body, slung at his back; his right hand holds his yard measure, and is tucked into the open bosom of his buttoned coat; a specimen of his cloth hangs across his arm. Irish and Holland linen have superseded Scotch and Russia.
Four pair for a Shilling, Holland Socks.
A woman cries them, with a shilling’s-worth in her hand; the bulk of her ware is in an open box before her. Our ancestors took great precautions against wet from without—they took much within. They were soakers and sockers.
Long Thread Laces, long and strong.
A miserably tattered-clothed girl and boy carry long sticks with laces depending from the ends, like cats-o’-nine tails. This cry was extinct in London for a few years, while the females dressed naturally—now, when some are resuming the old fashion of stiff stays and tight-lacing, and pinching their bowels to inversion, looking unmotherly and bodiless, the cry has been partially revived.
Pretty Maids, pretty Pins, pretty Women.
A man, with a square box sideways under his left arm, holds in his right hand a paper of pins opened. He retails ha’p’orths and penn’orths, which he cuts off from his paper. I remember when pins were disposed of in this manner in the streets by women—their cry was a musical distich—
Three-rows-a-penny, pins,
Short whites, and mid-dl-ings!
Fine Tie, or a fine Bob, sir!
A wig-seller stands with one on his hand, combing it, and talks to a customer at his door, which is denoted by an inscription to be in “Middle-row, Holbourn.” Wigs on blocks stand on a bracketed board outside his window. This was when every body, old and young, wore wigs—when the price for a common one was a guinea, and a journeyman had a new one every year—when it was an article in every apprentice’s indenture that his master should find him in “one good and sufficient wig, yearly, and every year, for, and during, and unto the expiration, of the full end, and term, of his apprenticeship.”
Buy my fine Singing Glasses!
They were trumpet-formed glass tubes, of various lengths. The crier blows one of half his own height. He holds others in his left hand, and has a little box, and two or three baskets, slung about his waist.
Japan your Shoes, your honour!
A shoeblack. A boy, with a small basket beside him, brushes a shoe on a stone, and addresses himself to a wigged beau, who carries his cocked-hat under his left arm, with a crooked-headed walking-stick in his left hand, as was the fashion among the dandies of old times. I recollect shoeblacks formerly at the corner of almost every street, especially in great thoroughfares. There were several every morning on the steps of St. Andrew’s church Holborn, till late in the forenoon. But the greatest exhibition of these artists was on the site of Finsbury-square, when it was an open field, and a depository for the stones used in paving and street-masonry. There, a whole army of shoeblacks intercepted the citizens and their clerks, on their way from Islington and Hoxton to the counting houses and shops in the city, with “Shoeblack, your honour!” “Black your shoes, sir!”
Each of them had a large, old tin-kettle, containing his apparatus, viz. a capacious pipkin, or other large earthen-pot, containing the blacking, which was made of ivory black, the coarsest moist sugar, and pure water with a little vinegar—a knife—two or three brushes—and an old wig. The old wig was an indispensable requisite to a shoeblack; it whisked away the dust, or thoroughly wiped off the wet dirt, which his knife and brushes could not entirely detach; a rag tied to the end of a stick smeared his viscid blacking on the shoe, and if the blacking was “real japan,” it shone. The old experienced shoe-wearers preferred an oleaginous, lustreless blacking. A more liquid blacking, which took a polish from the brush, was of later use and invention. Nobody, at that time, wore boots, except on horseback; and every body wore breeches and stockings: pantaloons or trousers were unheard of. The old shoeblacks operated on the shoes while they were on the feet, and so dexterously as not to soil the fine white cotton stocking, which was at one time the extreme of fashion, or to smear the buckles, which were universally worn. Latterly, you were accommodated with an old pair of shoes to stand in, and the yesterday’s paper to read, while your shoes were cleaning and polishing, and your buckles were whitened and brushed. When shoestrings first came into vogue, the prince of Wales (now the king) appeared with them in his shoes, and a deputed body of the buckle-makers of Birmingham presented a petition to his royal highness to resume the wearing of buckles, which was good-naturedly complied with. Yet in a short time shoestrings entirely superseded buckles. The first incursion on the shoeblacks was by the makers of “patent cake-blacking,” on sticks formed with a handle, like a small battledoor; they suffered a more fearful invasion from the makers of liquid blacking in bottles. Soon afterwards, when “Day and Martin” manufactured the ne plus ultra of blacking, private shoeblacking became general, public shoeblacks rapidly disappeared, and now they are extinct. The last shoeblack that I remember in London, sat under the covered entrance of Red Lion-court, Fleet-street, within the last six years.
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