“New laid eggs, eight a groat—crack ’em and try ’em!”
slow, as they not uncommonly are, his cry culminates in a storm of muttered abuse; after which mental refreshment he calmly proceeds as before, “The boot laces—AND the boot laces.” Most of us know by sight the penny Jack-in-the-box seller, whose cry, as Jack pops up, on the spring of the lid being released, is a peculiar double squeak, emitted without movement of the lips. The cry is supposed to belong to the internal economy of the toy, and to be a part of the penn’orth; but, alas! Jack, once out of the hands of his music-master, is voiceless. The numerous street sellers of pipe and cigar lights must have a hard time of it. Following the lucifer match, with its attendant choking sulphurous fumes, came the evil-smelling, thick, red-tipped, brown paper slip charged with saltpetre, so that it should smoulder without flaming. These slips, in shape something like a row of papered pins, were divided half through and torn off as required. Like the brimstone match which preceded, and the Vesuvian which followed, these lights (which were sold in the shops at a penny a box, but in the streets at two and sometimes three boxes for the same sum) utterly spoilt the flavour of a cigar; hence the superiority of the now dominant wax vestas. The matches of a still earlier period were long slips of dry wood smeared at either end with brimstone.
Rowlandson Delin 1819
“Letters for post?”
They would neither “light only on the box,” nor off it, unless aided by the uncertain and always troublesome flint, steel, and tinder, or the direct application of flame. “Clean yer pipe; pipe-cleaner, a penny for two!” is a cry seldom absent from the streets. The pipe-cleaner is a thin, flexible, double-twisted wire, about a foot long, with short bristles interwoven at one end, and now, “when everybody smokes who doesn’t,” the seller is sure of a more or less constant trade.
The buyers of the so-called penny ices sold in the London streets during the summer months are charged only a halfpenny; and the numerous vendors, usually Italians, need no cry; for the street gamins and errand boys buzz around their barrows like flies about a sugar barrel. For obvious reasons, spoons are not lent. The soft and half-frozen delicacy is consumed by the combined aid of tongue and fingers. Parti-coloured Neapolitan ices, vended by unmistakable natives of Whitechapel or the New Cut, whose curious cry of “‘Okey Pokey” originated no one knows how, have lately appeared in the streets. Hokey Pokey is of a firmer make and probably stiffer material than the penny ice of the Italians, which it rivals in public favour; and it is built up of variously flavoured layers. Sold in halfpenny and also penny paper-covered
“Knives and Scissors to Grind?”