Rum old Mog was a leary flash mot, and she was round and fat,
With twangs in her shoes, a wheel-barrow too, and an oil skin round her hat;
A blue birds-eye o’er dairies fine, as she mizzled through Temple Bar—
Of vich side of the vay, I cannot say, but she boned it from a Tar.
Singing Fol-lol-lol-lido.
Now Mog’s flash com-pan-ion was a Chick-lane gill, and he garter’d below his knee,
He had twice been pull’d, and nearly lagg’d, but got off by going to sea;
With his pipe and quid, and chaunting voice, Potatoes he would cry;
For he valued neither cove nor swell, for he had wedge snug in his cly.
Singing Fol-lol-lol.
One night they went to a Cock-and-Hen Club, at the sign of the Mare and Stallion,
But such a sight was never seen as Mog and her flash com-pan-ion;
Her covey was an am’rous blade, and he buss’d young Bet on the sly,
When Mog up with her daddle bang-up to the mark, and she black’d the Bunter’s eye.
Singing Fol-lol-lol.
Now this brought on a general fight, Lord, what a gallows row—
With whacks and thumps throughout the night, till drunk as David’s sow—
Milling up and down—with cut heads, and lots of broken ribs,
But the lark being over—they ginned themselves at jolly Tom Cribb’s.
Singing Fol-lol-lol.
Mother Cummins.—In Dyott Street, St. Giles’s—now George Street, after George Prince of Wales—but called Dyott Street after Sir Thomas Dyott, temp. Charles II., lived that most notorious and world-renowned lodging-house keeper “Mother Cummins,” so well-known to all the Bucks about town, in their hot youth, when George the Third was King.
Oh, she lives snug in the Holy Land
Right, tight, and merry in the Holy Land,
Search the globe round, none can be found
So accommodating! as Old Mother Cummins
Of the Holy Land.
It is related that Major Hanger accompanied George IV. to a beggar’s carnival in St. Giles’s. He had not been there long when the Chairman, Sir Jeffery Dunston, addressing the company, and pointing to the then Prince of Wales, said “I call upon that ’ere gemman with a shirt for a song.” The Prince, as well as he could, got excused upon his friend promising to sing for him, and he chaunted in a prime style a flash ballad full of “St. Giles’s Greek,” for which he received great applause. The Major’s health having been drunk with nine times nine, and responded to by him, wishing them “good luck till they were tired of it,” he departed with the Prince to afford the company time to fix their different routes for the ensuing day’s business.
Mother Emerson’s.—A night-house situate in the Haymarket, at one time called the Turk’s Head, but of later times named the Waterford Arms, out of compliment to the late generous-hearted and frolicsome Marquis of Waterford, who was a great patron and supporter of the house.
The late—self-styled—Lord Chief Baron Nicholson: who was intimately acquainted with “Mother Emerson,” wrote of her thus.—“In business Mrs. Emerson was a wonder. I cannot possibly do better than present a sketch of her in and out of her trade:—”
NIGHT-HOUSES AND THEIR KEEPERS.
Mrs. Emerson.
’Twas landlady Meg that made such rare flip;
Pull away, pull away, my hearties;
At Wapping she lived, at the sign of the Ship,
Where tars met in such jolly parties.
Dibdin.
The famous landlady, Meg of Wapping, might have been very celebrated, and a very great person, at the time she lived, and at the particular part of the town she resided in, namely, that Fashionable Watering-Place, Wapping; but all landladies of the present day are placed in the shade, totally eclipsed, by that all-accomplished and indefatigable woman of business, Mrs. Emerson, of the Waterford Arms, late the Turk’s Head, Haymarket.
Although she is not defunct, she may be properly termed the late Mrs. Emerson. Night after night she keeps her body up, and her appearance, every time we see her she seems to look younger and fresher. She is quite a character in her way, and the best flat-catcher in London. “How d’ye do, my dear?” is her general salutation to the swells who frequent her lush-crib. “Well, I thank you, mother,” is the reply. “What’ll you take?” For it is considered a great honour amongst the flats to get mother to drink with them. “Oh! Sherry, my son; Sherry for me,” says mother.
“A bottle of sherry here, waiter,” says the flat; and she makes the favoured few who have the right of entrée behind her bar, pay for the distinguished indulgence.