While some of a humorous turn of mind like to introduce a little bit of their own, or the borrowed wit of those who have gone before them, and effect the one step which is said to exist from the sublime to the ridiculous, and cry—
| “One-a-penny, poker; two-a-penny, tongs! One-a-penny; two-a-penny, hot cross buns. One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross-buns! If your daughters will not eat them, give them to your sons. But if you haven’t any of those pretty little elves, You cannot then do better than eat them up yourselves; One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns: All, hot, hot, hot, all hot. One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns! Burning hot! smoking hot, r-r-r-roking hot— One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns.” |
But the street hot-cross-bun trade is languishing—and languishing, will ultimately die a natural death, as the master bakers and pastrycooks have entered into it more freely, and now send round to their regular customers for orders some few days before each succeeding Good Friday.
A capital writer of Notes, Comment and Gossip, who contributes every week to the City Press, under the nom de plume of “Dogberry,” gave—inter alia—a few “Good Words,” the result of his “Leisure Hours” in that journal, on the subject of “Good Friday Customs.” March 24, 1883, thus:—
“That the buns themselves are as popular as ever they were when the Real Original Bun Houses existed in Chelsea, was manifest on Thursday evening, though the scene is now changed from the west to the east. Bishopsgate-street was indeed all alive with people of high and low degree crowding in and out of Messrs. Hill & Sons, who, I am told, turned no less than 47 sacks of flour, representing over 13,000 lbs., into the favourite Good Friday cakes. This mass was sweetened by 2,800 lbs. of sugar, moistened with 1,500 quarts of milk, and ‘lightened’ with 2,200 lbs. of butter. Something like 25,000 paper bags were used in packing the buns, and upwards of 150 pairs of hands were engaged in the making and distribution of the tasty morsels at Bishopsgate and at the West-end branch of Messrs. Hill, at Victoria. The customary business of the firm must have been interrupted considerably by Good Friday, and the forty-seven sacks of flour made into buns represented, I presume, a considerable deduction from the hundred and ninety to two hundred which the firm work up in one form or another every week. But then you can’t eat your (Good Friday) cake and have it. There were other bakers and confectioners in the City, too, who appeared to do a thriving trade in buns—notably Messrs. Robertson & Co., in Aldersgate-street. Long live the Good Friday bun!”
Dogberry.
Hot Cross Buns.
By Miss Eliza Cook.
| “The clear spring dawn is breaking, and there cometh with the ray, The stripling boy with ‘shining face,’ and dame in ‘hodden grey:’ Rude melody is breathed by all—young—old—the strong, and weak; From manhood with its burly tone, and age with treble squeak. Forth come the little busy ‘Jacks’ and forth come little ‘Jills,’ As thick and quick as working ants about their summer hills; With baskets of all shapes and makes, of every size and sort; Away they trudge with eager step, through alley, street, and court. A spicy freight they bear along, and earnest is their care, To guard it like a tender thing from morning’s nipping air; And though our rest be broken by their voices shrill and clear, There’s something in the well-known ‘cry’ we dearly love to hear. ’Tis old, familiar music, when ‘the old woman runs’ With ‘One-a-penny, two-a-penny, Hot Cross Buns!’ Full many a cake of dainty make has gained a great renown, We all have lauded ‘Gingerbread’ and ‘Parliament’ done brown; But when did luscious ‘Banburies,’ or dainty ‘Sally Lunns,’ E’er yield such merry chorus theme as ‘One-a-penny buns!’ The pomp of palate that may be like old Vitellius fed, Can never feast as mine did on the sweet and fragrant bread; When quick impatience could not wait to share the early meal, But eyed the pile of ‘Hot Cross Buns,’ and dared to snatch and steal. Oh, the soul must be uncouth as a Vandal’s Goth’s, or Hun’s, That loveth not the melody of ‘One-a-penny Buns!’” |
And so, awaking in the early morning, we hear the streets ringing with the cry, “Hot Cross Buns.” And perhaps when all that we have wrought shall be forgotten, when our name shall be as though it had been written on water, and many institutions great and noble shall have perished, this little bun will live on unharmed. Others, as well as ourselves, will, it may be, lie awake upon their beds, and listen to the murmurs going to and fro within the great heart of London, and, thinking on the half-forgotten days of the nineteenth century, wonder perhaps whether, in these olden times, we too heard the sound of “Hot Cross Buns.”