Buy a Broom.
| These poor “Buy-a-Broom girls” exactly dress now, As Hollar etch’d such girls two cent’ries ago; All formal and stiff, with legs, only at ease— Yet, pray, judge for yourself; and don’t if you please, ****** But ask for the print, at old print shops—they’ll show it, And look at it, “with your own eyes,” and you’ll know it. |
Buy a Broom? was formerly a very popular London-cry, when it was usually rendered thus:—“Puy a Proom, puy a prooms? a leetle von for ze papy, and a pig vons for ze lady: Puy a Proom.” Fifty years ago Madame Vestris charmed the town by her singing and displaying her legs as a Buy-a-Broom Girl.
| Buy a broom, buy a broom, Large broom, small broom, No lady should e’er be without one, &c. |
But time and fashion has swept both the brooms and the girls from our shores.—Madame Vestris lies head-to-head with Charles Mathews in Kensal Green Cemetery. Tempus omnia revelat.
The Lady as Cries Cats’ Meat.
| Old Maids, your custom I invites, Fork out, and don’t be shabby, And don’t begrudge a bit of lights Or liver for your Tabby. Hark! how the Pusses make a rout— To buy you can’t refuse; So may you never be without The music of their mews. Here’s famous meat—all lean, no fat— No better in Great Britain; Come, buy a penn’orth for your Cat— A happ’orth for your Kitten. Come all my barrow for a bob! Some charity diskivir; For faith, it ar’n’t an easy job To live by selling liver. Who’ll buy? who’ll buy of Catsmeat-Nan! I’ve bawl’d till I am sick; But ready money is my plan; I never gives no tick. I’ve got no customers as yet— In wain is my appeal— And not to buy a single bit Is werry ungenteel! |