Butcher.—Well, Mr. Mackerel, pray let me ask you how you come to show your impudent face among those who don’t want to see you or any of your crew?
Mackerel.—That my company is not agreeable to many such as you I very well know; but here I am, and will keep my place in spite of you. Don’t think to frighten me with your lofty looks, Mr. Green. You are an enemy to the poor, I am their true friend, and I will be in spite of you.
Butcher.—I will soon see the end of you and your vain boasting. What’s the poor to me?
Mackerel.—I and thousands of my brethren are come to town for the sole good of the industrious poor. We will soon pull down your high prices, your pride and consequence, and Melt your fat off your overgrown Carcass. I am their sworn friend, and although you are biting off your tongue with vexation, yet I am determined they shall have a cheap Meal—good, sweet, and wholesome—put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Butcher.—Aye, aye. You are a saucy set, confound you altogether. Oddzbobs, I wish the Devil had the whole of your disagreeable tribe.
Mackerel.—I would advise you, Mr. Green, not to show your teeth when you can’t bite. Millions of my friends are on their way to town to make the poor rejoice. We have had a fine seed time, everything looks promising. Meat must and will come down. The poor will sing for joy, and you may go hang yourself in your garters.
Catnach, Printer, 2, Monmouth Court,
Cards, Bills, &c., Printed on Low Terms.
Catnach, to the day of his retirement from business in 1838, when he purchased the freehold of a disused public-house, which had been known as the Lion Inn, together with the grounds attached at Dancer’s Hill, South Mimms, near Barnet, in the county of Middlesex, worked and toiled in the office of the “Catnach Press,” in which he had moved as the pivot, or directing mind, for a quarter of a century. He lived and died a bachelor. His only idea of all earthly happiness and mental enjoyment was now to get away in retirement to a convenient distance from his old place of business, so to give him an opportunity occasionally to go up to town and have a chat and a friendly glass with one or two old paper-workers and ballad-writers, and a few others connected with his peculiar trade who had shown any disposition to work when work was to be done. To them he was always willing to give or advance a few pence or shillings, in money or stock, and a glass—