Curiosities of Impecuniosity

by H. G. Somerville

Incredible as this narrative may seem, there is a yet more marvellous one which must be true, since “it was in the papers.”

In the autumn of 1827 two men were examined at the Marylebone police-court under circumstances of a peculiar and suspicious nature. The night previously a patrol in the New Road watched the men, and subsequently saw them deep in conversation by a lamp-post, and soon afterwards one man deliberately began to tie his companion up to the lamp-post, the suspended man offering no resistance to the labours of the improvised Jack Ketch. The patrol interfered, and both men proceeded to beat him with great violence. Some watchmen of the district hearing the cries of the assailed constable hastened to the spot, and the constable’s assailants were secured. While being examined before the magistrate, the men stated that they had been gambling by the light from the lamp, and that one of them had lost all his money to the other, and had then staked his clothes. The winner demurred to continue playing for the reason that if he again won he should not care to strip the loser of his habiliments. His enthusiastic companion rejoined that should he again lose, life would be worthless to him. A bargain was made to again play, it being understood that the unsuccessful gambler if again unlucky should be hung by his companion, who should strip him when dead. The fellow lost, and informed the magistrate that he was only submitting to the terms of the treaty when the patrol came up and interfered with himself and his companion. The magistrate concluding they had been intoxicated, discharged them with a caution.

A remarkably grim passage this in a gambler’s life, and unfortunately most of the selections in this section of the subject are more or less sombre, for romance is naturally more associated with tragedy than comedy. “Pitiful, wondrous pitiful,” is my next illustration, which is related by Sir Walter Scott, who when attending Dugald Stewart’s lectures on Moral Philosophy used to sit by the side of an amiable youth, in whose society he afterwards took great interest. They became companions, and frequently used to stroll out beyond the city, enjoying the charms of road and stream. One day during the perambulation they met a singularly venerable “Blue Gown,” a beggar of the Edie Ochiltree stamp, clean and ruddy. The beggar had three or four times previously encountered Scott, who with his usual good-heartedness had relieved him in answer to solicitation. When Mr. Scott and his fellow-student passed the old man, the companion of Scott exhibited peculiar restlessness and confusion. The beggar again had something dropped into his hand by Scott, who said soon afterwards to his companion, “Do you know anything to the dishonour of the old beggar?” “God forbid!” said the youth, and bursting into tears added, “I am ashamed to speak to him; he is my father! He has laid by for himself, but he stands bleaching his head in the wind, that he may get means to pay for my education.” Scott spoke words of tenderness and sympathy to the mendicant’s son, and kept his secret.

Some time afterwards he again met the hale “Blue Gown.” “God bless you!” said the old man; “you have been kind to Willie. He has often spoken of it. Come to our roof, for my boy has been ill. It will strengthen him, if you will go and see him.” At 2 o’clock on the following Saturday, Willie’s old fellow-student found the old man and his son waiting to receive him at their little cottage outside the city. It was a modest little tenement, and Willie sat on a bench before the door to enjoy the sunshine. The son of the voluntary mendicant looked wan and emaciated. He had been very ill. There was a dinner of mutton, potatoes and whisky. They all enjoyed themselves, and during their conversation the old man said, “Please God I may live to see my bairn wag his head in a pulpit yet.” Scott left them with tokens of good will and friendship. He communicated the story to his mother, who informed her husband, and it was at no distant time that Dr. Erskine’s influence (through the good offices of Mr. and Mrs. Scott) obtained the old man’s son a tutorship in the north of Scotland.

To quit the pathetic for a moment, it would scarcely be thought likely that that necessary but extremely practical article—blacking—has ever been associated with romance; but Mr. Smiles tells the story of a poor soldier having one day called at the shop of a hairdresser who was busy with his customers and asked relief, stating that he had stayed beyond his leave of absence, and unless he could get a lift on the coach, fatigue and severe punishment awaited him. The hairdresser listened to his story respectfully, and gave him a guinea. “God bless you, sir!” exclaimed the soldier, astonished at the amount. “How can I repay you? I have nothing in the world but this,” pulling out a dirty piece of paper from his pocket; “it is a receipt for making blacking—it is the best that was ever seen; many a half-guinea I have had for it from the officers, and many bottles I have sold. May you be able to get something for it to repay you for your kindness to the poor soldier!” Oddly enough that dirty piece of paper proved worth half a million of money to the hairdresser. It was no less than a receipt for the famous Day and Martin’s blacking, the hairdresser being the late Mr. Day.

The picture of little ones asking for bread and the parents finding none in the cupboard is a very old story. Domestic affection, struggling amidst difficulties and distress, has produced heroes and martyrs innumerable, but few more interesting than Peter Stokes, famous in years gone by as the “Flying Pieman.” Every day at the beginning of the present century (excepting when it rained) the familiar figure of that now historic personage might have been seen in the steep thoroughfare between Staple’s Inn and Field Lane. Peter obtained the sobriquet of “Flying Pieman” from the celerity of his movements. There was some slight mistake concerning his nickname, for Peter Stokes sold baked plum pudding, not pies. Stokes was one of the celebrated old-fashioned London characters, as well known to cockneys of that period as Billy Waters or the negro crossing-sweeper at the foot of Ludgate Hill.

Soon after the clock of St. Andrew’s Church struck twelve, Stokes used to turn out of Fetter Lane with a tray of smoking hot plum pudding, the pudding cut into twelve slices, the price of each being a penny. Peter carried his tray in one hand and a bright silver scapula in the other. The customer received his slice of pudding from the scapula after a penny had been deposited upon the tray (Peter never gave change), the “Flying Pieman,” as he perambulated or as he stopped, never being known to utter any other word than “Buy, buy, buy.” He always wore a black vest, swallow-tailed coat, stout silk stockings, and shoes with bright silver buckles, while a snowy white apron and faultlessly frilled shirt completed a modish and impressive costume. No hat or cap adorned his head, the hair of which was close cropped and powdered.

Peter Stokes was sometimes known to have disposed of fifty rounds of pudding per diem. His customers have often included aldermen, ladies of quality, and blue blood bucks, but they received no more attention than did rougher and humbler patrons. The “Flying Pieman” was attentive to everybody, but he never turned back for anybody. Making his way deftly through crowds of pedestrians, hackney coaches or waggons, the “Flying Pieman” went straight on, calling out “Buy,” and only stopped for the proffered penny; but his real history was indeed a curious one. Contemporary with him was a portrait painter in Rathbone Place. The artist painted with great assiduity in the morning, and his evening parties though homely, were pleasant and refined. A devoted wife and affectionate children cheered the life of the amiable and industrious artist. He was a genial-faced man, with dark brown hair. This artist and Peter Stokes were identical. When young, Stokes made a love-match, married upon next to nothing, and in a few years found himself the father of several children. A modest, industrious, painstaking artist, he found but few to sit to him for a portrait. Things grew exceedingly bad with him.

One day he heard one of his boys crying for something to eat, and the artist found that his wife had no bread to give the hungry child. Peter Stokes hurried from his home with an almost wet picture, which he deposited at a neighbouring pawnbroker’s. Returning, the needy artist saw at a street-corner a boy selling baked potatoes, and moreover the artist observed that the boy was doing a busy trade. Crushing pride, and taking his faithful and devoted wife into close confidence, Peter unfolded a plan by which he too might sell something profitable in the street. Mrs. Stokes seconded the suggestion, and Peter soon commenced his career as a vendor of baked plum pudding. He threw a desperate card, but it turned up trumps. Stokes’s portraits have gone to the limbo of oblivion, but the peculiar method by which he impressed the crowd with his tray of baked plum pudding shows at any rate that its vendor had a good eye for artistic effect.

If it were, as some will doubtless say, “a sin and shame” that an artist of Peter Stokes’s ability should have to turn itinerant vendor of pennyworths of pudding, the old adage “Be sure your sin will find you out” was at fault for once; but to make up for the omission in his case, how wonderfully true was the proverb in the romantic history of Lord Chief Justice Holt, whose impecuniosity caused him to commit an act that resulted in a truly tragic finale.