“From the hasty glance I have taken at the patterers, any well-constructed mind may deduce the following inference: although a great amount of intelligence sometimes consists with a great want of principle, that an utter want of education, or mis-education, leaves man, like a reed floating on the stream of time, to follow every direction which the current of affairs may give him.
“There is yet another and a larger class, who are wanderers from choice,—who would rather be street-orators, and quacks, and performers, than anything else in the world. In nine cases out of ten, the street-patterers are persons of intemperate habits, no veracity, and destitute of any desire to improve their condition, even where they have the chance. One of this crew was lately engaged at a bazaar; he had 18s. a week, and his only work was to walk up and down and extol the articles exhibited. This was too monotonous a life; I happened to pass him by as he was taking his wages for the week, and heard him say, ‘I shall cut this b—y work; I can earn more on the streets, and be my own master.’”
It would be a mistake to suppose that the patterers, although a vagrant, are a disorganized class. There is a telegraphic dispatch between them, through the length and breadth of the land. If two patterers (previously unacquainted) meet in the provinces, the following, or something like it, will be their conversation:—“Can you ‘voker romeny’ (can you speak cant)? What is your ‘monekeer’ (name)?”—Perhaps it turns out that one is “White-headed Bob,” and the other “Plymouth Ned.” They have a “shant of gatter” (pot of beer) at the nearest “boozing ken” (ale-house), and swear eternal friendship to each other. The old saying, that “When the liquor is in, the wit is out,” is remarkably fulfilled on these occasions, for they betray to the “flatties” (natives) all their profits and proceedings.
It is to be supposed that, in country districts, where there are no streets, the patterer is obliged to call at the houses. As they are mostly without the hawker’s licence, and sometimes find wet linen before it is lost, the rural districts are not fond of their visits; and there are generally two or three persons in a village reported to be “gammy,” that is (unfavourable). If a patterer has been “crabbed,” that is (offended) at any of the “cribbs” (houses), he mostly chalks a signal on or near the door. I give one or two instances:
“Bone,” meaning good.
“Cooper’d,” spoiled by the imprudence of some other patterer.
“Gammy,” likely to have you taken up.