"Dear Bill, This Stone-Jug"
The state of affairs described in this poem is now happily a thing of the past. Newgate, as a prison, has almost ceased to be. Only when the Courts are sitting do its functions commence, and then there is constant coming and going between the old city gaol and the real London prison of to-day, Holloway Castle.
The Leary Man
The Vulgar Tongue, by Ducarge Anglicus, is, as a glossary, of no account whatever; the only thing not pilfered from Brandon's Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime being this song. Where that came from deponent knoweth not.
A Hundred Stretches Hence
The Rogue's Lexicon, mainly reprinted from Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, is of permanent interest and value to the philologist and student for the many curious survivals of, and strange shades of meaning occurring in, slang words and colloquilisms after transplantation to the States. G. W. Matsell was for a time the chief of the New York police.
The Chickaleary Cove
Vance, a music-hall singer and composer in the sixties, made his first great hit in Jolly Dogs; or Slap-bang! here we are again. This was followed by The Chickaleary Cove: a classic in its way.
'Arry at a Political Picnic
The 'Arry Ballads' are too fresh in public memory to need extensive quotation. The example given is a fair sample of the series; which, taken as a whole, very cleverly "hit off" the idiosyncrasies and foibles of the London larrikin.