At the end of Fleet Market of fish kept a stall:
As red as her cheek no boil’d lobster was seen,
Not an eel that she sold was as soft as her skin.”
The Barber’s Nuptials.
[309] From The Wife’s Trial, Lamb’s dramatic version of Crabbe’s Confidant. See Mr. Lucas’s Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol. v. p. 257.
[310] All previous relic-selling at Newgate was, however, eclipsed by the sale held in the partly demolished prison on Wednesday, 4th February 1903. The following account appeared in the City Press of 7th February:—
“In its way, probably, the sale which Messrs. Douglas Young & Co. conducted in the middle of the week, within the gloomy precincts of crime-stricken Newgate, was the most unique and memorable of its kind ever held. Crowds of the curious and speculative were naturally attracted to the fortress prison site.
“Interest more particularly hovered around the old toll bell, with its famous loyal inscription, and solid ton of metal. The hour was late when the lot (No. 188 in the catalogue) was reached, but that circumstance did not in any way detract from the briskness of the bidding. Starting at £30, the offers rapidly mounted; and, finally, the prized souvenir of many a tragic decade passed into the hands of Mr. Richardson (acting as agent for Madame Tussaud’s) for the exact sum of £100. The old flagstaff, whence the black flag was hoisted immediately after an execution had taken place, fell to the enterprise of Mr. Fox, a Cape gentleman, who, for 11½ guineas, has ensured that in future the Union Jack shall flutter in South African breezes from its fateful masthead.
“The famous oak and iron-cased half-latticed door associated with memories of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, of philanthropic fame, went for £20; while Sir George Chubb secured for £30, amidst some cheering, the wonderful old massive oak and iron-bound half-latticed main entrance door that was fixed up when the prison was rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666. A warder’s key-cupboard, fitted with shelf and iron hooks—identical with the one referred to in Barnaby Rudge—extracted £12, 10s. from the pockets of the bidder; while the appointments of the condemned cells, both male and female, realised fairly good prices—the former in particular.
“The chapel pulpit, at £8, 10s., was a distinctly disappointing figure; while it cannot be said that £5, 15s. was an extravagant sum to pay for the complete equipment of the execution shed. The taste for criminology, in the shape of the plaster casts of the heads of nine victims of the gallows, worked out at five guineas.