Sale to Commence at half-past 5 and 20 minutes past One hour and a half.
For further particulars make an early application to the Bung-hole of the Tub with the bottom out. Conditions as usual. Carriages ordered at 13 o’clock. Horses heads to be turned inside out, and Tails made to cut their Lucky—by order of the Mayor.
THE GENUINE THING
OR
The Last of the “Cocks,” or “Catchpennies.”
When at Brighton in the month of August, 1869, and winding our way through a maze of small streets laying between Richmond and Albion Hills, in the northern part of the town, our ears voluntarily “pricked up” on hearing the old familiar sounds of a “street, or running patterer” with the stereotyped sentences of “Horrible,”—“Dreadful,”—“Remarkable letters found on his person,”—“Cut down by a labouring man,”—“Quite dead,”—“Well-known in the town,”—“Hanging,”—“Coroner’s Inquest,”—“Verdict,”—“Full particulars,”—“Most determined suicide,”—“Brutal conduct,” &c., &c., only a ha’penny! Only a ha’penny! Presently we saw the man turn into a wide court-like place, which was designated by the high-sounding name of “Square,” and dedicated to Richmond; hither we followed him, and heard him repeat the same detached sentences, and became a purchaser for only a ha’penny! when to our astonishment we discovered a somewhat new phase in “Cock” selling, inasmuch as our purchase consisted of the current number (253) of the Brighton Daily News—a very respectable looking and well printed Halfpenny Local Newspaper, and of that day’s publication, and did in reality contain an account of a most determined suicide.
Being at the time engaged in arranging the materials for The Literature of the Streets, we ventured upon a conversation with the “street patterer” in the following form: “Well, governor, how does the cock fight?” “Oh, pretty well, sir; but it ain’t a ‘cock,’ it’s a genuine thing—the days of cocks is gone bye—cheap newspapers ’as done ’em up.” “Yes; we see this is a Brighton newspaper of to-day.” “Oh, yes, that’s right enough—but it’s all true.” “Yes; we are aware of that; but you are vending them after the old form.” “That’s all right enough—you see, sir, I can sell ’em better in that style than as a newspaper: I’ve sold ten or twelve dozen of ’em to-day.” “Yes; but how about them to-morrow?” “Oh, then it will be all bottled-up—and I must look for a new game. I’m on my way to London, but hearing of this suicide job, I thought I’d work ’em.” To our question of “Have you got any old real ‘cocks’ by you?” he replied, “No, not a bit of a one; I’ve worked ’em for a good many years, but it ain’t no go now. Oh, yes, I know’d ‘Old Jemmy Catnach’ fast enough—bought many hundreds, if not thousands of quires of him.—Not old enough? Oh, ain’t I though; why I’m turned fifty, and I’ve been a ‘street paper’ seller nearly all my life. I knows Muster Fortey too very well; him as is got the business now in the Dials—he knows his way about, let him alone for that.” Having rewarded the man with a few half-pence to make him some recompense for having detained him during his business progress, we parted.
On a perusal of the newspaper “Particulars” of the case, of which we subjoin a condensed copy, it will be found to contain all the necessary material for a clever and experienced “Patterer” to work upon, and that—
“’Tis strange—but true; for truth is always strange, stranger than fiction!”
