The "Wild Rogue," used for boys and girls, children of thieves, who made a good living for their parents by hanging about the doors of crowded churches, and cutting off gold buttons from the coats of the merchants.
The "Clapperdozen," a woman who begged about the streets with stolen children.
The "Abram Man," a sham madman.
The "Whip Jack," a counterfeit sailor who pretended to be shipwrecked.
The "Mumpus," who pretended to be a decayed merchant or a sequestered clergyman.
The "Dommerer," who shammed dumb.
Let us turn from general statements to the consideration of a single family. That of Samuel Pepys might be taken as an example, and his Journal is by no means well-trodden and familiar ground. In fact, he is generally read in bits, for half an hour's amusement. Yet it is better to take a case not before the public at all. Besides, even a minute diary such as that of Pepys, kept day by day, leaves, when you come to construct the daily life out of it, great gaps here and there. Less literary documents may sometimes yield richer results. Even the most careful diarist scorns to speak of details. For them we must look into the humble papers of the household. For instance, I have before me a bundle of documents on which I lighted by accident, containing the household accounts of a respectable family for the years 1677-1679, and I propose by means of these accounts to reproduce the household daily life of a bourgeois well-to-do family of the time.
This family consisted of the master, the mistress, and "Mr. Arthur," who was probably the master's brother. The two former were at this time a young married couple, whose joys and anxieties are presently increased by the arrival of a baby. Their residence is a short distance from London, and their way of life may be taken to illustrate that of the general run of London citizens. The occupation of the master is not stated, but he appears to be a man following no profession or trade: perhaps a gentleman with a small estate. They seem to have kept no horses, so that their means were certainly narrow. Their nearest market-town was Hertford, whither they went by coach (fare one shilling) to buy what they wanted. Their house-keeping was conducted with an eye to economy, yet there is no stint, and occasionally there occurs an entry—quite inexplicable—of wild extravagance. They lived in the country, about fifteen miles from London, and presumably had a garden, yet they did not grow enough vegetables, herbs, and fruit for their own consumption. The household consisted, besides the family and the nurse, of a cook, two maids, and a gardener, or man of all work. The accounts are partly kept by the mistress and partly by a servant—perhaps a house-keeper. Remembering that Pepys consented to receive his sister "Pall" into his house only on the footing of a servant, the keeper of the accounts may very well have been a poor relation.
The rent of the house was £26 a year. It contained two sitting-rooms and four bedrooms, with a kitchen. The parlor, or best sitting-room, was hung with five pieces of fine tapestry; the other sitting-room with gray linsey-woolsey and gilt leather; the bedrooms had hangings of striped cloth. Curtains of green cloth with a green carpet decorated the parlor; the other rooms had green, say, or "sad color" striped curtains. The best bedroom contained a magnificent "wrought"—i.e., carved—bedstead with a canopy, curtains, a valance, and chairs all of the same material. There were three other bedrooms, one for Mr. Arthur, one for the nurse and the baby, unless they slept at the foot of the big bed, and one for the maids. The gardener slept out of the house. The furniture of the parlor consisted of one central table—the dining-table—a table with a drawer, a cupboard, a clock case, a leather chair, a plush chair, six green cloth chairs, and two green stools. The carpet and curtains have been already mentioned; there were no pictures, no cabinets, no book-shelves, no mirrors, no sofas. The other room was more simply furnished with a Spanish table, a plain table, and a few chairs. Two of the bedrooms had looking-glasses, and there was a very generous provision of feather-beds, bolsters, pillows, and blankets, which speaks of comfort for the night.
The inventory of the kitchen furniture is, unfortunately, incomplete. There is no mention at all made of any china-ware. Yet porcelain was by this time in common use. It was made at Bow and at Chelsea. In middle-class houses the master and mistress used it at table, while servants and children still had pewter or even wooden platters. The inventory speaks of porringers, doubtless of wood, of pewter candlesticks—there are no brass candlesticks—of a three-pint pewter pot, of a great and little bowl—for possets and hot spiced ale—and of wooden platters. Nothing is said of silver; there are no silver cups—in the century before this no respectable householder was without one silver mazer at least; there are no silver candlesticks; there is no mention of forks. Now the two-pronged fork of steel was made in Sheffield certainly in the middle of the century. It would be curious if the ordinary household still kept up the old fashion of eating without forks so late as 1677.