The Cries of London. John Thomas Smith
of country towns afford instances of the grossest flattery and ignorance. We have an instance in the Crier of Cowbridge, Glamorganshire, who, after announcing the loss of an “all black cow, with a white face and a white tail,” concluded with the usual exclamation of “God save the King and the Lord of the Manor!” adding, “and Master Billy!” well knowing that the Lord of the Manor or his Lady would remember him for recollecting their infant son.
It may be inferred from an ancient stained glass picture of a pedlar with his pack at his back, still to be seen in a South-east window of Lambeth Church,[4] a representation of which has been given by the author in a work entitled, “Antiquities of London,” that itinerant trades must have been of long standing.
It appears from the celebrated Comedy of Ignoramus, by George Ruggle, performed before King James the First on March the 8th, 1614, of which there is an English translation by Robert Codrington, published 1662, that books were at that period daily cried in the streets.
In the third scene of the second act, Cupes the itinerant Bibliopole exclaims,
Libelli, belli, belli; lepidi, novi libelli; belli, belli, libelli!
Trico. Heus, libelli belli.
Cupes. O Trico, mox tibi operam do. Ita vivam, ut pessimi sunt libelli.
In the time of Charles II. ballad singers and sellers of small books were required to be licensed. John Clarke, bookseller, rented the licensing of all ballad-singers of Charles Killigrew, Esq. master of the revels, for five years, which term expired in 1682. “These, therefore, are to give notice (saith the latter gentleman in the London Gazette) to all ballad-singers, that they take out licenses at the office of the Revels at Whitehall, for singing and selling of ballads and small books, according to an antient custom. And all persons concerned are hereby desired to take notice of, and to suppress, all mountebanks, rope-dancers, prize-players, ballad-singers, and such as make shew of motions and strange sights, that have not a license in red and black letters, under the hand and seal of the said Charles Killigrew, Esq. Master of the Revels to his Majesty; and in particular, to suppress one Mr. Irish, Mr. Thomas Varney, and Thomas Yeats, mountebank, who have no license, that they may be proceeded against according to law.”
The Gazette of April 14, 1684, contains another order relative to these licenses: “All persons concerned are hereby desired to take notice of and suppress all mountebanks, rope-dancers, ballad-singers, &c. that have not a license from the Master of his Majesty’s Revels (which, for this present year, are all printed with black letters, and the King’s Arms in red) and particularly Samuel Rutherford and—— Irish, mountebanks, and William Bevel and Richard Olsworth; and all those that have licenses with red and black letters, are to come to the office to change them for licenses as they are now altered.”
The origin of our early cries might be ascribed to the parent of invention. An industrious man finding perhaps his trade running slack, might have ventured abroad with his whole stock, and by making his case known, invited his neighbours to purchase; and this mode of vending commodities being adopted by others, probably established the custom of itinerant hawkers, to the great and truly serious detriment of those housekeepers who contributed to support their country by the payment of their taxes. An Act was passed in the reign of James the First, and is thus noticed in a work entitled, “Legal Provisions for the Poor, by S. C. of the Inner Temple, 1713.” “All Pedlars, Petty-chapmen, Tinkers, and Glass-men, per Statute 21 Jac. 28, abroad, especially if they be unknown, or have not a sufficient testimonial, and though a man have a certain habitation, yet if he goes about from place to place selling small wares, he is punishable by the 39 Eliz.”
Hawkers and Pedlars are obliged at this time, in consequence of an Act passed in the reign of King George the Third, to take out a license.
Originally the common necessaries of life were only sold in the streets, but we find as early as the reign of Elizabeth that cheese-cakes were to be had at the small house near the Serpentine River in Hyde Park. It is a moated building, and to this day known under the appellation of the “Queen’s Cheese-cake House.”[5] There were also other houses for the sale of cheese-cakes, and those at Hackney and Holloway were particularly famous. The landlord of the latter employed people to cry them about the streets of London; and within the memory of the father of the present writer an old man delivered his cry of “Holloway Cheese-cakes,” in a tone so whining and slovenly, that most people thought he said “All my teeth ache.” Indeed among persons who have been long accustomed to cry the articles they have for sale, it is often impossible to guess at what they say.
An instance occurs in an old woman who has for a length of time sold mutton dumplings in the neighbourhood of Gravel Lane. She may be followed for a whole evening, and all that can be conjectured from her utterance is “Hot mutton trumpery.”
In another instance, none but those who have heard the man, would for a moment believe that his cry of “Do you want a brick or brick dust?” could have been possibly mistaken for “Do you want a lick on the head?”
An inhabitant of the Adelphi, when an invalid, was much annoyed by the peevish and lengthened cry of “Venny,” proceeding every morning and evening from a muffin-man whenever he rang his bell.
Many of the old inhabitants of Cavendish Square must recollect the mournful manner in which a weather-beaten Hungerford fisherman cried his “Large silver Eels, live Eels.” This man’s tones were so melancholy to the ears of a lady in Harley Street that she allowed the fellow five shillings a week to discontinue his cry in that neighbourhood; and there is at the present time a slip-shod wretch who annoys Portland Place and its vicinity generally twice, and sometimes three times a day, with what may be strictly called the braying of an ass, and all his vociferation is to inform the public that he sells water-cresses, though he appears to call “Chick-weed.” Another Stentorian bawler, and even a greater nuisance in the same neighbourhood, seems to his unfortunate hearers to deal in “Cats’-meat,” though his real cry is “Cabbage-plants.”
The witty author of a tract entitled, “An Examination of certain Abuses, Corruptions, and Enormities, in the City of Dublin,” written in the year 1732, says, “I would advise all new comers to look out at their garret windows, and there see whether the thing that is cried be Tripes or Flummery, Buttermilk or Cowheels; for, as things are now managed, how is it possible for an honest countryman just arrived, to find out what is meant, for instance, by the following words, ‘Muggs, Juggs, and Porringers, up in the Garret, and down in the Cellar?’ I say, how is it possible for a stranger to understand that this jargon is meant as an invitation to buy a farthing’s worth of milk for his breakfast or supper?”
Captain Grose, in his very entertaining little work, entitled “An Olio,” in which there are many interesting anecdotes, notices several perversions of this kind, particularly one of a woman who sold milk.
Farthing mutton pies were made and continued to be sold within the memory of persons now living at a house which was then called the “Farthing Pie House,” in Marylebone Fields, before the New Road was made between Paddington and Islington, and which house remains in its original state at the end of Norton Street, New Road, bearing the sign of the Green Man.
Hand’s Bun House at Chelsea was established about one hundred and twenty years since, and probably was the first of its kind. There was also a famous bun-house at the time of George the Second in the Spa Fields, near the New River Head, on the way to Islington, but this was long since pulled down to make way for the sheep-pens, the site of which is now covered with houses.
The first notice which the writer has been able to obtain of the hot apple-dumpling women is in Ned Ward’s very entertaining work, entitled “The London Spy,” first published in 1698. He there states that Pancakes and “Diddle, diddle dumplings O!” were then cried in Rosemary Lane and its vicinity, commonly called Rag Fair. The representation of a dumpling-woman, in the reign of Queen Anne, is given by Laroon in his Cries of London, published 1711.[6]
With respect to hot potatoes, they must have been considerably more modern, as there are persons now living who declare them to have been eaten with great caution, and very rarely admitted