“Ha-a-andsome cod! best in the market! All alive! alive! alive, oh!”—“Ye-o-o! ye-o-o! Here’s your fine Yarmouth bloaters! Who’s the buyer?”—“Here you are, governor; splendid whiting! some of the right sort!”—“Turbot! turbot! All alive, turbot.”—“Glass of nice peppermint, this cold morning? Halfpenny a glass!”—“Here you are, at your own price! Fine soles, oh!”—“Oy! oy! oy! Now’s your time! Fine grizzling sprats! all large, and no small!”—“Hullo! hullo, here! Beautiful lobsters! good and cheap. Fine cock crabs, all alive, oh!”—“Five brill and one turbot—have that lot for a pound! Come and look at ’em, governor; you won’t see a better lot in the market!”—“Here! this way; this way, for splendid skate! Skate, oh! skate, oh!”—“Had-had-had-had-haddock! All fresh and good!”—“Currant and meat puddings! a ha’penny each!”—“Now, you mussel-buyers, come along! come along! come along! Now’s your time for fine fat mussels!”—“Here’s food for the belly, and clothes for the back; but I sell food for the mind!” shouts the newsvendor.—“Here’s smelt, oh!”—“Here ye are, fine Finney haddick!”—“Hot soup! nice pea-soup! a-all hot! hot!”—“Ahoy! ahoy, here! Live plaice! all alive, oh!”—“Now or never! Whelk! whelk! whelk!” “Who’ll buy brill, oh! brill, oh?”—“Capes! waterproof capes! Sure to keep the wet out! A shilling apiece!”—“Eels, oh! eels, oh! Alive, oh! alive oh!”—“Fine flounders, a shilling a lot! Who’ll have this prime lot of flounders?”—“Shrimps! shrimps! fine shrimps!”—“Wink! wink! wink!”—“Hi! hi-i! here you are; just eight eels left—only eight!”—“O ho! O ho! this way—this way—this way! Fish alive! alive! alive, oh.”
Billingsgate; or, the School of Rhetoric.
| Near London Bridge once stood a gate, Belinus gave it name, Whence the green Nereids oysters bring, A place of public fame. Here eloquence has fixed her seat, The nymphs here learn by heart In mode and figure still to speak, By modern rules of art. To each fair oratress this school Its rhetoric strong affords; They double and redouble tropes, With finger, fish, and words. Both nerve and strength and flow of speech, With beauties ever new, Adorn the language of these nymphs, Who give it all their due. O, happy seat of happy nymphs! For many ages known, To thee each rostrum’s forc’d to yield— Each forum in the town. Let other academies boast What titles else they please; Thou shalt be call’d “the gate of tongues,” Of tongues that never cease. |
The sale of hot green peas in the streets of London is of great antiquity, that is to say, if the cry of “Hot peascods! one began to cry,” recorded by Lydgate in his London Lackpenny, may be taken as having intimated the sale of the same article under the modern cry of “Hot green peas! all hot, all hot! Here’s your peas, hot, hot, hot!” In many parts of the country it is, or was, customary to have a “scalding of peas,” as a sort of rustic festivity, at which green peas scalded or slightly boiled with their pods on are the main dish. Being set on the table in the midst of the party, each person dips his peapod in a common cup of melted butter, seasoned with salt and pepper, and extracts the peas by the agency of his teeth. At times one bean, shell and all is put into the steaming mass, whoever gets this bean is to be first married.
The sellers of green peas “hot, all hot!” have no stands but carry them in a tin pot or pan which is wrapped round with a thick cloth, to retain the heat. The peas are served out with a ladle, and eaten by the customers out of basins provided with spoons by the vendor. Salt and pepper are supplied at discretion, but the fresh! butter to grease ’em (avec votre permission.)
The hot green peas are sold out in halfpennyworths and pennyworths, some vendors, in addition to the usual seasoning supplied, add a suck of bacon. The “suck of bacon” is obtained by the street Arabs from a piece of that article, securely fastened by a string, to obtain a “relish” for the peas, or as is usually said “to flavour ’em;” sometimes these young gamins manage to bite the string and then bolt not only the bacon, but away from the vendors. The popular saying “a plate of veal cut with a hammy knife” is but a refined rendering of the pea and suck-’o-bacon, street luxury trick.
Pea soup is also sold in the streets of London, but not to the extent it was twenty years ago, when the chilled labourer and others having only a halfpenny to spend would indulge in a basin of—“All hot!”
The Flower-Pot Man.
| Here comes the old mail with his flowers to sell, Along the streets merrily going; Full many a year I’ve remember’d him well, With, “Flowers, a-growing, a-blowing.” Geraniums in dresses of scarlet and green; Thick aloes, that blossom so rarely; The long creeping cereus with prickles so keen, Or primroses modest and early. The myrtle dark green, and the jessamine pale, Sweet scented and gracefully flowing, This flower-man carries and offers for sale, “All flourishing, growing, and blowing.” |
With the coming in of spring there is a large sale of Palm; on the Saturday preceding and on Palm Sunday; also of May, the fragrant flower of the hawthorn, and lilac in flower. But perhaps the pleasantest of all cries in early spring is that of “Flowers—All a-growing—all a-blowing,” heard for the first time in the season. Their beauty and fragrance gladden the senses; and the first and unexpected sight of them may prompt hopes of the coming year, such as seem proper to the spring.
| “Come, gentle spring! ethereal mildness! come.” |
The sale of English and Foreign nuts in London is enormous, the annual export from Tarragona alone is estimated at 10,000 tons. Of the various kinds, we may mention the “Spanish,” the “Barcelona,” the “Brazil,” the “Coker-nut,” the “Chesnut,” and “Though last, not least, in love”—The “Walnut!”
“As jealous as Ford, that search’d a hollow wall-nut for his wife’s lemon.”—Merry Wives of Windsor.
The walnut-tree has long existed in England, and it is estimated that upwards of 50,000 bushels of walnuts are disposed of in the wholesale markets of the London district annually. Who is not pleased to hear every Autumn the familiar cry of:—
| “Crack ’em and try ’em, before you buy ’em, Eight a-penny—All new walnuts Crack ’em and try ’em, before you buy ’em, A shilling a-hundred—All new-walnuts. |
The history of the happy and social walnut involves some curious misconceptions. Take its name to begin with. Why walnut? What has this splendid, wide-spreading tree to do with walls, except such as are used as stepping-stones for the boys to climb up into the branches and steal the fruit? Nothing whatever! for, if we are to believe the learned in such matters, this fine old English tree, as it is sometimes called, is not an English tree at all, but a distinct and emphatic foreigner, and hence the derivation. The walnut is a native of Persia, and has been so named to distinguish the naturalised European from its companions, the hazel, the filbert, and the chesnut. In “the authorities” we are told that “gual” or “wall” means “strange” or “exotic,” the same root being found in Welsh and kindred tongues; hence walnut. It is true, at any rate, that in France they retain the distinctive name “Noix Persique.” There is another mistaken theory connected with the tree which bears a fruit so dear to society at large, for someone has been hazardous enough to assert that:—
| “A woman, a spaniel, and a walnut tree, The more you beat them the better they be.” |
And this ribald rhyme—which is of Latin origin, is now an established English proverb, or proverbial phrase, but variously construed. See Nash’s “Have with you to Saffron-Walden; or, Gabriel Harvey’s Hunt is up,” 1596.—Reprinted by J. P. Collier, 1870. Moor, in his “Suffolk Words,” pp. 465, furnishes another version, which is rather an epigram than a proverb:—
| “Three things by beating better prove; A Nut, an Ass, a Woman; The cudgel from their back remove, And they’ll be good for no man.” “Nux, asinus, mulier simili sunt lege ligata. Hæc tria nil recté faciunt si verbera cessant. Adducitur a cognato, est temen novum.”—Martial. |
“Sam.... Why he’s married, beates his wife, and has two or three children by her: for you must note, that any woman beares the more when she is beaten.”—A Yorkshire Tragedy: “Not so New, as Lamentable and true—1608,” edition 1619.—Signature, A. Verso.
| “Flamineo.—Why do you kick her, say? Do you think that she’s like a walnut tree? Must she be cudgell’d ere she bear good fruit?” |
—Webster’s “White Devil,” 1612. iv. 4. (Works, edited by W. C. Hazlitt, II. 105.)
Now all these statements are at once unkind and erroneous all round. We know what is declared of the “man who, save in the way of kindness, lays his hand upon a woman,” to say nothing of the punishment awaiting him at the adjacent police court.[15] As to dogs, those who respect the calves of their legs had best beware of the danger of applying this recipe to any but low-spirited animals. In the case of the walnut-tree, the recommendation is again distinctly false, and the results mis-described. Possibly there are walnut-trees, as there are women, dogs, and horses, who seem none the worse for the stick; but, as a general rule, kindly treatment, for vegetable and animal alike, is the best, and, in the long run, the wisest.
In “The Miller’s Daughter,” one of the most homely and charming poems ever penned by the Poet Laureate, occurs a quatrain, spoken by an old gentleman addressing his faithful spouse:—
| “So sweet it seems with thee to talk, And once again to woo thee mine; ’Tis like an after-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine.” |
The Christmas Holly.
| “The Holly! the Holly! oh, twine it with bay— Come give the Holly a song; For it helps to drive stern Winter away, With his garments so sombre and long. It peeps through the trees with its berries so red, And its leaves of burnished green, When the flowers and fruits have long been dead, And not even the daisy is seen. Then sing to the Holly, the Christmas Holly, That hangs over the peasant and king: While we laugh and carouse ’neath its glittering boughs, To the Christmas Holly we’ll sing.” Eliza Cook. |
In London a large sale is carried on in “Christmasing,” or in the sale of holly, ivy, laurel, evergreens, bay, and mistletoe, for Christmas sports and decorations, by the family greengrocer and the costermongers. The latter of whom make the streets ring with their stentorian cry of:—
Holly! Holly!! Holly, oh!!! Christmas Holly, oh!
Old Cries.
By Miss Eliza Cook.
| Dust, O!—Dust, O!—Bring it out to day, Bring it out to-day, I sha’n’t be here to-mor-row! |
Dust, O!—Dust, O!
| His noisy bell the dustman rings, Her dust the housemaid gladly brings: Ringing he goes from door to door, Until his cart will hold no more. |
The Dustman.
| Bring out your dust, the dustman cries, Whilst ringing of his bell: If the wind blows, pray guard your eyes, To keep them clear and well. I am very glad ’tis not my luck To get my bread by carting muck; I am sure I never could be made To work at such a dirty trade. Hold, my fine spark, not so fast, Some proud folks get a fall at last; And you, young gentleman, I say, May be a Dustman, one fine day. All working folks, who seldom play, Yet get their bread in a honest way, Though not to wealth or honours born, Deserve respect instead of scorn. Such rude contempt they merit less Than those who live in idleness; Who are less useful, I’m afraid, Than I, the Dustman, am by trade. |
The Birdman.
| Have pity, have pity on poor little birds, Who only make music, and cannot sing words; And think, when you listen, we mean by our strain, O! let us fly home to our woodlands again. Our dear woody coverts, and thickets so green, Too close for the school-boy to rustle between; No foot to alarm us, no sorrow, no rain, O! let us fly home to our woodlands again. There perched on the branches that wave to the wind, No more in this pitiless prison confined, How gaily we’ll tune up our merriest strain, If once we get home to our woodlands again. |
Buy a Door-Mat or a Table-Mat.
| Stooping o’er the ragged heath, Thick with thorns and briers keen, Or the weedy bank beneath, Have I cut my rushes green; While the broom and spiked thorn Pearly drops of dew adorn. Sometimes across the heath I wind, Where scarce a human face is seen, Wandering marshy spots to find, Where to cut my rushes green; Here and there, with weary tread, Working for a piece of bread. Then my little child and I Plat and weave them, as you see; Pray my lady, pray do buy, You can’t have better than of me; For never, surely were there seen Prettier mats of rushes green. |
| I sweep your Chimnies clean, O, Sweep your Chimney clean, O! |
The Chimney Sweeper.
| With drawling tone, brush under arm, And bag slung o’er his shoulder: Behold the sweep the streets alarm, With Stentor’s voice, and louder. |
| Buy my Diddle Dumplings, hot! hot! Diddle, diddle, diddle, Dumplings hot! |
The Dumpling Woman.
| This woman’s in industry wise, She lives near Butcher-row; Each night round Temple-bar she plies, With Diddle Dumplings, ho! |
| Yorkshire Cakes, Who’ll buy Yorkshire Cakes, All piping hot—smoking hot! hot!! |
The Yorkshire Cake Man.
| Fine Yorkshire Cakes; Who’ll buy Yorkshire cakes? They are all piping hot, and nicely made; His daily walk this fellow takes, And seems to drive a pretty trade. |
| Buy my Flowers, sweet Flowers, new-cut Flowers, New Flowers, sweet Flowers, fresh Flowers, O! |
Flowers, Cut Flowers.
| New-cut Flowers this pretty maid doth cry, In Spring, Summer and Autumn, gaily; Which shows how fast the Seasons fly— As we pass to our final home, daily. |
| Buy green and large Cucumbers, Cucumbers, Green and large Cucumbers, twelve a penny. |
Cucumbers.
| A penny a dozen, Cucumbers! Tailors, hallo! hallo! Now from the shop-board each man runs, For Cucumbers below. |
| Buy Rosemary! Buy Sweetbriar! Rosemary and Sweetbriar, O! |
Rosemary and Sweetbriar.
| Rosemary and briar sweet, This maiden now doth cry, Through every square and street, Come buy it sweet, come buy it dry. |
| Newcastle Salmon! Dainty fine Salmon! Dainty fine Salmon! Newcastle Salmon! |
Newcastle Salmon.
| Newcastle salmon, very good, Is just come in for summer food; No one hath better fish than I, So if you’ve money come and buy. |
| Buy my Cranberries! Fine Cranberries! Buy my Cranberries! Fine Cranberries! |
Cranberries.
| Buy Cranberries, to line your crust, In Lincolnshire they’re grown; Come buy, come buy, for sell I must Three quarts for half-a-crown. |
| Come buy my Walking-Sticks or Canes! I’ve got them for the young or old. |
Sticks and Canes.
| How sloven like the school-boy looks, Who daubs his books at play; Give him a new one? No, adzooks! Give him a Cane, I say. |
| Buy my fine Gooseberries! Fine Gooseberries! Three-pence a quart! Ripe Gooseberries! |
Gooseberries.
| Ripe gooseberries in town you’ll buy As cheap as cheap can be; Of many sorts you hear the cry; Pray purchase, sir, of me! |
| Pears for pies! Come feast your eyes! Ripe Pears, of every size, who’ll buy? |
Ripe Pears.
| Pears ripe, pears sound, This woman cries all day; Pears for pies, long or round, Come buy them while you may. |
| One a penny, two a penny, hot Cross Buns! One a penny, two a penny, hot Cross Buns! |
Hot Cross Buns.
| Think on this sacred festival; Think why Cross Buns were given; Then think of Him who dy’d for all, To give you right to Heaven. |
| Maids, I mend old Pans or Kettles, Mend old Pans or Kettles, O! |
The Tinker.
| Hark, who is this? the Tinker bold, To mend or spoil your kettle, Whose wife I’m certain is a scold, Made of basest metal. |
| Buy my Capers! Buy my nice Capers! Buy my Anchovies! Buy my nice Anchovies! |
Capers, Anchovies.
| How melodious the voice of this man, The Capers he says are the best; His Anchovies too, beat ’em who can, Are constantly found in request. |
| Mulberries, all ripe and fresh to day! Only a groat a pottle—full to the bottom! |
Mulberries.
| Mulberries, ripe and fresh to-day, They warm and purify the blood; Have them a groat a pottle you may. They are all fresh! they are all good! |
| Buy my Cockles! Fine new Cockles! Cockles fine, and Cockles new! |
New Cockles.
| Cockles fine; and cockles new, They are as fine as any. Cockles! New cockles, O! I sell a good lot for a penny, O! |
| Buy fine Flounders! Fine Dabs! All alive, O! Fine Dabs! Fine live Flounders, O! |
Buy Fine Flounders! Fine Dabs!
| There goes a tall fish-woman sounding her cry, “Who’ll buy my fine flounders, and dabs, who’ll buy?” Poor flounder, he heaves up his fin with a sigh, And thinks that he has most occasion to cry; “Ah, neighbour,” says dab, “indeed, so do I.” |
| Buy my nice and new Banbury Cakes! Buy my nice new Banbury Cakes, O! |
Banbury Cakes.
| Buy Banbury Cakes! By fortune’s frown, You see this needy man, Along the street, and up and down, Is selling all he can. |
| Buy my Lavender! Sweet blooming Lavender! Sweet blooming Lavender! Blooming Lavender! |
Lavender.
| Lavender! Sweet blooming lavender, Six bunches for a penny to-day! Lavender! sweet blooming lavender! Ladies, buy it while you may. |
| Live Mackerel! Three a-shilling, O! Le’ping alive, O! Three a-shilling O! |
Mackerel.
| Live Mackerel, oh! fresh as the day! At three for a shilling, is giving away; Full row’d, like bright silver they shine; Two persons on one can sup or dine. |
| Buy my Shirt Buttons! Shirt Buttons! Buy Shirt Hand Buttons! Buttons! |
Shirt Buttons.
| At a penny a dozen, a dozen, My Buttons for shirts I sell, Come aunt, uncle, sister, and cousin, I’ll warrant I’ll use you well. |
| Buy my Rabbits! Rabbits, who’ll buy? Rabbit! Rabbit! who will buy? |
The Rabbit Man.
| “Rabbit! Rabbit! who will buy?” Is all you hear from him; The Rabbit you may roast or fry, The fur your cloak will trim. |
| Buy Rue! Buy Sage! Buy Mint! Buy Rue, Sage and Mint, a farthing a bunch! |
The Herb-Wife.
| As thro’ the fields she bends her way, Pure nature’s work discerning; So you should practice every day, To trace the fields of learning. |
| Apple Tarts! All sweet and good, to-day! Hot, nice, sweet and good, to-day! |