BUY A BRUSH, OR A TABLE BOOK.
Plate XI.
The Engraving from which the accompanying Plate was copied was one of a set published by Overton, but without date. Judging from the dress, it must have been made either in the reign of King James the First or in that of the succeeding monarch. The inscription over the figure is, “Buy a Brush or a Table Book.” The floors were not wetted, but rubbed dry, even until they bore a very high polish, particularly when it was the fashion to inlay staircases and floors of rooms with yellow, black, and brown woods. On the landing places of the great staircase in the house built by Lord Orford, now the Grand Hotel, at the end of King Street in Covent Garden, such inlaid specimens are still remaining, in a beautiful state of preservation. There are many houses of the nobility where the floors consist of small pieces of oak arranged in tessellated forms. The room now occupied by the servants in waiting, and that part of the house formerly a portion of the old gallery, at Cleveland House, St. James’s; the floors of the state rooms of Montagu House, now the British Museum; and the floor of the Library in St. Paul’s Cathedral, all retain their tessellated forms. These floors were rubbed by the servants, who wore brushes on their feet, and they were, and indeed are, so highly polished, in some of the country mansions, that in some instances they are dangerous to walk upon. This mode of dry-rubbing rooms by affixing the brush to the feet, is still practised in France, chiefly by men-servants.
The Table Book is of very ancient use. Shakspeare thus notices it in his play of Hamlet:
Ham. My tables: meet it is
I set it down.
It was a book consisting of several small pieces of slate set in frames of wood, fastened together with hinges, and closed, as a book for the pocket: for a representation of one, with a pencil attached to a string, as used in 1565, see Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakspeare and of Ancient Manners,” vol. II. p. 227. It was taken, says that writer, from Gesner’s Treatise De rerum fossilium figuris, &c. Tigur. 1565. The Almanacs of that time likewise contained tables of a composition like asses skin. One of these was in the possession of Mr. Douce.
It is a very curious fact that the farmers, graziers, and horse dealers, use at this day a Table Book consisting of slates bound in wood, with a pencil attached to it, exactly of the same make as that referred to as used in 1565, and such are now regularly sold at the toy shops. We may conclude that persons in the higher ranks of life used sheets of ivory put together as a book, for we frequently meet with such, elegantly adorned with clasps, of very old workmanship.
Howell, in his “Familiar Letters,” 4to. p. 7, published 1645, says, “This return of Sir Walter Raleigh from Guiana puts me in minde of a facetious tale I read lately in Italian, (for I have a little of that language already,) how Alphonso King of Naples sent a Moor, who had been his captive a long time, to Barbary, to buy horses, and to return by such a time. Now there was about the King a kinde of buffon or jester who had a Table Book, wherein he was used to register any absurdity, or impertinence, or merry passage, that happened about the Court. That day the Moor was dispatched for Barbary, the said jester waiting upon the King at supper, the King called for his journall, and askt what he had observed that day; thereupon he produced his Table Book, and amongst other things he read how Alphonso King of Naples had sent Beltran the Moor, who had been a long time his prisoner, to Morocco, his own country, with so many thousand crowns to buy horses. The King asked him ‘why he inserted that?’ ‘Because,’ said he, ‘I think he will never come back to be a prisoner again, and so you have lost both man and money.’ ‘But, if he do come, then your jest is marr’d,’ quoth the King. ‘No, sir; for if he return, I will blot out your name, and put him in for a fool.’”
FIRE-SCREENS.
Plate XII.
The next plate is a copy from the same set of prints from which the preceding one was taken, and has the following inscription engraved above it:
“I have screenes if you desier,
To keepe yr butey from ye fire.”
It appears from the extreme neatness of this man, and the goods which he exhibits for sale, that they were of a very superior quality, probably of foreign manufacture, and possibly from Leghorn, from whence hats similar to those on his head were first brought into England. These Leghorn hats were originally imported and sold by our Turners, who generally had the Leghorn hat for their sign. England certainly can boast of superiority in almost every description of manufacture, over those of most parts of the world; but it never successfully rivalled the Basket-makers and Willow-workers of France and Holland, either for bleaching or weaving; nor perhaps is it possible for any skill to exceed that of the French in their present mode of making baskets and other such ware. Even the children’s rattles of the Dutch and French, surpass anything of the kind made in this country. The willow is common in most parts of Holland, so that they have a great choice of a selection of wood, and the females are taught the art of twisting it at a very early age. It must be acknowledged, that the natives of Hudson’s Bay are very curious workers of baskets and other useful articles made of the barks of trees, and even the most uncultivated nations often display exquisite neatness in their modes of making them. The French carry their basket ware either in small barrows or in little carts, and sell them at so cheap a rate, by reason of the few duties they have to pay to Government, that it would be impossible for an Englishman, were he master of the art of producing them, to sell them for less than ten times the sum.
That very wonderful people the Chinese probably were the first who thought of hand-screens to protect the face from the sun. We find them introduced in their earliest delineations of costume. The feathered fans of our Elizabeth might occasionally have been used as fire screens, in like manner as those now imported from the East Indies, also composed of feathers, and which frequently adorn our chimney pieces. It is possible, however, that as our vendor of Fire-screens has particularly acquainted us with the use of his screens, they might have been the first that were introduced decidedly for that purpose.
SAUSAGES.
Plate XIII.
The female vendor of Sausages exhibited in the following Plate, is of the time of Charles II. and has here been preferred to a similar character belonging to the preceding reign, her dress and general appearance being far more picturesque. Under the original print are the following lines:
“Who buys my Sausages! Sausages fine!
I ha’ fine Sausages of the best,
As good they are as e’er was eat,
If they be finely drest.
Come, Mistris, buy this daintie pound,
About a Capon rost them round.”
Almost every county has some peculiar mode of making sausages, but as to their general appearance they are tied up in links. There are several sorts which have for many years upheld their reputation, such as those made at Bewdley in Oxfordshire, at Epping, and at Cambridge, places particularly famous for them. The sausages from Bewdley, Epping, and Cambridge, are mostly sold by the poulterers, who are in general very attentive in having them genuine. They are brought to Leadenhall, Newgate, and other markets, neatly put up in large flat baskets, similar to those in which fresh butter is sent to town. The Oxford gentlemen frequently present their London friends with some of the sausage meat put up in neat brown pans; this is fried in cakes, and is remarkably good.
The pork-shops of Fetter Lane have been for upwards of 150 years famous for their sausages; indeed the pork-shops throughout London are principally supported by a most extensive sale of sausages.
Ben Jonson, in his play of Bartholomew Fair, exhibits sausage stalls, their contents being prime articles of refreshment at that very ancient festival. In a very curious tract, entitled, “A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke, (youngest daughter of Colley Cibber, Esq.) written by herself, the second edition, printed for W. Reeve, in Fleet Street, 1759,” the authoress, after experiencing some of the most curious vicissitudes, in the midst of her greatest distress, says, “I took a neat lodging in a street facing Red Lyon Square, and wrote a letter to Mr. Beard, intimating to him the sorrowful plight I was in; and, in a quarter of an hour after, my request was obligingly complied with by that worthy gentleman, whose bounty enabled me to set forward to Newgate Market, and bought a considerable quantity of pork at the best hand, which I converted into sausages, and with my daughter set out laden with each a burden as weighty as we could well bear; which, not having been used to luggages of that nature, we found extremely troublesome. But Necessitas non habeat legem, we were bound to that or starve.
“Thank heaven, our loads were like Æsop’s, when he chose to carry the bread, which was the weightiest burden, to the astonishment of his fellow-travellers; not considering that his wisdom preferred it, because he was sure it would lighten as it went: so did ours, for as I went only where I was known, I soon disposed, among my friends, of my whole cargo; and was happy in the thought, that the utmost excesses of my misfortunes had no worse effect on me, than an industrious inclination to get a small livelihood, without shame or reproach; though the Arch-Dutchess of our family, who would not have relieved me with a halfpenny roll or a draught of small-beer, imputed this to me as a crime; I suppose she was possessed with the same dignified sentiments Mrs. Peachum is endowed with, and THOUGHT THE HONOUR OF THEIR FAMILY WAS CONCERNED; if so, she knew the way to have prevented the disgrace, and in a humane, justifiable manner, have preserved her own from that taint of cruelty I doubt she will never overcome.”
The wretched vendors of sausages, who cared not what they made them of, such as those about forty years back who fried them in cellars in St. Giles’s, and under gateways in Drury Lane, Field Lane, commonly called “Food and Raiment Alley, or Thieving Lane, alias Sheep’s Head Alley,” with all its courts and ramifications of Black Boy Alley, Saffron Hill, Bleeding Heart Yard, and Cow Cross, were continually persecuting their unfortunate neighbours, to whom they were as offensive as the melters of tallow, bone burners, soap boilers, or cat-gut cleaners. This “Food and Raiment Alley,” so named from the cook and old clothes shops, was in former days so dangerous to go through, that it was scarcely possible for a person to possess his watch or his handkerchief by the time he had passed this ordeal of infamy; and it is a fact, that a man after losing his pocket-handkerchief, might, on his immediate return through the Lane, see it exposed for sale, and purchase it at half the price it originally cost him, of the mother of the young gentleman who had so dextrously deprived him of it. Watches were, as they are now in many places in London, immediately put into the crucible to evade detection.
NEW ELEGY.
Plate XIV.
This figure was drawn and etched by the writer from an itinerant vendor of Elegies, Christmas Carols, and Love Songs. His father and grandfather had followed the same calling.
When this man was asked what particular event he recollected, his information was principally confined to the Elegies he had sold. He seemed anxious, however, to inform the public that in the year 1753 the quartern loaf was sold at fourpence halfpenny, mutton was two-pence halfpenny a pound, that porter was then three-pence a pot, and that the National Debt was twenty-four millions. Notwithstanding this man’s memory served him in the above particulars, which perhaps he had repeated so often that he could not forget them, yet he positively did not know his age; he said he never troubled his head with that, for that his father told him if he only mentioned the year of his birth any scholar could tell it. His father, he observed, cried the Elegy of that notorious magistrate Sir Thomas de Veil,[13] which went through nine editions, as there was hardly a thief or strumpet that did not purchase one.
Hogarth is supposed to have introduced this magistrate in his “Woman swearing a Child to a grave Citizen.” In his Plate of “Night,” the drunken Freemason has also been supposed to be Sir Thomas de Veil. This man had rendered himself so obnoxious by his intrigues with women, and his bare-faced partialities in screening the opulent, that the executors, who were afraid of the coffin being torn to pieces by the mob, privately conveyed it to a considerable distance from Bow Street by three o’clock in the morning.
It was formerly not only the custom to print Elegies on the great people, but on all those in the lowest class of life who had rendered themselves conspicuous as public characters. Indeed we may recollect the Elegies to the memory of Sam House, the political tool of Mr. Fox among the vulgar part of his voters, and also that to the memory of Henry Dimsdale, the muffin man, nicknamed Sir Harry Dimsdale, the Mayor of Garratt, who succeeded the renowned Sir Jeffrey Dunstan, commonly called Old Wigs, from his being a purchaser of those articles. The last Elegy was to the memory of the lamented Princess Charlotte, and it was then that the portrait of the above-mentioned Elegy-vender was taken.
With respect to his Christmas Carols, he said they had varied almost every year in their bordered ornaments; and the writer regrets the loss of a collection of Christmas Carols from the time of this man’s grandfather, which, had he been fortunate enough to have made his drawing of the above vendor only three days before, he could have purchased for five shillings. The collectors in general of early English woodcuts may not be aware that there were printed Christmas Carols so early as Queen Mary the First. The writer, when a boy, detected several patches of one that had been fastened against the wall of the Chapel of St. Edmond in Westminster Abbey. It had marginal woodcut illustrations, which reminded him of those very interesting blocks engraved for “Hollinshed’s Chronicle.” It appears that some part of this curious Carol was remaining when Mr. Malcolm wrote his description of the above Chapel for his Work on London. (Vol. I. p. 144.)
Love Songs, however old they might be, were pronounced by our Elegy-vender to be always saleable among the country people. Robert Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” part 3, sect. 2, speaking of love songs, says, “As Carmen, Boyes, and Prentises, when a new song is published with us, go singing that new tune still in the streets, they continually acted that tragical part of Perseus, and in every man’s mouth was O, Cupid! Prince of Gods and Men! pronouncing still like stage-players, O, Cupid! they were so possessed all with that rapture, and thought of that pathetical love speech, they could not a long time after forget, or drive it out of their minds, but, O, Cupid! Prince of Gods and Men! was ever in their mouths.”
In the second volume, page 141, of Shenstone’s Works, the author says, “The ways of ballad singers, and the cries of halfpenny pamphlets, appeared so extremely humourous, from my lodgings in Fleet Street, that it gave me pain to observe them without a companion to partake. For, alas! laughter is by no means a solitary entertainment.”
ALL IN FULL BLOOM.
Plate XV.
The repeated victories gained by England over her enemies, and her unbounded liberality to them when in distress, not only by her pecuniary contributions, but by allowing this country to be their general seat of refuge during their own commotions, encouraged the ignorant among them still to continue in their belief that the streets of our great city were paved with gold. The consequence has been, that the number of idle foreigners who have been tempted to quit their homes have increased the vagrants who now infest our streets with their learned mice and chattering monkies, to the great annoyance of those passengers who do not contribute to their exhibitions; for it is their practice not only to let the animals loose to the extent of a long string, but to encourage them to run up to the balconies, oftentimes to the great terror of the families who have disregarded their impertinent importunities.
The writer of this work once reprimanded a French organist for throwing his dancing mice upon a nursery maid, because she did not contribute to reward him for the amusement they afforded her young master.
Among the various foreigners thus visiting us to make their fortunes is Anatony Antonini, a native of Lucca in Tuscany, from which place come most of those fellows who carry images and play the organ about our streets. He is exhibited in the annexed etching, with his show board of artificial flowers, “All in full bloom!” constructed of silk and paper, with wires for their stalks. The birds perched on their branches are made of wax, cast from plaster of Paris moulds. They are gaily painted and varnished, and in some instances so thin that their bodies are quite transparent.
The custom of casting figures in wax is very ancient, especially in Roman Catholic countries, where they represent the Virgin and Child and other sacred subjects as articles of devotion for the poorer sort of people who cannot afford to purchase those carved in ivory. It is said that Mrs. Salmon’s exhibition of wax-work in Fleet Street, whose sign of a Salmon was noticed by Addison in the Spectator, owes its origin to a schoolmistress, the wife of one of Henry the Seventh’s body guards. This woman distributed little wax dolls as rewards to the most deserving of her scholars, and, it is reported, brought the art from Holland.
Some few years ago a very interesting exhibition of artificial flowers was made in Suffolk Street, Charing Cross, by a female of the name of Dards, who had most ingeniously produced many hundreds of the most beautiful flowers from fishes’ bones, which, when warm, she twisted into shapes. The leaves were made from the skins of soles, eels, &c. which were stained with proper colours. The flowers of the lily of the valley were represented by the bones of the turbot which contain the brain, and were so complete a deception that they were often mistaken for a bunch of the real flowers. This exhibition did not answer the expectation of Mrs. Dards, as few persons could believe it possible that fishes’ bones were capable of being converted into articles of such elegance.
The ribs of the whale were frequently erected at the entrances of our tea gardens, and many remained within memory at the Spring Gardens, Chelsea; Cromwell’s Gardens, Brompton; Copenhagen House, &c. The inhabitants of the coast of Mechran, who live mostly upon fish, build their houses of the rudest materials, frequently of the large fish that are thrown on the shore.
About thirty-five years ago, there was another very singular “All blooming” man, a black with wooden legs, who carried natural flowers about the streets. His trick to claim attention was remarkable, as he generally contrived to startle passengers with his last vociferation. His cry was, “All blooming! blooming! blooming!!! all alive! alive!! alive!!!”
It is notable fact that blacks, when they become public characters in our streets, as they are more or less masters of humour, display their wit to the amusement of the throng, and thereby make a great deal of money. They always invent some novelty to gain the attention of the crowd. One of these fellows, under the name of Peter, held a dialogue between himself and his master, nearly to the following effect:
Master. “Oh, Peter, you very bad boy; you no work; you lazy dog.”—Peter. “Oh massa, ’give me this time, Peter Peter do so no more; Peter Peter no more run away.”—This duet he accompanied with a guitar, in so humourous a style, that he was always sure to please his audience. He would, at the completion of his song, pass himself through a hoop, and, while holding a stick, twist his arms round his body in a most extraordinary manner. His last performance was that of placing his head backwards between his legs and picking up a pin with his mouth from the ground, without any assistance from hands, his arms being folded round his body before he commenced his exhibition.
The Chinese florist carries his flowers in two flat baskets suspended from a pole placed across his shoulders, the whole being similar to our scales with their beam.
OLD CHAIRS TO MEND.
Plate XVI.
The Plate exhibits the figure of Israel Potter, one of the oldest menders of chairs now living, who resides in Compton’s Buildings, Burton Crescent, and sallies forth by eight o’clock in the morning, not with a view of getting chairs to mend; for, from the matted mass of dirty rushes which have sometimes been thrown across his shoulders for months together, without ever being once opened, it must be concluded that his cry of “Old chairs to mend” avails him but little; the fact is, that like many other itinerants, he goes his rounds and procures broken meat and subsistence thus early in the morning for his daily wants.
The seating of chairs with rushes cannot be traced further back than a century, as the chairs in common as well as public use in the reign of Queen Anne had cane seats and backs. Previously to that time, and even in the days of Elizabeth, cushion seats and stuffed backs were made use of.
In the reign of Henry the Eighth, and in remoter times, the chairs were made entirely of wood, and in many instances the backs were curiously carved, either with figures, grotesque heads, or foliage. Most of the early chairs had arms for supporting elbows, and which were also carved. In the Archæologia, published by the Society of Antiquaries, several representations of ancient chairs are given.[14] Of the Royal thrones, the reader will find a curious succession, from the time of Edward the Confessor to that of James the First, exhibited in the great seals of England, representations of most of which have been published by Speed in his History of Great Britain, and in Sandford’s Genealogical History of England.
The cry of “Old Chairs to mend!” is frequently uttered with great clearness, and occasionally with some degree of melody. Suett, the late facetious Comedian, took the cry of “Old Chairs to mend,” in an interlude, entitled, the “Cries of London,” performed some years since in the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and repeated the old lines of
“Old Chairs to mend! Old Chairs to mend!
If I had the money that I could spend,
I never would cry Old Chairs to mend.”[15]
The late John Bannister, who performed in the same piece, took the cry of “Come here’s your scarlet ware, long and strong scarlet garters, twopence a pair, twopence a pair, twopence a pair!” which was a close imitation of a little fellow who made a picturesque appearance about the streets with his long scarlet garters streaming from the end of a pole.
The late eccentric actor Baddeley, who left a sum of money to purchase a cake to be eaten by his successors every Twelfth Night, in the Green-room of Drury Lane Theatre, took the cry of “Come buy my shrimps, come buy my shrimps, prawns, very large prawns, a wine-quart a penny periwinkles.”
The late Dr. Owen informed the present writer that he had heard that the author of “God save the King” caught the tones either from a man who cried “Old Chairs to mend,” or from another who cried “Come buy my door-mats;” and it is well known that one of Storace’s most favourite airs in “No Song no Supper,” was almost wholly constructed from a common beggar’s chaunt.
THE BASKET-MAKER.
Plate XVII.
The man whose figure affords the subject of the next Plate is a journeyman Prickle-maker, and works in a cellar on the western side of the Haymarket. A prickle is a basket used by the wine-merchants for their empty bottles; it is made of osiers unpeeled and in their natural state, and the basket is made loose with open work, so that when it is filled with bottles it may ride easy in the wine-merchant’s caravan, and without the least risk of breaking them. The maker of prickles begins the formation of the bottom of the basket by placing the osier twigs in the form of a star flat upon the ground; he then with another twig commences his weaving by twisting it under and over the ends of the twigs which meet in the centre of the star, and so he goes on to the extent of the circumference of the intended prickle; he then bends up the surrounding twigs, which are in a moist state, and binds them in the middle and the top, and thus the prickle is finished. The formation of hampers for wine-merchants’ sieves, and baskets for the gardeners and fishmongers, and indeed that of all other basket work, is begun in the same way as the prickle. The basket-maker is seated upon a broad flat stage consisting of at least four boards clamped together, touching the ground at one end, on which his feet are placed, but elevated about six feet. Upon the end where he is seated free air passes under him, and thus he takes less cold from the ground of the cellar.
In Lapland large baskets are made by two persons, a man and a woman. Their mode of forming their baskets in every particular is similar to that of the English. On the banks of the Thames, from Fulham to Staines, there were formerly numerous basket-makers’ huts, but opulent persons, anxious to have houses on those delightful spots, purchased the ground on the expiration of the leases, and erected fashionable villas on their site. The inducement for the basket-makers occupying the sides of the Thames, was the great supply of osiers or young willows which grow on the aits, particularly at Twickenham and Staines.
The usual price of each prickle is two shillings and three pence. Notwithstanding the numbers of osiers grown in this country, the produce is not sufficient, as an extensive importation of twigs is annually made from Holland, where immense quantities of baskets of every description are made. The Dutch are particularly neat and famous for their willow sieves, which find a ready market in every country.
The reader may probably be amused with a list of those trades exercised in Holland, which in their pronunciation and meaning resemble the same in this country, beginning with the
THE POTTER.
Plate XVIII.
At about a mile from the back of Jack Straw’s Castle, Hampstead Heath, through one of the prettiest lanes near London, the traveller will find that beautifully rural spot called “Child’s Hill.” This was the favourite walk of Gainsborough and Loutherburgh, both of whom occasionally had lodgings near the Heath for the purpose of study; and perhaps no place within one hundred miles of London affords better materials for the landscape painter’s purpose than Hampstead Heath and its vicinity, particularly that most delightful spot above described, where the Pottery stands, which afforded the subject of the ensuing Plate.
At this Pottery, which is placed in a sequestered dell, the moulds used by the sugar bakers for casting their loaves of sugar in, are made. They are of different sizes, turned by the moulder, with the assistance of a boy, who is employed in keeping the lathe in motion. The clay is remarkably good, and burns to a rich red colour.
The following is a list of the places where sugar bakers’ moulds are made, for they are not to be had at the Potteries in general; viz. that above-mentioned, at Child’s Hill, near Hampstead Heath, in the parish of Hendon; one at Brentford; one at Clapham; one at Greenwich; three at Deptford; and two at Plumsted. Though the clay varies in texture, and likewise in colour in some slight degree, when baked, on almost every spot where a Pottery is erected, yet in no instance does it so peculiarly differ as at the Pottery in High Street, Lambeth, leading to Vauxhall. The clay principally used at that place is preferred by the sculptors for their models of busts, figures, and monuments. It never stains the fingers, and is of so beautiful a texture that all parts of the model may be executed with it, in the most minute degree of sharpness and spirit; and, when baked, it is not of that fiery red colour, like a tile, but approaches nearer to the tone of flesh, has a beautiful bloom with it, and is very similar, though not quite so dark, as those fine specimens of Terracottas in the Towneley Gallery, in the British Museum. The great sculptors Roubiliac and Rysbrach not only constantly preferred it, but brought it into general use among the artists.
At the Lambeth Pottery, the first imitations of the Dutch square white glazed tiles, decorated with figures of animals and other ornaments, painted in blue, and sometimes purple, were made in England. The fashion of thus decorating the backs of chimnies was introduced into this country soon after the arrival of William the Third, and continued till about fifty years ago. Chimnies thus ornamented are frequently to be met with in country houses, particularly in bed-rooms; but in London, where almost every body enters on a new fashion as soon as it appears, there are fewer specimens left. The chimney of the room in Bolt Court, in which Dr. Johnson died, was decorated with these tiles, most of the subjects of which were taken from Barlow’s etchings of Æsop’s Fables. Dinner services were produced of the same material, and painted blue or purple, like the above tiles. Sir James Thornhill, the painter of the pictures which adorn the dome of St. Paul’s, and Paul Ferg, when young men, were employed at the Chelsea China manufactory, and there are specimens of plates and dishes painted by them now and then to be met with in the cabinets of the curious. At Mrs. Hogarth’s sale (Sir James Thornhill’s daughter), Lord Orford purchased twelve dinner plates painted by her father; the subjects were the Signs of the Zodiac, and they are preserved at Strawberry Hill.
In common ware, jugs, handbasins, dinner services, &c. are not painted, but printed, the mode of executing which is rather curious. Trees, hay-makers, cows, farm-houses, windmills, &c. are engraved on copper-plates, which are filled with blue colour (smalt). Impressions from them are taken on common blotting paper, through the rolling press. These impressions are immediately put on the earthen ware, and when the blotting-paper is dry, it is washed off, and the blue colour remains upon the dish, &c.
STAFFORDSHIRE WARE.
Plate XIX.
Of all the tradesmen who supply the domestic table, there are none more frequently called upon than the earthen-ware man. In great families, where constant cooking is going on, the dust-bin seldom passes a day without receiving the accidents to which a scullery is liable, nor is there, upon an average, a private family in England that passes a week without some misfortune to their crockery. Many householders set down at least ten pounds a year for culinary restorations; so that the itinerant Staffordshire Ware vendor, exhibited in the following plate, is sure to sell something in every street he enters, particularly since that ware has been brought by water to Paddington, whence he and many others, who go all over the town to dispose of their stock in baskets, are regularly supplied; and in consequence of the safety and cheapness of the passage, they are enabled to dispose of their goods at so moderate a rate that they can undersell the regular shopkeeper.
Staffordshire is the principal place in England for the produce of earthen ware; the manufactories cover miles of land, and the minds of the people appear to be solely absorbed in their business. Coals cost them little but the labour of fetching; they work from twelve to fourteen hours a day, and those who choose to perform what they call over-time, are employed sixteen hours in each day. The men have for twelve hours in each day, being common time, seven shillings per week; the women four shillings, and the children, who turn the lathes, two shillings and sixpence. These people are so constantly at work and perpetually calling out “turn,” when they wish it to go faster, to the boy who gives motion to the lathe, that it is said that those who fall into intoxication are sure, however drunk they may be, to call to the boy to turn, whether at work or not. There are men who make plates, others who make basins, &c.; and those who make jugs, tea and milkpots, have what they call handle-men, persons whose sole business it is to prepare the handles and stick them on. Their divisions of land, similar to banks or hedges, as well as their roads, for miles, are wholly constructed of their broken earthen-ware.
They have their regular packers, who pique themselves on getting in a dozen of plates more than usual in an immense basket.
When they meet with a clay that differs in colour from that they have been using, they will apply themselves most readily to make up a batch of plates, basins, or tea-cups, well knowing the public are pleased with a new colour; and it is a curious fact that there are hundreds of varieties of tints produced from the different pits used by these Staffordshire manufactories. There are men whose business it is to glaze the articles, and others who pencil and put on the brown or white enamel with which the common yellow jug is streaked or ornamented. In the brown or yellow baking dishes used by the common people, the dabs of colour of brown and yellow are laid on by children, with sticks, in the quickest way imaginable. The profits of earthen-ware in general are very great, as indeed they ought to be, considering the brittleness of the article, and the number of accidents they are continually meeting with, as is demonstrated by their hedge-rows and roads.
An article that is sold for fourpence in London, costs but one penny at the manufactory.
HARD METAL SPOONS TO SELL OR CHANGE.
Plate XX.
William Conway, of Crab Tree Row, Bethnall Green, is the person from whom the following etching was made. He was born in 1752, in Worship Street, which spot was called Windmill Hill, and first started with or rather followed his father as an itinerant trader, forty-seven years ago. This man has walked on an average twenty-five miles a day six days in the week, never knew a day’s illness, nor has he once slept out of his own bed. His shoes are made from the upper leather of old boots, and a pair will last him six weeks. He has eleven walks, which he takes in turn, and these are all confined to the environs of London; no weather keeps him within, and he has been wet and dry three times in a day without taking the least cold.
His spoons are made of hard metal, which he sells, or exchanges for the old ones he had already sold; the bag in which he carries them is of the thickest leather, and he has never passed a day without taking some money. His eyes are generally directed to the ground, and the greatest treasure he ever found was a one pound note; when quarters of guineas were in currency, he once had the good fortune to pick up one of them.
He never holds conversation with any other itinerant, nor does he drink but at his dinner; and it is pleasant to record, that Conway in his walks, by his great regularity, has acquired friends, several of whom employ him in small commissions.
His memory is good, and among other things he recollects Old Vinegar, a surly fellow so called from his brutal habits. This man provided sticks for the cudgel players, whose sports commenced on Easter Monday, and were much frequented by the Bridewell-boys. He was the maker of the rings for the boxers in Moorfields, and would cry out, after he had arranged the spectators by beating their shins, “Mind your pockets all round.” The name of Vinegar has been frequently given to crabbed ringmakers and boxers. Ward, in his “London Spy,” thus introduces a Vinegar champion:
“Bred up i’ th’ fields of Lincoln’s Inn,
Where Vinegar reigns master;
The forward youth doth thence begin
A broken head to loose or win,
For shouts, or for a plaister.”
It is to be hoped that this industrious man has saved some little to support him when his sinews are unable to do their duty; for it would be extremely hard, that a man who has conducted himself with such honesty, punctuality, and rigid perseverance, should be dependent on the parish, particularly as he declares, and Conway may be believed, that he never got drunk in his life. The present writer was much obliged to this man for a deliverance from a mob. He had when at Bow commenced a drawing of a Lascar, and before he had completed it, he found himself surrounded by several of their leaders, who were much enraged, conceiving that he was taking a description of the man’s person in order to complain of him. Conway happened to come up at the moment, and immediately exclaimed, “Dear heart, no, this gentleman took my picture off the other day, he only does it for his amusement; I know where he lives; he don’t want to hurt the man;” on hearing which speech, a publican kindly took upon him to appease the Lascars.